Fresh Starts: The Moth Radio Hour

In this hour, stories from The Moth's Education Program about starting fresh. New jobs, new schools, and new perspectives. This episode is hosted by Peter Aguero. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Aravah Chaiken learns a lesson about math and life. Edie Wadman comes up with a get-rich-quick scheme—babysitting. Max Chwatko finds comfort during grief. Hope Guzzle prioritizes grades over her health. Andrew McGill finds a new passion, thanks to a 6:45am class. Podcast # 998

• 0:13Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Peter Agüero. In this show, we are turning the spotlight to a department at The Moth that has been meaningfully changing lives for over a decade: the Moth's Education Program. Since we first walked into a school in 2012, we've worked with more than 2,300 high school and college students from New York City, from around the country, and around the world. Today, we're listening to some of our more recent stories. Some were told onstage for the first time, right after the students had taken an eight-week workshop, and others got a few tries at telling before we got to hear them again. Just in time for back to school, we theme this hour "Fresh Starts."

• 0:56Speaker 00

  These workshops usually start with folks sitting in a circle, introductions, a little-known fact about yourself, and then the ice starts to break before it all tumbles down and we're ready to be vulnerable together. You know, I used to be a classroom teacher about three lifetimes ago, and teachings always give me this tremendous satisfaction. I really missed it, and I started going to The Moth Slams in 2007, and one day, the producer Jen Hickson asked for volunteers to teach storytelling for The Moth. I jumped on it, and I bugged Jen about it for weeks until I got on the roster. I've been teaching with The Moth now for 18 years. It's a tremendous honor, and there's a joy that comes from teaching folks how to be honest with themselves and how to talk about it in a crystal-clear way. You go into these classrooms, and you talk to these kids,

• 1:41Speaker 00

  and no one's ever listened to them like this before. They haven't ever had the opportunity to get in front of people and say something from their mind without having to convince anybody of the value of what it is they're saying. Most of these kids, you get in there, and they're like, "I don't have any stories. There's nothing I have to say. No one's gonna care." And by the end of that six or eight weeks, or however long you get to spend time together, they've figured it out. They realize it, that their stories have value, their experiences are real, they're theirs, and they can help themselves, and they can help others. All you gotta do is start at the beginning and tell the truth. So, this hour is focused on the Moth Education Program, MothEDU for short. So, sit back

• 2:22Speaker 00

  and listen. No pressure. You won't be graded on your participation. Our first story comes from Arva Chakir. Arva participated in The Moth Story Lab, which is an eight-week storytelling workshop, in-person or virtual, for high school students in New York City and around the country. She went on to tell her story at the education grants land. Here's Arva.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  I was entering high school at a progressive religious school, and it was considered progressive because there were mixed-gender classes. I walked in on my first day with a brand-new dress that went below my knees and a boatload of optimism. I was really excited for this school because this was the only Jewish school in the tri-state area that offered BC calculus. And I decided, because I knew someone who did it, that I was going to take BC calculus my sophomore year. And in preparation, I took Algebra II the summer before high school. I looked at my schedule that first day, and I saw that third period on Monday was Algebra

• 3:31Speaker 01

  II. The school didn't know me. I didn't know them. I'm sure it would all be okay, and by Tuesday morning, I'd be in a pre-calculus class. You know that really annoying kid in math class who sits in the front row, has their hands super glued in the air, and doesn't let the teacher finish asking the questions before answering? I was determined to be that kid. After class, I went up to my teacher and showed him my transcript. He looked at me, and he said, "It's my first day, too. I don't know what I'm doing. You're going to have to go talk to the head of the math department."

• 4:14Speaker 01

  In order to find the head of the math department, I had to find the math department, which was also known as the bunker. Located in the basement of my school, it had no windows, no natural light, just flickering halogen lights that cast everyone in a sickly pallor. The head of the math department looked at my grade in Algebra II, and then he looked at me, and he told me, "We'll see after your first test." That's a little unreasonable, but not totally unreasonable. I got an 102 on my first test.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Wonderful. He looked at my 102, and then he looked at me, and he said, "We'll see after your second test." That was an 102 not enough? I didn't do as well on my second test. I got a 98. He looked at my 98, and then he looked at me, and he said, "It's too late in the school year. You can't take pre-calculus this year. I'm sorry." I thought this was ridiculous, and my mother thought this was ridiculous, so by the end of that day, I was signed up for an online pre-calculus class outside of school. I should mention, at this point, that when someone else asked the head of the math department

• 5:39Speaker 01

  why I couldn't take BC calculus my sophomore year and pre-calculus my freshman year, he explained that they didn't have enough resources for me. They did have four boys, though, taking advanced math at the time, so I guess four is just the maximum. At the end of my freshman year of high school, I returned to the bunker with my pre-calculus grade. He looked at my pre-calculus grade, and then he looked at me, and then he looked at the A+ again, and he looked at me, and he said, "You know, we have this program where you can take pre-calculus over the summer." I pointed to my grade, and I told him I've already taken this class, and he said, "No, our pre-calculus is different."

• 6:22Speaker 01

  After spending that summer taking pre-calculus, I can testify that the unit circle is still the unit circle, no matter where you're learning. I was allowed to take BC calculus my sophomore year, and for the first time in my high school math career, I really felt like I was flying. I was learning integrals. I was learning derivatives. I learned something called a Taylor series, which is really cool. It's when you have a function, and then you use derivatives to approximate that function in a series. And as you add them up, and you add more terms to the series, the closer and closer it approximates the function, and it's just beautiful to watch. It's also how calculators do math.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  And so, it really broke my heart a little when an older boy who had taken BC calculus his sophomore year came up to me and told me that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to take it your sophomore year because he got a four, and I'd have to work really, really, really hard to get a five. I was not interested in taking pre-calculus a third time, so I continued on. And later on that year, a freshman boy asked me whether it was a good idea to take BC calculus my sophomore year, and after further questioning, it came out that he had actually been offered the spot and wasn't even sure whether he wanted it. Another freshman girl came up to me with the same question, and I told her it was a fantastic

• 7:47Speaker 01

  idea, and if she really was interested, she should email the head of the math department. Before we both went our separate ways, me to history and her to Hebrew, she told me teasingly, "You better get a five, which is the highest score you can get on an AP, so I can take this class, too." She was only joking. Later on, I went to math class, and I was learning integration by parts, and while my math teacher was in the middle of writing out a U, he all of a sudden capped his marker, placed it carefully in the tray, and turned around to face me. He clasped his hands together and told me, "If you don't get a five on this exam, it'll reflect badly on me, and

• 8:28Speaker 01

  it will reflect badly on you. So, you have to get a five. No pressure, but you have to get a five." I did, in fact, get a five on the BC calculus exam, maybe because I took Algebra II twice and pre-calculus twice, and I no longer attend that school, but more importantly, that freshman girl, she's taking BC calculus there as a sophomore. Thank you.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  That was Arva Chaitan. She is now at university and would you believe she majors in computer science and math? Arva still loves Pascal's triangle and a Taylor series and is a member of the university's debate team.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  Our next story was told by Edie Wadman. We met Edie at The Moth Story Lab here in New York. Here's Edie at The Moth's Education Grand Slam in the spring of 2025.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  I grew up in this weird suburban neighborhood of Brooklyn, perfect for Verizon commercials because the houses look like they could be anywhere and the streets look like they were made for playing Kick the Can. I had four friends growing up who lived on Kick the Can Street, AKA the cul-de-sac around the corner from my house. And so all throughout elementary school, I would go over there and we would make up games, most of which involving eating dirt. And as we got older and we reached middle school, I would go over there and we would sit on the cul-de-sac and plan our future, specifically a backpacking trip around Europe that we would take the second that we graduated from high school.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  In order to fund said trip, we needed funds, so we came up with business ideas, starting a famous clothing line, starting a famous rock band, anything that can make us lots and lots of money. But growing up, I was always more of a realist. And when we were kids, I was the first one to suggest that maybe we bring the dirt eating to a gentle close. And as we got older, I was the first one to point out that none of us could really sew, never mind play a musical instrument. But at 12 years old, there was one business idea that I thought could take us to Europe, and that was babysitting.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  So one day, we walked around the neighborhood and we plastered flyers on every single lamppost with our 12-year-old phone numbers written in block print. What could go wrong? And we waited, and we waited, and when we waited some more, and when weeks passed and we hadn't received a single call, I was crushed. Four years later, I tried again. It took until about a month before my 16th birthday for me to finally book my first gig, the big girl way, not through flyers on lampposts, but through Facebook. My first gig was around the corner from Kick the Can Street, so I knew the route well.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  I walked over confidently, went up the elevator confidently, walked down the hallway confidently, shook their hand confidently. I had felt ready to take care of kids since I was a kid, so I was feeling pretty confident. I waved goodbye, I turned to the baby. And then it began, the ear-splitting scream and the blubbering tears. Her mom was probably still in the elevator. It had been 15 seconds. There was no way I could ask for help now that would ruin my Facebook reputation. And so I waited 10 minutes, 20 minutes. I bounced her on my hip, I cradled her in my arms the way one does to a baby, so I have heard, but nothing helped. At this point, she was foaming at the mouth like a James Bond villain.

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Clearly, I was killing her. And so I gave in. I called her mom. I was like, hey, any chance you're still in the neighborhood? I don't really know what to do right now. And she was so nice. She was like, don't worry, girl, I'm right up the block, come on over. And so we went on over. I took the baby downstairs. I asked the UPS man for help with the buttons and the straps and the mechanics of the stroller because it is not self-explanatory. And we went down the block and there her mom was, and she was all, hey, girl. And I was all, hey, girl. And she was so nice. We spent the rest of the hour talking about Brooklyn punk bands and what the kids are up to these days.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  But I felt like screaming, how should I know? How should I know what the kids are up to these days? I am not a kid, I am a babysitter. I thought that when I walked into that apartment, I would be treated like an equal. I thought that after I put the baby to sleep and her mom came home, we could sip sangria and talk about tariffs, but no. As soon as those two hours were up, she waved a very sweet goodbye and paid me in full all $30, but it was humiliating. I didn't want that money. It was clear she didn't take me seriously. No one was ever going to take me seriously the way that I had wanted to be taken seriously. So I was just gonna give up.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  That was it, right then, right there, no more of this. But I didn't give up because the Facebook post was still up. And not only was I still booking gigs, but I was raking them in and they didn't immediately start to get easier. No one tells you what to do when a three-year-old puts pesto on his penis at the dinner table. But then they did start to get easier. I started to babysit for some older kids and they taught me their own games, robot card games and door bowling. And I made up some new games of my own, mainly tricks to help get them to brush their teeth on time. And by the time their parents came home, they were always fast asleep.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  Somehow, along the way, I had become a pretty good babysitter. I eventually made enough money to pay for my portion of the European backpacking trip. We leave in a week. The day after I graduate from high school, just as we planned. Four weeks after that, we arrive home. Two weeks after that, I go to college in California, away from my parents and those kids and their parents in the street where I first attempted to play the mythological game of Kick the Can.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  It is a weirder feeling than I would have thought, knowing that I am about to go through this major transition from childhood into adulthood officially. But it's also kind of nice being in such a liminal space. I don't want to be treated younger than I am, I never have, but I also kind of don't want to be treated older than I am. When I'm babysitting and I'm reading to a kid and they're laughing and they're having a good time and they slip up and they call me mom, it's super cute and it feels great because I know that I am doing an excellent job. But I realized that I like to go home after that and tell my own mom that that had just happened. Thank you.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  That was Edie Wadman. Edie loves walking in Prospect Park and scanning the sky for pigeons flying in formation. She says she no longer eats dirt and has met more fellow herbivores than ever in her first year at Pomona College. She offered a bit of advice for her fellow babysitters. Never lie about knowing how to change a diaper. You will not get hired back. To see photos from Edie's trip to Vienna and the early days of her babysitting adventure, please visit themoth.org.

• 16:47Speaker 00

  In a moment, a journey in the woods and a game of manhunt. That's when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Peter Agüero. We've been listening to stories of turning over a new leaf and hitting the reset button. This next story reminds us that sometimes, starting over means bringing a piece of the past with you. It comes from Max Tracco. Max told us at a Grand Slam at BK1 in Brooklyn, New York.

• 17:37Speaker 03

  I live in the woods, not in a fun treehouse way or off the grid way, but I live in the woods in a way that my house is right here and the woods are right here. Actually, more like this. Um, but I really never gave a lot of thought to them or cared much for them. Well, besides when I cursed them for making my wifi lag while playing Fortnite. Um, but that's up until I found myself playing Manhunt with my friends in March of 2019. And this game, I don't know if you guys know what Manhunt is, but it's like tag on steroids. And this was a particularly kind of ethereal game of Manhunt, surreal game of Manhunt, because it was a monkey's wedding, which for those of you who aren't as well versed as myself

• 18:22Speaker 03

  in South African slang, is when the sun and the rain are happening simultaneously. So I don't know if you've experienced a monkey's wedding personally, let alone one in the woods, but it's kind of, it's beautiful, it's surreal. You can kind of see the rain and the sun plugging the gaps of the trees um up above. And I was really just, I could feel myself in the moment. It felt like one of those moments where you're just present and you're having fun, smiling, laughing. And eventually we were tired, sweaty, probably pretty, pretty, sorry, probably pretty smelly as teenage boys tend to be after they run around.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  Um, so we started to head back towards my house. And when I crossed the threshold that kind of marks where the woods end and my backyard begins, everything rushed back to me. I felt this sense of guilt. And that's when I remembered the reason that we are here today. And it was for my sister Scarlett Shiva, who had passed 24 hours earlier. And basically a Shiva is when uh in the Jewish religion, you have friends and family come and celebrate somebody's life that passed. And I felt guilty because my sister was gone, but I was here happy. And I had really only seen grief portrayed in movies or books.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  And I'd never seen it portrayed as a 10 year old running around with his friends in the rain, playing Manhunt. Um, so I was kind of at a loss. I, the Shiva was ending and my friends were leaving. And I, it started to really hit me, all of these emotions. So I went in to the house where my mom was, she was my confidant and my biggest supporter. She always gives me the proper advice. Um, and I went to her and I told her, you know, is there something wrong with me? I mean, I, my sister died 24 hours ago and I'm here playing Manhunt with my friends,

• 20:32Speaker 03

  smiling, having a great time as if nothing happened. And she said to me that if you let everything the world throws at you, big or small, get you down, then you're never going to be truly happy. And that my sister Scarlett would have wanted me to be free and live for the both of us. So at the time, I would, I probably said something like, "That's stupid," or just dismissive, because I wasn't really in the mood to take advice. And I thought she was just uh kind of uh helping me mask my weird coping mechanism. But um, I was tired, so I started to walk to my room.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  But my feet took a hold of me and they took me to my sister's room. So I entered her room, and now this is going to sound really weird, but each person has a distinct smell. And when they're gone from the earth, their smell can still remain. And I, and I smelled my sister as though she was there. And I sat down on her bed and I could feel her sitting next to me. I could almost uh feel it. And then I laid down on the pillow and I let my thoughts wander. I found myself, my thoughts swirling and kind of a montage,

• 21:57Speaker 03

  like a movie montage of my memories that I made with her playing. I could remember us uh throwing water balloons at each other in our house in Pennsylvania. And I could even remember the car ride there where we fought the whole time and she made my dad kick me out of the car. Um, but then that's when I noticed that without all of those memories, her death wouldn't have had such a profound impact on me. And that their jo- joy and pain can coexist, kind of like that monkey's wedding. Even if it's raining, the sun can still shine. I let my eyes close, I went to sleep, and I had the best sleep of my life. Thank you.

• 22:44Speaker 00

  That was Max Tracco. Max is a high school senior from Westchester, New York and a soon to be Texas Longhorn. He's the founder of Voyage, a nonprofit expanding access to student travel. He loves telling and collecting stories and he lives with his mom and a menagerie of rescue animals. I had the honor of hosting the show when Max told this story. It was a beautiful and cold night in Brooklyn and I was stunned by Max's sophisticated and measured contemplation on grief. It stayed with me for a while. I got to have a conversation with Max recently and it felt like a gift to get to sit with him just a little longer. And we wanted to share it with you. When I have, I'm just out of curiosity, but you know,

• 23:27Speaker 00

  when you're young, you don't really have a sense of even what grief is. And as you get older, you're forced to deal with it because it's part of life. Because I feel like you carry that with you for a long time, you know?

• 23:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with that. I mean, I'd say that like, it's kind of, it's a sad thing to say, but like, I feel like a lot of the time, you know, grief is, it can be like almost dormant. And I mean, it's not like I don't think of my sister for months, but you know, it's not like, at this point, you know, it's been seven, eight years.

• 24:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  And I, you know, it's sad to, but I don't always think of her every day. I mean, obviously it's always gonna, gonna stick with you, you know? It can, you know, rear its head at different times, but, and it's always with you, that's for certain. So even though, you know, my life had kind of completely changed, you know, been turned upside down, within a day, I was still kind of the same person. And in a lot of ways, my life was still the same. So yeah, I think it's really kind of interesting how two things can really be true at once. And you can even feel multiple ways at once, even if they're contradicting emotions.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  So yeah, I definitely think that that was kind of a big, I guess, if I could impart a piece of information, that that would probably be, uh, you know, what my story was trying to impart.

• 25:03Speaker 00

  Did you find it helpful to be able to give voice to it? Like, because it was very specific about the story that it was about the grief and you very much stared it right in the face. So I guess the, the real question is like, did you find that to be a benefit for you?

• 25:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it really was a benefit because, I mean, obviously the people were one thing, like, you know, telling it in front of people. But I'd say like the most uncomfortable part to me was probably saying all that out loud because, you know, I mean, I'd say that I've always been like good about expressing my emotions, but at the same time, it's, you know, difficult to even want to think about that in my own head. And it was really nice to, I mean, I didn't go into the moth program thinking that that was my story. I mean, I don't even fully remember how I, how it came to be my story.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  But I, you know, it felt very cathartic to say out loud and express myself. And it was nice because it felt like more formatted than, it kind of uh

• 26:09Speaker 00

  It gave a structure.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  Really gave a structure.

• 26:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, it gave a structure to this amorphous bunch of feelings.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:15Speaker 00

  Do you remember a moment, you know, anything from the workshop? Because it's, it's fascinating, like, how did I even get here? And it's from a series of questions that you don't even realize. So like, was there any moments or questions or, or activities or, or insights that you remember that were really helpful in the, in the workshop?

• 26:32Speaker 03

  Honestly, I think there might have been one from you that kind of stuck with me. Like, when I was telling it, the, it was maybe the dress rehearsal when we'd first met you.

• 26:41Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  But I remember like, the story was pretty final, but I, for some reason, wasn't saying like my sister Scarlett's name. And I mean, I didn't even realize that I wasn't saying her name. But I feel like when I put it in, for me, it felt kind of honestly really good to say her name. Because when you kind of say someone's name, it feels more like, you know, they're kind of living, or even if they're not living, they're still, their memory is still living.

• 27:11Speaker 00

  If there was something in your story, or something that didn't fit and you'd love people to know, something about Scarlett or you and Scarlett?

• 27:17Speaker 03

  I mean, there's a ton of things that come to mind, but the first thing that kind of comes to mind, which is kind of silly, but all of the bickering we did, like even as young kids, you would literally bicker so much that on one of our family trips, my dad jokingly, obviously, uh, told me to go out of the car. And then he said that he was gonna leave me at the gas station, like while they were all at, like that was how much we were fighting. But I always remember then, right after you would make up, we were like really best friends. And even though we were young, I always like could tell her anything. And I just felt myself around her.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  That's beautiful, man. Thank you so much for sharing. Max Tracco, everyone.

• 28:09Speaker 00

  In a moment, we head into a bumpy senior year and then to the start of law school, when the moth radio hour continues.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

• 28:33Speaker 00

  This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Peter Aguero. There's an embroidered sampler at my desk at home with a sort of mantra on it I came to with my therapist, Nadine. It says, "I resent that I have to accept this." This pretty much sums up the way I believe we can make it through this maddening and beautiful world. With that in mind, here's Hope Guzzle. Hope told her story at a final share after a three-day Moth workshop with Fordham Law students, learning to tell their own stories so they can better tell the stories of others. Here's Hope.

• 29:08Speaker 04

  In June of 2024, I was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer, which was really inconvenient because I was supposed to be starting law school in August. It had been my lifelong dream to go to law school, and I'd already delayed it once. My junior year of college, I was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer, and I had to push my LSAT setting back, and I just could not go through that again. So I said, "Okay, I will fly home to beautiful, sunny Tampa, Florida, get my colon removed, and then we will figure out what kind of treatment I could get." The doctor presented me with two potential paths. Either I could get chemotherapy and radiation, which would be incredibly invasive and was a more traditional approach. But

• 29:50Speaker 04

  some people in my situation could be eligible for a pretty revolutionary form of immunotherapy offered up in New York City, conveniently where I was planning to go to law school. So after I recovered, kind of, from surgery, my mother, my grandfather, and I flew up to New York, met with my genius, amazing doctor, Dr. Sersak, over at MSK, and was cleared to go to law school. I was not only cleared for the treatment, but was cleared to completely live my life normally. She just suggested that maybe I lay back a little, relax, and maybe take law school a little bit easier than most people. So long as I did that, when I met back with her in January to ensure the treatment was working, all

• 30:35Speaker 04

  should be fine. I took her words of advice, paid my obscene amount of money to Fordham, and decided to ignore everything she told me. I decided I was going to be a killer. I wasn't going to talk to anyone. I was going to work 80 hours a week. I was going to live and breathe the law, and when I wasn't doing that, I was going to listen to legal podcasts. So suffice to say, I was really fun to hang out around. In doing so, I made myself incredibly sick. I would be studying nonstop so that I wouldn't sleep, and I really needed to sleep with the treatment, and then I'd get really bad brain fog, and then I

• 31:16Speaker 04

  would get back to studying. Or I would be throwing up, and then I would be in the bathroom for hours, and I would think, "Oh, my God, I missed that time. I could have been studying." That was all I could think. So then I'd stay up later, and then the brain fog would get worse. You get the idea. It really wasn't great. But I continued on like that until finals. I put my everything into it. I cared so much about these grades. For those of you who are in law school, first-year grades are really shown to be the end-all, be-all. They're so important to people. So I was putting that pressure on myself. You don't get your grades back until December, so I got to relax. When I came home, my mom said, "I'm so happy to see you. Let's get that cancer appointment set up with your doctor." And I was like, "Oh, yeah, that's not great, but we'll go do that."

• 32:01Speaker 04

  So I get to relax. We fly up in January. I quickly learned that the day that I meet my doctor is the same day that I get my 1L grades back. This was devastating. I went from being kind of anxious about the appointment to super anxious about the grades. Like, that was all I could focus on. It was pretty ridiculous. My mom stays with me. We take the cab over from my apartment in the west side over to the upper east to go meet with my doctor. She walks in, huge smile on her face. She says, "The treatment is working so well. It's amazing." My mom's crying. I'm crying. She's crying. It was wonderful. My mom and I decide to go celebrate with some overpriced light Italian fare over at

• 32:43Speaker 04

  Santa Bros. And yeah, we walk in. We have the warm wood paneling. We go sit down. I sit on this weird kind of velvet booth where I'm just picking at my $50 really mediocre pasta, surrounded by the weirdest people ever, when my group chat starts blowing up saying, "Oh, my God, 1L grades completely dropped." So I go to the bathroom. It was cold, and that should have been a sign. I check my phone, and guys, the grades were really bad. They were really bad. I don't mean like, "Oh, my God, I always had a 4.0, and now I have a 3.7. How am I going to..." No, that's not what I'm talking about. They were atrociously bad. And I just break down. I almost throw

• 33:25Speaker 04

  up. I'm so upset. But I splash some water on my face and go out back to my mom. She can tell I'm a little upset. She knows me pretty well, and I'm also horrible at hiding my emotions. And then she asks me, "What's wrong?" And I say, "Well, Mom, to be honest, like, the treatment stuff, that's great, but my grades were pretty bad," and I tell her this. And she looks at me, and she goes, "Are you fucking kidding me? You just found out that you aren't going to die, and this is what you're worried about? Some, like, slightly below-average grades? Give me a break." And I knew she was right. I felt like I was dying, which is crazy, because I literally

• 34:08Speaker 04

  just found out that I wasn't. But yeah, I just realized I couldn't control any of my emotions. So I say, "Wow, I'm being a psychopath right now. I really should not be acting like this." So I decide, maybe I can't control how I feel in this moment, but maybe I should try to act like a normal person moving forward. So I do some crazy stuff. I start talking to people, and I meet like three that I actually like, which is really exciting in law school. I start going on walks occasionally. I call my family members, even the really annoying ones, and I start to actually feel a little better. And this recovery of sorts

• 34:50Speaker 04

  wasn't perfectly linear. I definitely had moments where I kind of went back to the behavior that I was mirroring before, but I was better, and I was getting better. And the grades actually got better, which was really exciting. And the more I've leaned into work-life balance throughout the duration of my treatment, the better my outcomes have been. So while I would never say I was grateful for having had cancer, because that would be a big, fat lie, I am grateful for what it taught me about balancing success and life. I can still go after these big lofty goals while making sure and prioritizing having a bigger, more beautiful life. Thank you.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  That was Hope Guzzle. Hope is originally from Tampa, Florida, and is in her third year of Fordham Law. She's excited to share that her treatment is wrapping up very soon. To celebrate and thank her amazing medical team, she'll be running the New York City Marathon in November to raise money for Fred's team, the official running team at Memorial Sloan Kettering, to support cancer research. She's never run before, but this feels like a fantastic way to start.

• 36:18Speaker 00

  Our final story is told by Andrew McGill. Andrew told us at the Education Mainstage Matinee, where once a year, we invite schools to join us for two class periods in the morning to enjoy a live storytelling show. There's a DJ playing when they walk in. The lights are low. There's free merch. Andrew, who is about to share his story, was the host of the event. Here's Andrew, live at the Moth Education Mainstage Matinee.

• 36:46Speaker 05

  I realized in high school, my report card never really matched who I was. Like, the comments on my report card never matched who I was. It was like, talks too much in class. I was like, "Yeah, I was just telling my boy on why Naruto is the best ninja. Has the ability to do better." I'm like, "Yeah, but you called me on a bad day. Truly. Needs to improve their work ethic to reach their full potential?" Okay, maybe. Okay, maybe the comments was right. And when I was planning my senior year schedule in 11th grade, I told my guidance counselor, "Hey, I'll do whatever. I'm over school." And she's like, "You need to take a 6:45 class, a sociology class. Can you do it?" I was like, "Of course I can do it."

• 37:29Speaker 05

  She said, "Are you sure?" I said, "Yeah, yeah. Who's the teacher?" And she said, "It's Mr. Bonavita." I said, "The dean?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "The guy who takes people's hats off their head because it's against school policy?" She said, "Yeah, that's the one." I was like, "The guy who wears sandals and jeans all throughout the year? That's my teacher?" I was like, "This is going to be a breeze." So I remember starting senior year, 6:45, I walk into class, and yeah, it was early. So I get into the building. I'm sitting down in class, and Mr. Bonavita is like, "This class is going to be fun, but it is going to be a hard class. You need to show up to class to pass." And I was like, "All right, cool, whatever."

• 38:11Speaker 05

  And he said, "Look around. Everybody look around." And we looked around, and he was like, "Not everyone here is going to make it to the end of this semester." And I was like, "Are we going to die? What's happening here?" He's like, "No, this class starts at 6:45, and not a lot of people are going to make it. You need the commitment, the effort, the time." I was like, "Yeah, whatever, man. I got you." And for the next two weeks, I did not make it to that 6:45 class, folks. I was late every day. And like I said, he was a dean, so I would be hiding in the lunchroom when I'd see him walk by, and he'd be like, "Yo, Andrew, you're 6'4", you're black. You can't hide. Why are you trying to hide from me?" And he called me over, and he said, "Hey, you're going to fail this class if you don't show up to class. You need to show up to this class." And I was like, "Ah, whatever."

• 38:56Speaker 05

  So the next day, I was like 15 minutes late, but I showed up to class. I got into class, and he had these turntables set up. And I was like, "Yo, what's going on here? I thought this was a sociology class." And I go sit down, and I asked one of my friends. I was like, "Yo, what's he doing?" And he's like, "Yo, he's a DJ." I was like, "Damn, he's a teacher and a DJ?" I was like, "Damn, the DOE's not paying anybody money."

• 39:19Speaker 05

  And he proceeded to tell us that history doesn't always repeat itself, but it does often rhyme. And then he mixed "Single Ladies" into "Jackson 5: I Want You Back", and it blew my mind for a bit. I was like, "What?" And he explained to us, like, "Yo, this is what history, it rhymes and it does these beats, and I'm gonna explain it with my job. I'm a DJ when I don't teach." And it literally blew my mind. I was like, "Yo, this is actually insane." And from that, I was hooked on class. And I never missed a day. I mean, some days I'd be a little late, but, you know, he taught us,

• 40:02Speaker 05

  we used Dave Chappelle's Clayton Bigsby to talk about racism. We did "The Whitest Kids You Know" to talk about Abraham Lincoln and all his history and all his life. At the end of the year, I actually got into his historiography class, and we got to go to DC, and we got to talk to one of the senators, a civil rights activist, John Lewis, and he told us, "You gotta get into the right trouble." And I was like, "Yo, this is amazing." And at the end of the year, I said, "Hey, Mr. Bonavita, I would love to be a DJ. Like, would you hire me?" And he said, "No." "You lazy? You don't really come to class a lot? I'm not gonna trust you with that. Like, if I did, DJing is a gift.

• 40:47Speaker 05

  What I'm gonna give you is a gift, and I don't want you to take it for granted, because this gift can take you anywhere." And I was like, "All right, man." So I went home, and I thought about all the stuff we learned in class. I thought about, I was like, "You know what? Let me just write a letter." I was like, "That's what they do in government, right? When something's bad, you just write a letter to Congress to do something." So I wrote him a letter, put it in his mailbox, and he didn't say anything to me. And like, a couple of days before, you know, we got to graduate, and he says, "Hey, I'm gonna take you on, and you're going to, you know, I'm gonna give you a little internship and figure it out." And it's been 15 years, and I'm a DJ now. I'm a dean.

• 41:31Speaker 05

  And I'm really thankful for the gift that Mr. Bonavita gave me.

• 41:39Speaker 06

  Andrew McGill is a high school English teacher, stand-up comic and storyteller, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Andrew's been DJing for over 15 years and still works with Mr. B every week. He still enjoys and plays that mix. He's taught a bunch of kids that mix, but it is never as good as it was with Mr. B. To see photos of Andrew and Mr. B DJing, go to themoth.org.

• 42:11Speaker 06

  Do you have a story of your own fresh start? You can pitch us your story by recording it right on our site. The best pitches are developed for Moth shows all around the world.

• 42:23Speaker 07

  It was Stockton, California in the 1970s, a conservative suburban town that used to be an agricultural mecca. Leonard Ronnie was a kid who wore pink button-up oxfords to class in 3rd grade, and he was teased relentlessly. It really didn't help that he was gentle and kind. After class one day, my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Bumpfus, handed out blue flyers announcing Little League tryouts to all the boys in our class. So I went up to her desk after class and I asked if I could have a flyer. And she very firmly said, "No, they were just for boys." And when I pressed her, she told me she didn't have any more flyers and I should go home. The extra blue flyers, I thought, I put back in her desk. Anyways, I immediately tried to think of a boy who might not want his flyer, and I remembered Leonard Ronnie.

• 43:05Speaker 07

  I ran to catch up to him and I asked for his flyer, and he gave it to me. Even though I didn't know how to play, I went to the tryouts one cool Saturday morning and stood in day grass dozens and dozens of 8-, 9-year-old boys waiting to try out. The male coaches stood watching us with their clipboards, and we lined up to run drill after drill. Even though I fumbled along, I didn't know how to play. It was the best day of my life. A week later, I got a call from my new coach, Larry Spraga, and I got instructions for our first practice. It turns out I was good at baseball, and I became one of the best players in our league. I hit the first ball over the fence, and I was nominated by the entire league to our All-Star team in my last year.

• 43:48Speaker 07

  Those years were full of teasing, harassment, and indignities around being the only girl who ever played in our league, but I just didn't care. Every bit of practice, drilling, hours in the hot Central Valley sun, I just couldn't get enough. But none of it would have been possible without Leonard Ronnie. I hope he hears this story one day, and he reaches out so I can thank him myself. That crunched-up blue flyer stuffed at the bottom of his bookbag was like Willy Wonka's golden ticket to me. It was a lifeline. Without Leonard Ronnie, I would have missed the first true love of my life: baseball.

• 44:25Speaker 06

  Here comes another pitch.

• 44:29Speaker 04

  When I graduated from college in 2004, my dad's graduation gift was a dad-daughter trip of my choice, anywhere in the world. I chose Athens, but as usual, he did what he wanted, booked us a 10-day fishing trip in Argentina instead. My dad is an outdoorsy Republican card-carrying member of the NRA, whereas I'm an indoorsy queer card-carrying member of the ACLU. My stomach sank as I remembered other dad-daughter trips, hauling antlers up mountains and silently suffering through his heavy-handed lessons about hunting and fishing techniques.

• 45:13Speaker 04

  A month later, we're in a creek in Argentina, and I'm crying behind my sunglasses as my dad yells at me, critiquing my pathetic cast. And then out of nowhere, he says, "You know who was really good at that? Your grandpa." I flashed to my only memory of my dad crying when I was 10 years old. My grandpa had died, and the pastor asked for memories for the eulogy. And my dad said, "My dad taught me to fly fish." And he broke down and sobbed. And these two images of my dad crying

• 45:55Speaker 04

  and this memory of now in the creek fused together. And I realized my dad doesn't just want to give me a trip to Athens. He wants to give me his family legacy. And I don't fall in love with fly fishing that day, and my dad still doesn't understand me, but I understand him.

• 46:23Speaker 06

  Remember, you can pitch us online at themoth.org, where you can also share these stories or others from the Moth archive, and buy tickets to Moth storytelling events in your area through our website, themoth.org. There are Moth events year-round, and you can find a show near you and come out and tell a story. The Moth can be found on all major social media platforms.

• 46:51Speaker 06

  I just want to say, at mothedu, we've got an unmatched group of instructors with passion and care for their students, for their stories, and somehow for creating detailed lesson plans. If you're listening to this and you're an EDU instructor, past or present, thank you for all your work. It wouldn't be possible without you.

• 47:15Speaker 06

  That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time, and that's the story from The Moth.

• 47:33Speaker 06

  This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was hosted by Peter Aguero and produced by me, Jay Allison, and Jody Powell, who also directed the stories in the show. Co-producer is Vicky Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. The stories were coached by Melissa Brown, Jonathan Cabral, Melody Konze, and Julian Goldhagen. Education program instruction by Hannah Allen, Amy Blumberg, Zoe Lais, Ingrid Romero, Dalila Saleh, Darius Sharp, and Mio Tubridi. The Moth's leadership team includes Gina Duncan, Marina Kluches, Sarah Austin Genes, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardinalle,

• 48:14Speaker 06

  Caledonia Cairns, Kate Teller, Suzanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Patricia Urenia. Special thanks to unlikely collaborators for their support of the Moth education program, and to Anna Stern for her help on this episode. Our pitches are from Brandy Bernazani in San Francisco and Frances Southwick-Davis in Brooklyn, New York. Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour is from Epidemic Sound, Stellwagen Symphonette, and Blue Dot Sessions. Podcast music production support from Davey Sumner.

• 48:54Speaker 06

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Reese-Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story, and to learn all about The Moth, go to our website, themoth.org.