I began to feel worse and worse about life at Michigan Tech. I started to think there was nothing here for me. I was quite upset about not being involved in music, for one thing. I had brought my clarinet to school with me, and I had even gotten a tryout packet of music and made an appointment for an audition. Minutes before I was to try out, however, I choked. I had lost any self-confidence I had had in high school. I thought for sure that the other clarinetists from bigger and better high schools would beat me, so I thought to myself, “why even bother?” I totally chickened out. I left music, my passion, behind as I walked out that door.

Many smaller things also happened to me to undermine my sense of belonging at MTU. In high school I was pretty popular. I never had any trouble getting along with anybody, and nobody ever teased me unless it was as a joke. I wasn’t aware that there was anything to tease me about until one day in my first college PE class. My badminton class had gotten divided into pairs for a tournament and my partner was a guy from downstate. I began to dread going to badminton because of him! He would always tease me because of my “accent.” He kept asking me to say different words, like “about,” and he would make fun of my pronunciation. He also teased me because I wasn’t the greatest badminton player in the world, and he would often call me “Daria” or other derogatory nicknames. I didn’t understand how somebody could be so narrow-minded as to judge a person based on the way she spoke! Finally I stood up to him, but not until after he made me second-guess myself. I had just had enough of him. It was of course in badminton class: he had made fun of me yet again for missing a birdie, and I just blew up. I was a little afraid I would get in trouble, because I ended up cursing a storm! “What the f*** is your problem?!?! I do NOT talk funny, and so what if I’m not the greatest badminton player in the world? Neither are you, you gangly idiot!!! You just wiffed one two minutes ago! I am so sick of your s***! I don’t want to hear one more word out of you!!!” Much to my delight, that outburst pretty much shut him up and saved my sanity for the rest of the term. Standing up to him took guts, but I had been pushed beyond my tolerance threshold! I would never have stood for such foolishness in high school. It was liberating to finally stand up to somebody I totally disagreed with and disrespected. I had to recapture the sense of confidence and self-worth I had had in high school.