I have spent the majority of my life in wonderful public schools in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but to my surprise, I am offered the opportunity of a lifetime, which is to attend the private school, Baylor School for grades seventh through twelfth. This is an opportunity that I cannot pass, so I dive into the experience without looking back. In life everyone comes to the point where the well-known road he or she is traveling splits into two different paths. Each road looks equally tempting. Robert Frost writes in "The Road Not Taken," a famous poem, that "two roads diverged in a yellow wood. And sorry I could not travel both I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference." I receive a call to adventure to come to Baylor School in the seventh grade, and I take the road less traveled resulting in both positive and negative alterations in my life.
On the sunny fall morning of August 23, 1996, my father, Kenny Dyer, and I head out of the driveway for my first day at a private school. Along the ride, my dad tries to present me with his practiced speech filled with valuable life lessons. He leans over to speak to me after turning the country radio station to a slow roar, "Katie, always remember who you are, and never conform to what others expect you to be like. Have confidence. Embrace what has been given to you, and always remember to have fun." I reply inconsiderately, "Oh, okay, dad, whatever you say." I never have been able to realize the importance of his suggestions until later in life. I had considered his suggestions to be ignorant, but I have now realized that his words are the foundation by which I live my life. .
While he speeds through the Baylor campus, I slouch in the passenger seat of my father's Crown Victoria, disregarding the posted twenty-five miles per hour speed limit seeming to use the speed bumps as launch ramps. The tires squeal to a sudden halt as we approach the Lower School Building, and I, anxiously and nervously, hop out of the notorious nerd mobile.