The Effect of a Rainstorm
When there is a rainstorm in the African Sahara, an immediate and wondrous effect occurs. Flowers bloom, trees grow, animals flourish, and the circle of life continues. It is not so much the rainstorm itself, but the immediate life-sustaining sustenance that it provides that allows life to carry-on. The soul quenching spirit of the sky delivers a powerful rainfall to quench the thirst of the roots of the Sub-African desert. The correlation between my fifth grade teacher and me is similar to the effect of a rainstorm to the desert. A drop of water only quenches the roots of my soul, leaving my mouth parched and thirsty, longing for more. A rainstorm is like a full glass of water. It satisfies me and helps me flourish. As with Mrs. Pricilla she had an immediate effect on me. She made me become the person who I am today. The effect it had on me was immediate. As with the African desert, the change was remarkable. It left me breathless in its wake. My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Procella, changed my beliefs, goals, hopes, dreams, future, and most of all my belief in myself. I believed that I could do anything I set my mind to do.
Every person I have met has had some impact on me. From the tiniest raindrop to the loudest and most thunderous rainstorm affects the African desert. I was about nine years old when I first met her, and in the fourth grade. I met her when she introduced herself to me after the West Sabine Elementary Annual Science Fair. She was tall, had long blonde hair, and always dressed to impress with her wedge shoes. At first she shook my hand, stepped back, and then eyed my project and me critically. Her penetrating stare shook me in me bones until she spoke up once again. She told me that she was proud of me for my achievement, and congratulated me on receiving first place Grand Champion. She looked forward to being my teacher next year. She taught fifth grade math and science. Her simple soft spoken words warmed my heart. It wasn’t as if I had never received words of praise before. No one else outside of my family had ever went out of their way to say anything short of congratulations to me.
As soon as I stepped into her classroom the next fall, I knew I was in for a world of trouble. She wasn’t necessarily strict, or mean, but expected more of us. She reprimanded us if we didn’t do our homework or if we didn’t do it right. If there was a careless mistake on a test, or we back sassed her, she wouldn’t send us to the principals office. She would just deal with us herself. She pushed us to make us do better to be the best we could be. By the end of the year our class was so frustrated; we just wanted to tear our hair out, and for what? TAKS testing of all things! I wasn’t commended this time, but at least I passed. At the end of the year Mrs. Procella sat me down for a talk. She told me “Ce’Nandra you are going to do something with your life. You are going to write a book, become famous, become a millionaire. I believe you are going to do something beyond the mundane, you are going to do something extraordinary. You are going to be SOMEONE in this world!”
Those words set off a chain of events. Like thunder and rain, those words were strong and powerful. They still quench my soul. This rainstorm shaped my thoughts, dreams, goals and ideas. Still to this day no one else has ever made such an impact on me as Mrs. Procella did; that’s the beauty of it all. One person no matter how important in the grand scheme of things, had such a wondrous effect on my life. She gave me what I needed to believe in myself. She gave me a confidence I deeply needed. Like rain to the Savannah. I realized that I could accomplish anything. Mrs. Procella’s rainstorm reached out and ended a soul-quenching thirst, or in other words a confidence in myself.