Emily Bradford, captain of the university's cheer squad, finally came to a point where some of her team mates had lost faith and wanted to make them keep on believing.
It was their usual practice after lessons, when she asked them to sit down and listen.
"I want to tell you", she started, "that being a cheerleader and being successful is sometimes very hard. I have been a cheerleader since year 8 now and I was crap, if you know what I mean." The squad just chuckled.
"Yes, I know how you feel. But I improved and you will, too, I'm a hundred per cent sure of that." She hoped her little speech would have the effect that she intended. But some still had doubts so Kara asked,
"We have practised all those routines, jumps, pyramids and cheers for so long now. We have all worked hard, but still, we don't seem to get much better anyway. I really can't see why we should waste our time on something we will never accomplish." Some of the others agreed with her and looked at Emily, waiting for a reply.
"Okay, I think I should tell you a story which happened during my year of study abroad and the main thing about the whole story is that you should always have aims and never stop believing", she sat down as well, she did not want to tower over the others as they were all equal. "When I came to America after my first two semesters of study here in England, it was very hard for me to get used to the American way of life. Firstly I focused on studying, but later on, so much distracted me."