Pete and repeat

My name is Angel Bell, and I am currently a candidate at Texas ChalleNGe Academy in Eagle Lake. We started here in January, and at first it was very rough as we are in acclimation, a four week process that prepares us for what we need to complete the program.

I first heard about TCA from my parents, who were trying to find options for me to help with school and life skills since I wasn’t making much progress on my own. When they first told me about it, I was extremely upset. I felt as if they didn’t love me or they simply wanted to kick me out.

It took me a while to finally decide to come. I knew leaving my old life behind would be hard, and I thought I would miss out on life, but after people around me reminded me that it would be a chance for me to graduate or earn my GED, I decided to try.

When I first arrived, I wasn’t very happy. At first, I thought the Team Leaders were the enemies because they would make us fall in line and try to punish us through exercise. I have now come to see that they aren’t enemies, but people who care about us.

Being here reminds me of a riddle my dad used to tell me. “Pete and repeat went in. Pete fell out. What’s left?” Of course, it’s repeat.

And I think that’s what I was kind of doing with my life, just repeating the same behaviors over and over again. But here at TCA, that doesn’t work. We repeat things that will help us achieve our goals and stop repeating the behaviors that that have brought us down.

I am learning to replace the old habits with newer better ones. Acclimation ends this week, and if we graduate from it, we will earn our uniforms and more privileges. I am looking forward to what this challenge brings.