The Passion Begins

I AM A BADASS.

The formidably impressive behaviors, characteristics, and actions of badassery began at a young age. Curiosity and hunger for knowledge drove my desire to understand, appreciate, and act in badass ways.

Specifically, my love to read and write was nurtured through academics and my true interest sparked from competitions in elementary school. Each year my school would enter state-wide book writing competitions and have reading competitions to gain balloons to release on a specific day. (NOTE, balloon releases are not animal friendly. They have long since been discontinued by that school.) By ranking decently in the book competition and reading enough to gather the most balloons in my class, I was inspired to read and write more.

I originally grew up attending schools with more than 65% of students categorized as low income and the average school achievement scores were significantly below state-wide achievement expectations. With only 35% white students, I was in the minority and considered the schools racially dense and racially tense. Daily interactions or conversations would commonly include gang activity, drugs, fights, and weapons. Additionally, street smarts meant survival, and book smarts led to humiliation, beatings, and isolation.

Some tactics I used to survive were being tough as nails to stand up to bullies, suppressing fear, and being on guard to avoid being jumped. I made book smarts invisible as a means for survival. I could not resist the extreme desire to fuel my thirst for knowledge. So, I would read or do homework hiding in my bed at home, in bathroom stalls at the bowling alley, or in any other quiet, isolated places where I could avoid humiliation and ridicule by friends and family.

My world turned upside down and my perspective changed tremendously when my family relocated between the first and second semester of my freshman year of high school. I started attending a school with a significant majority of white students, significantly higher achievement scores compared to the state expectations, and low income was not a phrase in use.

Day 1 attending the new school a few things became strikingly apparent:

    1. My badassery was foreign in this school. 

    2. Even though I was a white person now attending a mostly white school, I felt out of place. 

    3. I am intelligent, but my prior effort for “good grades” was no longer good enough. 

    4. Most students at the new school actually cared about grades. 

    5. I wasn’t a talented writer.

    6. I was NOT a skilled reader.

As I devoted time, energy, and effort into maintaining my grades at my expectation levels and aligning the expectations to the new school, I spent an excessive amount of time in the school’s library reading, writing, and studying. I was willing to break out of my invisibility shroud to share knowledge, study tips, and to have friends in a new school. Any excuse to share knowledge and talk to anyone else besides my older sister was perfect.