This summer was unlike any other. Instead of spending my time reading or working, I participated in the Virginia Governor’s School for Humanities at Radford University.
When I ended school last year, I was incredibly quiet and nervous like I had been for most of my life. It scared me to raise my hand in class, and I dreaded any sort of group activity. At Gov. School, my classes provided me with the opportunity to work past this. I was surrounded by completely new people who didn’t know me, so I had to do things out of my comfort zone.
In my political engagement class, I raised my hand and discussed my opinion on various issues. We talked about the debate between Biden and Trump, the Republican National Convention, and Trump’s choice of JD Vance as his vice president. I talked to the people next to me and even met someone who I now consider one of my closest friends.
Then, in my creative writing class, I shared what I wrote. This was something that I never really felt comfortable doing before, even though I am a co-president of the creative writing club. When I got a text that some of my Gov. School classmates were putting together a literary magazine, I wrote and submitted a poem. It was raw, angry, and emotional. But I did it anyway, and it was published. Seeing my name and my writing in one of the first pages of the magazine is still one of my proudest moments.
I knew nobody in my classes or group at first, and this meant that I had to talk to people, which I soon figured out wasn’t that hard. I didn’t make a crazy amount of new friends, and I wasn’t all of a sudden an extrovert. But I did connect with some pretty awesome people. We went to the neon dance, celebrated the Fourth of July, and hung out on the quad after class. And then, on the last day, we cried and swore to text often. I’m still working on a way to visit them, and I will make it happen.
Gov. School allowed me to meet many new people and make new friends. I will always remember my closest friends there, Linda, Aspen, and River who helped me do things outside of my comfort zone, Rafael, who was the best counselor I could have asked, and Group 14, who became like my family and made our check-ins full of so much laughter. Even though Gov. School has ended, I promise never to forget the memories we made or the lessons it taught me.
