{"id":2582,"date":"2017-01-13T20:54:43","date_gmt":"2017-01-14T01:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/?p=2582"},"modified":"2017-01-13T20:56:41","modified_gmt":"2017-01-14T01:56:41","slug":"mentors-never-actually-say-goodbye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/mentors-never-actually-say-goodbye\/","title":{"rendered":"‘MENTORS NEVER ACTUALLY SAY GOODBYE’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mentors\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cFriends never say goodbye\u201d \u2014 Elton John<\/em><\/p>\n

OK, more like mentors never actually say goodbye. After this long, exhausting and equally wonderful and uplifting semester, I really made some huge connections with the students at Broad Ripple. When I first walked into the school, I noticed the student artwork hanging on the walls\u2014the different self-portraits they created and was instantly teleported back to middle school. Leaving the building for hopefully not the last time, I felt like I got to experience the positives and negatives all over again.<\/p>\n

I never thought I would say I was sad leaving middle school students, but I most definitely felt tears well up when I gave our group knucks for the last time and dabbed to our fam with them. I hope to see people like T\u2014 again, who, even though he portrays himself as \u201cThe Distractor,\u201d is one of the most passionate students who comes to Butler Writers. I expect to see him there every week. I also hope that R\u2014 keeps finding his way there, his hyperactive, big personality in a small body so concerned about keeping a well-maintained hairline (also very passionate about staying in class with the other students).<\/p>\n

But every time I saw them, I saw myself: a young student of color trying to navigate the drama and the embarrassments of middle school. As somebody who came from a predominately white middle school, it was refreshing to see these students surrounded by other students of color. I felt like they could always relate to each other, and I could relate to them given my own personal history. After a semester with these students, I hope that this isn\u2019t a goodbye. I hope this is a see ya later, and most importantly, I hope these students realize that there will always be someone there to support them, as there are so many of us who pass through each semester.<\/p>\n

Camara Wallace is a graduate student in the MFA Creative Writing program.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFriends never say goodbye\u201d \u2014 Elton John OK, more like mentors never actually say goodbye. After this long, exhausting and equally wonderful and uplifting semester, I really made some huge connections with the students at Broad Ripple. When I first walked into the school, I noticed the student artwork hanging …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":624,"featured_media":2588,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[37038],"tags":[],"coauthors":[265091],"class_list":["post-2582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bu-tutor-reflections","column","twocol","has-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/624"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2582"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2592,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582\/revisions\/2592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2582"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/wits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}