University Star

It’s 6 a.m. — an alarm clock goes off.

A Spanish 2310 test, two honors classes and English syntax await. Lorelei Carrillo plans to arrive on campus by 9:30 a.m. to study before class but the journey will not be short. She is 76 miles away.

“I bought my car new in 2008 and I have already put 75,000 miles on it,” said Carrillo, English senior. “We traded it in intentionally because we knew what was going to happen.”

Long commutes and Spanish tests are common for Texas State students, however, Carrillo’s story is anything but.

Before her school day begins, Carrillo must first help her 8-year-old daughter dress for school. In the meantime, her husband makes a typical breakfast of oatmeal and eggs, sometimes sausage and biscuits, and packs his wife’s and daughter’s lunches while they dress for their classes.

At 7:30 a.m., Carrillo, tote bag and books in hand, gets into her Kia Spectra. Carrillo has another hour-and-a-half drive ahead of her before she arrives to the Strahan Commuter Lot where she walks a mile for the chance to sit in the stillness of a dimly-lit coffee lounge tucked on the top of campus in the University Honors Building. She will stay on campus until early evening, before walking back to her car from what she calls “a very long day.”

Carrillo has two more semesters of similarly long days ahead. The fall, however, will not be one of them. Carrillo will be taking a hiatus from her commuter lifestyle to give birth in September to her second child.

“I know when I leave for this one semester, it is going to be hard for me to come back to school,” Carrillo said, pausing to take a deep breath. “I know that because I will have a bigger family. But I will.”

Carrillo’s journey to Texas State has been more than a long car ride. For the commuter from La Grange, making her way back to college has been a 15-year journey. Carrillo first attended Texas State in 1992.

“I was right out of high school and had no idea what I was doing,” Carrillo said. “I returned again in ‘93/’94. I was focused on what I was doing, but I was getting a divorce and my life was crazy, so I quit school. It probably wasn’t the best thing to do, but I did.”

Carrillo then made a different journey, this time to Maine where she owned a café. However, she did not stay long.

“I returned in 2005 as a single parent,” she said. “I moved to be close to my mother.”

It was at that time Carrillo went back to finish what she started. 

She returned at the age of 33 to finish her degree in English, with the goal of getting a teacher certification. Carrillo said the decision to come back to college was not an easy one.

“I had to re-organize my whole life,” she said. “I had to quit my job. I put the burden of responsibilities in every way on my husband — my fiancé at the time. And Mykiaela, my daughter, had to re-organize her tolerance to me not being there.”

Carrillo first planned to finish her degree at St. Edwards University in Austin. However, because of cost, Carrillo had to forgo that plan along with the opportunity to take part in a small program geared toward commuter students she was accepted into.

“It was $870 a credit hour,” Carrillo said. “At that time I had just quit my job, and because I had just got done working, I couldn’t get any financial aid because it was all still in the system. It wasn’t until my third semester here that I got a Pell Grant.”

Not unlike Carrillo’s schedule, the family’s finances are tight. Carrillo’s husband, Ascencion, works seven days a week as a chef in his mother in law’s restaurant to support his family.

“I also pick up odd jobs — I’m sort of a handy man, doing anything,” Ascencion Carrilo said. “My job is to bring some money home.”

Ascencion Carrillo said his schedule is flexible. Tuesday’s and Thursday’s he has kitchen duty.

“I always do something easy … something quick and simple and let’s go,” Ascencion Carrillo said. “A lot of times our child likes pancakes, and that’s kind of a treat for me to make pancakes, eggs, biscuits. Tuesday’s I have to get our child, and we cook dinner and wait for Lorelei to get home around 7 p.m. We always try to keep that time for family time.”

Lorelei Carrillo attributes her husband’s patience and tolerance to her academic sucess.

“My daughter comes first,” she said. “School usually comes second. I’m in there in between, and then he’s last. I think it’s stressful for everyone. But we have learned over the last two years that it is possible, that everyone just has to be patient.”

Lorelei Carrillo’s support system is not exclusive to her family. Jaime Mejia, associate professor in of English, is Carrillo’s professor and mentor.

Mejia first met Lorelei Carrillo two years ago when she enrolled in his American Literature course. She is currently enrolled in the third course she has taken with Mejia.

“I have had emails from her at midnight, 1 o’clock in the morning,” Mejia said. “I’m up sometimes at that time, and she’ll have questions over assignments, and I’m usually able to help her out even in those times.”

Lorelei Carrillo said her largest obstacle is not preparing for her thesis about the social relationship between Chicanos and Mexicans. Nor did she cite the $30 it takes to fill her gas tank twice a week. The largest obstacle Lorelei Carrilo said she faces is time.

“I remember at times she would go to bed at midnight, then get up at 4 o’clock in the morning and study for two hours, it was crazy,” Ascencion Carrillo said. “But those days are kind of gone. Now we have a different routine. She was working then.”