#riverbats

Late last Spring, after some footloose years without a ride of my own, I finally got a (to me) new car. With few exceptions, I hadn't driven for many years.

Aside from the paradoxical freedom one experiences when committing to a major purchase, I quickly remembered—lest I had forgotten—the weight of responsibility: Not only toward being a safe driver but also in the matter of paying one’s bills and the regular upkeep of maintenance. As a college student, the bills and maintenance part can be something of a juggling act.

Maybe everything will just go smoothly, I thought while unironically queuing up ‘Enya’s Greatest Hits’ in my new speakers.

...Two weeks later, the clutch pedal began to squeak.

Although I was quite certain that the chirping sound emanating from my nimble footwork was truly innocuous, I still relentlessly tortured myself with images of single bolts out of place that, in a freak event of chain reaction, would somehow destabilize the delicate inner machinery holding together my little go-cart. Moreover, I considered how such a fiasco would impede or even put me out of work as a part-time delivery driver.

And then, it dawned on me: This isn't 1999, the internet exists and I, a Millennial, would use it to my advantage; even despite the intimidating online know-how of Gen Z.

Only months before had I finally gotten around to joining Reddit, “The Front Page of the Internet” so they say. I was 15 when YouTube debuted in 2005 and, even though Reddit also began that year, I wouldn’t learn of its existence until many a moon later.

Gingerly, I opened the app on my phone and took a video of my dreadfully squeaky clutch. With bated breath, I shared my video to the related subreddit and waited...

Ding!

“Give it some WD-40 and call it a day,” the message read. Based on the comment’s upvotes, the community consensus was unanimous. I thanked my Reddit savior, went to the store, and applied the magic serum of WD-40 as advised. And tah-dah! I had just "reddited" my problem away.

"This isn't 1999, the internet exists, and I, a Millennial, would use it to my advantage."

When I was in high school, we had nothing like Reddit. Sure, Google and quasi-social media were a thing (who needed friends when we had Tom from Myspace), but multifaceted communities-within-communities? Hardly.

Because the internet I knew was the one I had grown up with, it was the one I had always lived by.

Now, for anyone out there like me still trying to paste some HTML code into your Myspace profile, you might not know what makes Reddit so fantastically different from every other social media platform. For me, Reddit is like the premise of the movie The Martian. In life, we’re all just trying to figure out the best way to get home. Despite it being a network of anonymous strangers and despite all the drawbacks that anonymity can sometimes present to a community, Reddit is the most intelligent, most honest, and most helpful corner of the internet.

While I’m sure I’ll come back here again in 10 years with late insights into Discord and TikTok, I'm going to keep searching for my community. The internet has not always been our friend, but getting to be a part of what keeps us connected makes me happy.

I suppose it’s true: I reddit and don’t regreddit.

Only this ridiculous pun.

I’m really proud of where I am in life right now.

Throughout elementary and middle school, I was often called gifted or smart. I read constantly, to the point where I wouldn’t pay attention in class. I caught on quickly to subjects and would always get good grades. To this day, I have an elementary school teacher who has taught all my younger siblings, when asked if my siblings are smarter than me, always say, “Well, Mars was really smart…” I remember in the fifth grade, when the grade was tested on reading comprehension, I was told I could read up to high school level books. In middle school, I remember getting a 100 on the TAKS reading section and getting to sleep through my English class the day we went over it. Man, remember the TAKS test?

I don’t know why all this changed in high school. Actually, no, I know why.

Depression came in high school. I sometimes had trouble concentrating in class, especially during subjects that didn’t interest me, but in high school, my concentration got worse. My anxiety spiked. I stopped reading. I stopped caring. I got a C in my freshman English class, when English was my favorite subject. This went on throughout high school, and when I graduated, I was ranked right in the middle of my graduating class. When my peers started to go to college, I stayed in my hometown and joined the workforce. I gave a lot of reasons why: college was expensive, the FAFSA confused me, I had been so average in high school so I probably wouldn’t do well in college.

I went a couple of years thinking this. At age twenty-two, I started to reconnect with an old classmate, who had just come back to our hometown after dropping out of college. In December 2018, we started dating. (This comes into play later, I promise!) At age twenty-three, I got diagnosed with ADHD. It made sense, especially with my inability to concentrate. It wasn’t the ultimate solution to all my problems but things got better. There was just one thing: I had been working for five years and I felt unfulfilled. Was this really what I wanted to do for the next few years?

When I told my girlfriend and friends about this feeling, I would get the same answer: “Well, what do you want to do?” And I started to think. I really liked movies. I really liked seeing behind the scenes of movie sets, the way directors worked, how production worked. I became fascinated with camera operating. I wanted nothing to do with being in front of the camera (I’m a horrible actor!) but behind it? I could do so much behind the camera! And the more and more I researched how to become a camera operator/cinematographer, the more and more I kept seeing the same thing: most gigs/studios required a bachelor’s degree in Radio-Television-Film. When I told a friend this, they said, “Try ACC! That’s where I’m going right now.”

"I had been working for five years and I felt unfulfilled. Was this really what I wanted to do for the next few years?"

So I applied. The fear set in when I submitted my application. Would I be any good? My mom, friends, and girlfriend assured me this would not be the case. And when I got accepted to start classes in Spring of 2020, we were ecstatic. The only problem was how high the tuition was for out-of-district students. So I started thinking about moving to Austin. After all, the lease to the apartment I was sharing with friends was about to expire in 2020 so why not? When I brought this up to my girlfriend, she was all on board. She quickly transferred to a job in Austin and never let me feel like I was forcing her into going with me. My girlfriend- sorry, fiancée is my biggest cheerleader. I can’t overstate how much her support has helped me throughout this journey.

"I’m really proud of where I am in life right now."

It’s crazy to think how fast time has passed since moving to Austin, and well, COVID, but I’m right where I need to be. The support and community I’ve found here at ACC, and more specifically the Honors Program… I am forever grateful. I’m happy to report that no, I haven’t been getting average grades or just skating by, I’ve been excelling. I’m hoping that even with this crazy time in our lives, people still consider trying out higher education, even if they don’t think they can make it. You never really know unless you take that leap. I mean, I’m here, aren’t I?

For the past year and a half, every single ACC course I have taken has been online. I’d yet to set foot on a campus since starting my journey last fall. So, it was with much trepidation that I (and many other students) reentered an ACC campus on September 13th. I’d signed on for an in-person chemistry course but had been told at the start of the semester that it would be delayed if not completely relegated to online learning because of the spike in Covid cases. That was all over now though, and it was time to face the proverbial music of returning to classes.

Like any normal school day, I started off by gathering everything I would need for class: pencils, pens, highlighters, notebooks, handouts, a calculator, and a good dose of motivation to get through the day. Today though, I needed a few extra items to head to the Round Rock campus: an Appian campus pass, my ACC ID, a mask, and about a gallon of hand sanitizer. I’d also slapped a post-it note onto my phone with the building and room number for my course because, as mentioned earlier, it had been a long time since I’d been anywhere near a campus.

After arriving, I wandered aimlessly for a few minutes until I found building 2000 and headed inside. I was happily surprised to see other students milling about and interacting; it actually felt like I was going to college for the first time in a long time. Once over my shock, I headed for the elevators and made my way up to the second floor. I roamed the halls for a bit before realizing I was on the wrong floor and then made my way to the third where I located room 2312. While waiting for class to start, I bumped into a few of my classmates in the hall. These were people I knew by voice but had never met before! We chitchatted for a few minutes while waiting for our Supplemental Instructor.

“It actually felt like I was going to college for the first time in a long time.”

Once he arrived, we all settled into our seats and got to work. It felt amazing. It was nice to be surrounded by people again and especially by people who were also there to learn. We could have actual conversations, bounce ideas off each other, and ask questions without typing them out and waiting for a response. Sure, we were all in masks, but we were there, and I finally realized that what I had been missing during the past few Covid semesters was the community part of community college.

I know that things aren’t back to normal yet and who knows when they will be, but I’m glad to be getting back to campus learning. With students respecting quarantines, wearing masks, and increased cleaning protocols, I felt safe returning to the classroom. It’s my hope that we’ll all be able to soon. Being part of a learning community is a big part of the college experience and I didn’t realize how much I was missing until getting to be a part of it.

-Amber Traylor (She/Her Pronouns)

Last spring, I enrolled for 3 courses at ACC: an art course, a language course, and a history course. It was the dawn of 2021 and the peak of the COVID winter. As it happened, it was also the peak of my own stress and frustration, seemingly with everything. Besides all the problems on the local and world stage, that semester none of my usual planning came easily to me. From the very start, it seemed like my academic and personal schedules simply would not align; not only that, but I was struggling financially.

I was also struggling with my mental health.

As a prospective and hopeful transfer student, I know the value of getting to work and making the good grades. All you need is a good calendar, consistency, and open communication to succeed, perhaps among some others. In other words, trusting yourself and taking it all one day at a time. All the good stuff that we commonly give and receive as advice.

But what happens when you don’t have a good calendar, life becomes anything but consistent, and communication is in turmoil everywhere you look?

When you find yourself emotionally and physically overwhelmed, and in a pit where effective resources seem distant.

Despite my struggles, the semester did, however, debut with one beacon of hope: The previous November I had been accepted to the UT Youth and Community Studies Program (YCS), a semester-long seminar toward education and community building. And on a Friday in February, I joined my first virtual interactive.

I was nervous and felt unprepared; I felt like a poser instead of a confident student.

Pleasantly, I soon found that the environment wasn’t so scary after all. Led by UT faculty, Drs. Wiebe and Hermosura, the YCS Program revealed itself as blend between instructor lecture and student dialogue. In that open space, I found the communication that had been lacking in my life; above all, I found community. “When were you last proud of yourself?”

The question had been asked at the outset, in a group session. Initially, I balked at wanting to reply. What did I have to be proud when I felt scattered? Particularly, what would my new friends say if I told them that, only the day before, I had dropped my history course (albeit ahead of attendance being registered) because I was overburdened?

I felt ashamed. And it was because of my own perceived shortcomings that I also felt dejected.

It wasn’t until the first person in our group shared the source of their recent pride that I discovered my own. They shared that they were proud to be taking walks outside for their mental health. This sparked something within me. It was, in fact, on the account of seeking nature that I had dropped the history course; one I had so wanted to keep on my schedule but could not.

"I was nervous and felt unprepared; I felt like a poser instead of a confident student."

After the crisis of 2020 and a dark winter, I simply knew that I needed more time to be active outside. I found in my group partner a friend, who like me was still learning to take care of themself.

And so, when it came my turn to speak, I revealed my dropped course and the fluctuating state of my mental health.

The support I received was itself overwhelming. To my relief, my friends and our instructor congratulated me on practicing self-care. I cannot adequately express how grateful I was and remain for their encouragement.

(Worth its weight in gold: Learn more about the UT Youth and Community Studies Program (YCS) via the link.)

And then in February, the devastating 2021 winter freeze hit, and Texas shut down. It was in that moment I realized how grateful I was to have listened to that little voice inside me. Even though I had taken on lighter coursework that semester, I had also given myself the space to cope through trauma. When the weather changed again, I found my healing in the outdoors. I felt alive.

My instructors and friends had lifted me up to remind me that sometimes taking a step back is taking another one forward. While it’s important to always do your best, I’ve learned it’s important to know what your best is.

As we celebrate and observe Self-Care Awareness Month, I’m proud to say that I’m still learning what self-care means to me.

-Aaron, HSO Social Media Team Lead