From Master To Leader. My Life In A Year

Teion Ensley-Ellerbe

Fire Stream

It’s difficult for just one person to make a change in their life, let alone the lives of those around them. However, myself being the 2nd of my siblings to try to earn a college degree is doing just that. High school is not easy, especially when you transfer to a new school your junior year. The time that not only most people look at as the most important year of high school but the most stressful. During this time everyone is doing something different, trying to make themselves look like college material since for most students it’s the next step in getting that all important job that will land them in cushy living for the rest of their life. Overall, I know that the choice I end up making will affect the rest of my family for years to come from the adults to the younger siblings who look up to me.

This is where I currently sit in my life,  however, when this should be an exciting time in the life of any teenager living out his youth and having as little stress as possible for myself it’s the complete opposite. In addition to starting a new school and perhaps a fresh start my year has been plagued with the worst of the worst. Since the start of Junior year, things were looking up but this quickly changed. After finally getting into a school that accepted me not due to my test scores but due to my personality and what I could contribute to the community, I got into a SEPTA mishap before the start of the year. I was accused of not paying my token after leaving a band practice in the Northeast even though it was on tape that I had paid. This mishap lead to my family paying 200 dollars out of pocket for a class to get rid of the citation,  started what i now know as  my Junior year. A year of downturn and struggle I didn’t expect to get from going to a new school or a fresh start. It hasn’t really been a great year to remember so far.

Shortly after the citation was issued, I was shocked to find out that my father was cut off his unemployment checks after only receiving them for a short amount of time and while he was actively searching for a job. Considering the fact that he doesn’t live with me, I didn’t see how much that would change my situation, but sadly, this individual action would affect me. However this is set in motion a chain of events that would shape the year for me greatly. After this, it fell solely on my mother to provide an entire house with 4 people in it. Myself,my mother, my younger sister and my oldest brother who also lost his job and didn’t have any intention on trying to get a new one. This set back what I’ve been wanting to do with my college life. Instead of thinking about where my grades would allow me to go, I’m constantly thinking about how much it’s going to cost my family day in and day out pulling my hair out over the situation I even considered attending community college just to save the money which I vowed never to do after the way CCP had cost my family so much money and not giving my sister credits when she graduated.

At this point in my life I am at the ultimate crossroads, making bigger decisions that will not just affect me but many others in my life. I have been offered  the opportunity to pick up an extra job at 2 food restaurants in order to pick up the extra slack that my brother or father could be covering. This would come extra hours taken away from my school work, such as this essay. Considering the fact that the rest of quarter three and all of quarter four will determine my new GPA which had to be converted from my old school will definitely see a change in my grades. If I continue to focus my efforts on just school, I have no doubt that I will end up in college earning a degree in something that I will spend massive amounts of time on. The only problem is, I can by no means pay for this all alone. I would need my parents and families help to pay for it. I’ve never really gotten anything or honestly been able to count on my father’s side of the family just off of the fact I am never really around them and it’s awkward when from. My mother’s side it would be struggle since everyone is so proud that my older cousin got into Bloomsburg University and is currently there as an Undecided major. Asking them to help would be asking them to split their funds down the middle, and considering the fact they just throw her money and care packages whenever she wants or her mother asks it would be next to impossible to get anything.

So those are my two main options putting my parents through more and more stress, mostly my mother to help me pay. or start to put some school on the back-burner in order to be able to afford a liveable life and not have my parents be so stressed. This is at least how I see it through my eyes as the individual. Either one of these options will cause a ripple effect on my family. Not necessary for myself for my younger sister since she has definitely decided to not to go to college believing that my parents will take care of her for the rest of her life. This will effect my younger siblings the ones that my sisters have that look forward to college who are in younger grades looking into high school’s such as SLA. Although they don’t know much about the process they do realize that it costs and costs a lot of money that we simply don’t have. In addition, to that my younger nephew doesn’t want to go to masterman because of the fact that he doesn’t think he will have the money to be “up there” with his peers in middle school and in High School. It’s one of those sad things that a younger child should never have to worry about. He doesn’t want to feel like he’s less inclined or anything less than his peers just because money is a little bit tighter on his family then his classmates

Overall, I think that it is difficult to make a change individually you must find something you want to change then make a commitment to that certain thing. The unknown part of this is how it will affect other people around you. For me it’s simple, the classic go to college or work to help story of every high schooler that doesn’t have the GPA of a Harvard accepted or the greatest test scores in the world. But what I do know is that no matter what i decide it’s going to have a ripple effect on the rest of my family. Whether that be good or bad is up to speculation of the person who is viewing what I’m doing. The thing is, no matter what I do it’s gonna help someone in the long run. Whether that be myself for the guy who is getting the food from me has yet to be seen. But who knows, I always have time, right ?