Stephanie Vargas
I have been living my life like reading the same book over and over again. Some of the chapters are good but there are also horrible moments that I have to re-live. My father is an alcoholic. My dad started drinking when I was 9 years old and he hasn't stopped drinking since then. I have suffered a lot because every time he comes home drunk he starts arguing with everyone. I am tired of all the suffering and all the crying that I see with my little brothers and my mom. When I go to school the next day I try not to let it interfere with my education, but there are some days that I can't control it. Once I was at Kennedy High School, I didn't care about anything at all, not even about school. My grades did not reflect my ability; and then I transferred to Leadership Public School.
Everything in that school was different and made me change too. The teachers were supportive and helped me change my ways. Such as this time I stopped worrying about my family and started thinking about how I wanted to live my future. I was starting to get A's and B's, but the problems at home remained the same. Now when I am by myself I stop and say that I am a strong and smart person. Every time I am at home I just try to be resilient and not let my father influence my behavior at school or at home.
An accomplishment that I am most proud of is receiving a scholarship to go to National Outdoor Leadership Skills (NOLS). I was one of the three students that were chosen by my principal to apply for NOLS. During my application process I was a little scared to apply because each individual will have to be sent to another country or state by themselves. I had never left Richmond and I was going to do this on my own. Yet, at the same time I was so excited to have this opportunity. I filled my application and decided to go back packing and sea kayaking in Alaska. Three weeks passed and I received my acceptance letter and scholarship by NOLS. It was going to be a 4 week summer trip and I was nervous because this was the first time I was leaving my family and also to be on a plane.
When I arrived I noticed that all the participants were college students and I was the only Hispanic. I became shy and nervous because I have always been surrounded by just Hispanics and African Americans. My natural reaction was to seclude myself from the rest and I didn't look or talk to anyone. I overcame this cultural barrier by starting a small conversation with everyone that was on the course and by participating more with my group so I can be noticed by them. It was a little hard for me to adjust with college students because I felt that they would know much more than me, but all I did was try to just be myself. Once I did, they liked the person that I was and I realized I had a lot in common. Our age and ethnic differences didn’t matter anymore, what mattered were our commonalities.
I realized my true leadership potential when on the last week our instructors were going to pick two people from the group to take lead without the help of the instructors. The group ended up picking me and I got nervous and shocked that they picked me - the youngest from the group. I was given a lot of responsibilities to do while I was the leader of the group. The next day I got together with the other leader to plan out our route to get to our final destination. The next day I walked to where we were going to launch out from our boats. I saw that it was close with icebergs covering the place that we were going to depart from. I went to tell my partner and together we came up with an alternate plan. Everyone was shocked at our plan, but I told them that we can do this but that we had to work together. We safely made it to our final destination.
At the end of my trip I learned that I can be confident and a leader even if I am with older students. I also learned not to be afraid to leave Richmond, to meet new diverse people, and to challenge myself no matter the level of difficulty that the challenge may bring me. I learned to find my community and support group amongst this group of diverse students. While I was in Alaska I gained survival skills such as creating a plan, problem solving and finding the right tools to make it to my destination. These are skills that I know will help me in college. I left Alaska as a stronger woman and I couldn't have done it without NOLS.