It has always felt like a weird twist of fate that my greatest passion would be immersing myself in the world around me, my greatest struggle. Being born with significant hearing loss, that world outside of home was limited to the booming voice of a teacher and the occasional deskmate who was kind enough to raise their voice when asking for a crayon. Thus, I had to take in what I could see above all else; which was worksheets on ¨ph¨ versus ¨f¨ or where to use an apostrophe. For a long time I found refuge in the tenses and commas in my 5-sentence writings. But advancing year to year, my focus began to shift from the rules and regulations of English to the grand world and grander stories of Social Studies, becoming more and more engrossed in all of the cultures oceans away.

The second semester of 7th grade would prove to be one of the most influential periods of my life thus far; as we had free reign over what our reading would be in English, and I chose a travel guide to Japan. I was enthralled by the photos of forests as well as the nearly unintelligible names of places I couldn't have imagined prior. This same feeling would soon manifest in my Social Studies class a few doors down, as the day prior we had each been assigned a country to present on tourist attractions in, and I was completely unfamiliar with Ecuador. Thus I began researching foreign countries for the first time on my own; and during my awe-inspiring research I chose to stop listening to the world around me; I felt like I was truly experiencing a trip myself on the other side of the screen. In that era of liberation, other important academic events landed at my feet for the first time as well, particularly my first time scheduling a class. It was then I took a well calculated risk, with my childhood being filled with observations of the world around me and a mix of grammar papers, I sprinkled in inspiration from my Ecuadorian tourism project and chose to try out Spanish that next year. 

Sitting in a basement classroom at the end of a dimly-lit hallway, everything meshed together into something I finally recognized, a passion. Though I still couldn't hear the difference between P and B; I could then form simple sentences with ¨ser¨, explain what a false cognate is with ¨sopa¨ and ¨jabón¨, and be able slip ¨durante¨ into my sentences. My first writing test where I employed those ignited a spark in me that finally gave my kindling-filled head a flame. I savored every minute in that class, still thinking ¨veinte¨ was spelled ¨beinte¨, but taking in every morsel of information that I could. After scoring a 98% on my final, thus returned that liberating time of year; but this time I would be writing in the beginning of my high school career, one I molded to continue on with Spanish, but also to take a chance on French.

For whatever reason it may be, learning can truly be a harrowing task for many people. What's important is that they all take the leap, they chance their comfort to soar above the barriers that block their future, they have the courage to learn. Many of us have had to fight an innumerable amount of obstacles to become educated; whether it be poverty, disability, infringements of rights, or prejudice. Though I lay far on the privileged end of that spectrum, and that was a harness for my leap, it was still a major risk for me. After all I have done, I have yet continued to discern between broken jumbles of consonants and vowels to understand something more important than a grammar lesson, I understand how far one can take me.