It Felt Different Yesterday...

It's nearly 9 a.m; you'd think I'd be asleep since it's the weekend, and that's what I do on the weekends. Nah, I woke up at 8 a.m. I think my body is trained now with an eternal alarm clock to wake up early.

I woke up thinking about my day yesterday. I worked with LEAD, just to refresh you on what LEAD is. LEAD stands for Letting Education Achieve Dreams. This is my second year working with LEAD, and it feels different to be a returning "veteran" ambassador. Here's my defintion of LEAD: As "LEAD" Ambassadors, we talk to students (grades K-12) about attending college and encourage them to attend. We tell them about financial aid and scholarships. Working with this program has been a rewarding experience for me, and I am glad I have the opportunity to make a difference. I like to tell the students, "Anybody can be SOME-body." We are not just LEAD ambassadors; we're family!

We went to this high school and elementary school yesterday. While there, I remembered the high school from last year when we visited. When I went inside the classrooms, a feeling of deja vu washed over me. I was in a classroom with an African-American teacher (let me remind you how I love African-American people). She had control of that class; she snapped at the students. I could feel the respect in their eyes vibrating. She was down-to-earth as well, calling me "sista" by the end of my sessions. I felt so comfortable in her class with Chopin playing quietly and posters of literary terms covering the walls. In her class, the students were attentive and quiet. Great for high school students.

I encouraged interaction. I watched the way one young guy's face changed. At the beginning, he was kinda like "alright, I'm gonna be bored." Once I started talking about college and how you study something you love and enjoy, he perked up. His eyes perked up at me with interest. He was a respectful guy, raising his hand to ask me questions. Not just blurting out questions. He shared how he loved history, then he mentioned that he liked computers. I told him and the rest of the class about their options in their selection of a major, how theere is freedom of choice. *You can change your major. You can major in two things.* They were impressed; I could tell some of them had not known this information.

It started to feel different when I visited the next class. They recongized me from last year. I felt a sense of pride to be "recognized" an ambassador for education. One of the girls was excited that I'm going to school because I want to be a writer. She's a writer; she shoved a paper in my hand - eagerly.
"I've been writing this story for awhile. Will you please look at it?" I glanced at the notebook paper with written pencil marks in indentations. When I saw the identations, I thought of myself as a writer and how I make hard indentations in the paper. I read over her words. I saw her pain at the first sentence. She was writing about a young girl whose dad had left. Divorce. Seperation. I saw her comfort in writing. I watched her and how her ears perked up when I said *Your background does not matter in college. No one looks at who your family is, whether your parents were married or not, whether you were rich in high school. None of that matters.* As I read her story, I knew then why she wrote. She wrote to tell stories - the same as me. But, she wrote her personal stories as well. How did I know this? I knew this because of how she talked to me. Asked me questions about becoming a psychologist because she wanted to help people, but at the same time, she wanted to be a writer. I told her *Writers come all different careers.* I could tell by her clothing that she was not a high class student; I could tell by her writing that she had talent. It felt different to recognize talent like this in an individual, made me want to teach creative writing courses for high school students - who knows maybe I will.

We took different approaches to our students. One of the new ambassadors told me I "sugar-coat" everything and that I need to tell them about responsiblity etc. This was something nice to tell me, because I do. I sugar-coat things; I focus so much on the positive that I forget there are negative obstacles in our path. It felt different to inform the students that *Hey not everyone qualifies for financial aid; sometimes you have to take out loans.* I took out a loan for this semester. It felt different to tell them these things. I usually do "sugar-coat" everything and focus on scholarships and how that is what paid for my first three years of college tuition. I like to tell them about scholarships. Mention the twelve I received my senior year of college after applying for twenty. But then like Mama tells me "I never promised you a rose garden" I had to tell them that sometimes that free money runs out, and there's the option of loans. I felt different because I was telling them a truth. A truth that we must work for what we have. It is not ALWAYS handed to us. I think it was a necessary truth though.

This is my last year as an ambassador. We used to have more female ambassadors; this visit - we had more males. I like male company, sometimes more than female company. We had a blast. There was a balance there. The new members to the LEAD family helped tremendously with their new ideas, new approaches, new experiences. At first, one that I helped train was a little nervous; I tried my best to ease him into my College 101 presentation. He felt comfortable; I could tell. I wanted to take him under my wing and help him. That humanitarian nature of mine. I am glad to be doing this. Actually I am glad that I had to take out a student loan for this Fall semester of college because the lack of scholarships exposed a new truth to me and how I need to expose that truth to these young individuals I talk to. Hmmm...*don't sugar-coat everything.* I think it's an awesome approach.