How Much Further?: Never Saw This Coming

Recently I've made a decision to put my efforts into attending University of Michigan for my masters. Now this is a big thing for me. I don't think its a big deal with people that went/go to University of Michigan, and definitely not something big for people that already live in Michigan (because MSU and UofM are like the schools you just go to here)......but for me...its EVERYTHING. You have to remember who this is coming from. I'm a person that didn't even hear of University of Michigan until I was already in college. Didn't think about going to a division one school until I already graduated college. Yes, the college I graduated from was Division 1, but it was Division 1AA, which is different. Now I am putting forward my efforts for a school that has a huge amount of history, tradition, and a BIG name. Guys like me don't think about going to a school like Michigan. Guys like me dream about just going to college and graduating. NONE of who I am today is who I was years  ago. Before I was only about graduating and having a good job. NOW....I'm about progressing and being as successful as possible.

But wait...you ask what kind of Guy am I exactly?? Well I'm a guy that grew up in the projects with a small vision. You could tell me "the sky's the limit" and I am going to say it to myself, but end of the day I didn't see that. The people around me were all poor. The successful people were the people NOT in the projects. Not that they lived well, but they didn't live in the projects. So that was my dream....not living in the projects anymore. You have a guy coming from a household where his mother was a nursing aid working two jobs. Sometimes waking up at 5:20am (Exactly!), to go outside and wait for the bus (3 buses to be exact), work with old people all day.....get off at 3pm, then run to a second job where she didn't get off until 11pm, and had to walk home in the dark through the projects and the streets. Then my father.....he was a janitor at a kid's community center. So yeah...I had hard working parents.....but I was still a Product of My Environment. And its not easy telling someone that feels trapped in his community with no money to see the outside world that he can go to a Division 1 school....when he doesn't even know what a Division 1 school is....or a division for that matter. Never heard of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Never had a job pay more than minimum wage much less a benefits package. Coming from a neighborhood where there were 2 police stations within a block and police mobile stations on my block. Just a place where the people I considered rich were my aunt and uncle, that had a house. But why were they rich to me? Because they had food they could get up and go eat at any time. They weren't ducking on the ground to bullets outside their window. Not having mice run over their feet as they watched tv. And especially since they weren't woken up by roaches crawling them at night. So yeah.....that is what kind of guy I'm talking about.

So that's what I am saying. That a boy that saw his parents work hard for everything they ever had....that pictured his life still being in the hood...BUT outside of the projects..........So when I say I'm going to the University of Michigan....its not just a big deal to him........its a big deal to everyone that knows hims.

In 2005, months before I started college...my friends and I were in an apartment just having a good time and they were drinking. Even though they were tipsy and some drunk, they told me they were proud and that I was the only one capable of making it out the projects and surviving. So on my school book bag with white out I wrote:  "All Eyes On Me". People that didn't know me would talk behind my back (females especially) and laugh at this as if I didn't hear them. They thought it was me being cocky. Honestly....its a feeling then that I never lost....that I'm the one that made it out the projects and I have everyone still there watching me now and hoping I make them proud still. So as I feel like crying through all the things I've seen and hold back tears that need not to come out.....I announce....one more time.....that I'm aiming for University of Michigan!

Its A Place Known By Many....But A Place I Called Home