Stepping Up to the Mic

"Silence is the residue of fear....So this year, instead of giving something up, I will live every day as though there is a microphone tucked under my tongue."
 - Clint Smith

That quote from slam poet and educator Clint Smith's Ted Talk, "The danger of silence" (go ahead take the 4:18 to watch the video),  was the final push I needed to take the leap and venture into the world of blogging. I've always been quite the talker and an avid writer, keeping a journal (or two) since I was seven, but somehow after 6 years of undergraduate and graduate school I lost my voice. Much like the experiences Clint Smith speaks of (seriously watch the video...it's powerful), I found myself in situations where it felt safer and smarter for various personal and professional reasons to just keep my thoughts, opinions, questions, objections, etc. to myself. Now in the last year of my 20s, with four years of classroom teaching, two summers of training teachers for one of the most controversial organizations around, and one year of doctoral studies under my belt I no longer feel the need to hide behind my silence. 

So here I am: 29 years old, single, one of three Black women in a doctoral cohort of 16 at an Ivy League institution in the middle of New York City. I'm an educator at the very core of my being, but spend just as much--if not more--time seeking knowledge as I do sharing it. I've learned to live each moment intentionally while making sure to have as much fun as possible along the way. I'm a Florida girl at heart and am most at peace lying on the sand looking out into the ocean, but I've never felt more alive than I do in the bright lights of the concrete jungle. Some might say that I am a "true Gemini" riding a constant roller coaster of emotions, but that just makes the journey more exciting in my opinion. 

This is a blog to entertain, to teach, to share, to open myself up, to push myself, to give back, to learn, to take in, to expand my world, to process and on many occasions to vent. I'm terrified and excited to invite the masses into my mind--and for those of you choosing to enter take this as your official warning that it's often a crazy, jumbled mess in there. But here I go...time to step up to the mic....

 (Photo credit: http://dogwoodinitiative.org/blog/mob-the-mic-success/image/image_view_fullscreen)