Reflections on the first week.

Tomorrow starts the second full week of the spring semester.

I'm not %100 overwhelmed yet, but it might sneak up and jump me when I'm least expecting it, so I'm going to stay prepared as best I can.

Blogging is something new to me. I hope to get the hang of it quickly.

Leadership.

For the majority of my life, I was the epitome of what a leader was NOT. It was only last semester, when I fell into a student leadership position at Vol State, that I started to think that it might be possible for me to become a leader.

And after the first week of this semester, I see that I will have no choice.

I think this class might spoil me somewhat, merely because my group experience in Leadership has already been vastly different and significantly more pleasant than others.

I am also taking a speech class, and Friday, we counted off into groups. It was the most frustrating experience..

Normally, I would be one of those semi-slugs: not disengaged, but not forthright with my ability to speak.

And normally, someone would always step up into a leadership position, and it never had to be me.

Perhaps my willingness to step outside my comfort zone has actually widened it, and my lack of aversion to being a leader helps to explain what happened Friday.

When I joined my group, there were four other girls and one guy. The guy looked miserable. His face was expressionless, and he kept his eyes averted down to his notebook. I found it extremely rude and overly dramatic, for some reason. Honestly, you might have thought his parents had just died, based on the look on his face. He just looked tragic. (It's a horrible thing to say, because we never know what a particular student is going through. His parents might have just died. But I have a feeling his spirit of woe was brought on by unfamiliar people and uncomfortable situations.)

One of the girls had a perpetual laugh/smile stuck on her face, but not the pleasant kind, the kind that can border on annoying because the expression tries too hard to say, "I think this is silly, stupid, and beneath me."

The other three girls merely looked at me. Why were they looking at me? I'm not sure if I sent some sort of signal when I pulled my desk over that said "I will be the leader," but it was as if they were all waiting for me to say something. I mulled around for a minute, purposely NOT stepping up to see if anyone else would. NOT ONE DID, and I was shocked. Finally I spoke. Finally I tried, with little help from the rest, who hesitated to even speak aloud, to compose a plan for our group skit we were to compose. It went horribly. But at least my comfort zone has extended it's property lines.

It was so frustrating. But it was also interesting. When did I change? Earlier in my life, and even just a year or so ago, I would have been one of the ones, staring at someone else expectantly, never in a million years dreaming that I would eventually be comfortable with willingly speaking out and stepping up into a leadership position when need be.

I'm proud of myself. And I hope to keep growing. I think this class will be interesting.