Elevate: Patience Bookout

Timothy Webb: Thank you all for joining us today here on Elevate, broadcasting from the Razorback Camper Sales Studio. This National Park College podcast highlights a different Nighthawk with each episode. We'll talk about their journey, challenges, key moments of success, their moments of elevation, leveling up and overcoming. I'm Timothy Webb, your host, and I'd like to welcome to the program, Patience Bookout. Thanks for joining me today. Patience Bookout: Nice to be here. Thank you. Timothy Webb: All right. Patience Bookout. What's it like having such a cool name? Patience Bookout: You get asked the same question every day. Timothy Webb: What's that? Patience Bookout: Do you have patience? Timothy Webb: Oh my gosh. Patience Bookout: It's not an original joke anymore. Timothy Webb: So tell us a little bit about yourself, Patience. Patience Bookout: I'm currently 26 years old. I graduated from Hot Springs High School in 2016. I was born in Louisiana, but I've lived here for about half my life since I was 12. Timothy Webb: Patience, you're a National Park art student, is that correct? Patience Bookout: Uh-huh. Timothy Webb: So you're majoring in- Patience Bookout: Graphic design, but I'm going to be switching to the four year degree, so I'll be getting my Associates of Arts here. This is just how it was explained it to by my teachers. Once I have that, I can transfer to UALR and then finish up a degree there. Timothy Webb: Okay, so you're going to do a two plus two with UALR. I see. Patience Bookout: It's going to take a while because I'm not going to be able to go move to a Little Rock. It's going to be really hard. Timothy Webb: As a Trojan myself, I go to UALR. They have a lot of online courses, so you may not necessarily have to move there. I don't go on campus. Patience Bookout: Well, I'm going to be an art student, so I figured I'd need to at least show up there. Timothy Webb: Yeah. So why did you choose the field of art and graphic design? Patience Bookout: Well, it's something I've always liked. People say I've always been good at art and I like to create my own stories and worlds. I want to get better at writing because I'm so scared of writing because I'm afraid I'm going to do something wrong, say something wrong or it's not going to come out right. But I kind of just want to illustrate some stories. Timothy Webb: What kind of stories do you like to write? Patience Bookout: I have these two cats and I always came up with this story of them. I was one of those people that read Warriors and I never really considered them as warriors. I kind of just ended up making their own story, what they were doing and how they interact with other cats and other animals around the neighborhood when we're not home because they go in and out as they please. Timothy Webb: Okay. Yeah. Patience Bookout: Or they used to, now they're just old. Timothy Webb: What kind of things do they get into? Patience Bookout: Sometimes it almost seems like they take shifts, or like I said, they used to. One will stay, one will go out and then they just kind of alternate. Sometimes they do cat things, they just do cat things. They go out. Sometimes they'll kill something and bring it back and then it freaks us out and they're like, okay, so you don't like it when they're dead, so let's bring it back alive. Timothy Webb: I'm a cat person as well. That means your cat loves you when they bring you stuff back. Patience Bookout: I know, but nowadays they can't go outside because we live in an apartment now. They've gotten used to being indoors cause we have a lot of space. But now they just either lay around and when I'm home they just get into mischief. One of them likes to pass the time by knocking things off the table intentionally, just so that he can get me into the other room. And as soon as I leave, he gets into more mischief. I can't have anything on the table. Nothing is safe. Timothy Webb: What are your cat's names? Patience Bookout: Monkey and Catfish. Timothy Webb: Monkey and Catfish. Patience Bookout: They are 13 now and they are brothers. Timothy Webb: Oh wow. So they were born at the same time? Patience Bookout: Yeah, they came from the same litter, same mother. I knew them since they were little babies. Timothy Webb: So Patience, how long have you been here at National Park College? Patience Bookout: This is my first semester. Timothy Webb: Okay. How's it going so far? Patience Bookout: It's hectic. I can see why most people leave college early on. It's hard to get acclimated to so much work. And if you have a job, some people do have full-time jobs. It's hard to get your work done while you also work and then have to sleep. Timothy Webb: Right. You got to get sleep. Yep. You can't not sleep. So then you're a non-traditional student then, since you didn't come straight out of high school into college. Patience Bookout: No, I didn't know what I wanted to do exactly. I decided to go and get some life experience. So for the last few years since I graduated, I've just been in the workforce. I started off like most people, working at fast food. I worked at Wendy's and for two years and then I was let go for certain issues. Then I worked at the Atrium for three years and it broke my heart. Timothy Webb: What broke your heart? Being there, working? Patience Bookout: Working there and I loved those people. It's a assisted living facility. Timothy Webb: I see. Patience Bookout: You learn to love the people that live there and they kind of become your second grandparents, even if they don't know your name most of the time. It's kind of an awakening moment when you see people who get to this point in their life and they're not all there and then you realize this could be you one day. Timothy Webb: Yeah. Patience Bookout: And I didn't want to stay there until I had to be admitted there. Timothy Webb: Oh yeah. Patience Bookout: It was actually there while I was working, I worked in the memory care unit. I served food. That was my full time job. I served meals and took care of that particular area where they dined and it was grinding on me, day in, day out. It was my full-time job. It was all I did and there was no way of moving up. I was stuck and it was at that point, because sometimes I would sketch while I was in between doing my duties. And in that moment I realized I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. I decided I wanted to go to school. Timothy Webb: Awesome. Patience Bookout: Even if it didn't lead anywhere, in my mind I'm like, even if it didn't lead anywhere, I wanted to be able to say I went to college and I got to learn skills that I wanted to learn at least for a hobby and then build on it. Cause not everybody knows what they want to do for the rest of their life at the beginning. Timothy Webb: Right. Yeah. That's kind of what college is for is getting a taste of everything and then figuring out what you like and what you want to do with the rest of your life, isn't it? Patience Bookout: I've already learned a lot. My teachers are great. They taught me some good skills and especially on how to improve on what I already knew from art. Timothy Webb: So Patience, you kind of touched on this already, but what are some of the challenges you face as a non-traditional student? Patience Bookout: I think it's learning how to get out of my own way. I get really anxious when trying to make these kind of big decisions and how they're going to impact me financially and what's my next move? How am I going to do this schedule-wise? And then, because I planned this a year in advance. When I decided I was going to go to school, I didn't do it immediately because I had a previous experience where I wanted to go to school and I wasn't ready, even though I was accepted. It was out of state, the tuition was too much even after I had gotten the scholarship and I wasn't ready. So I pulled out and that didn't put me in a good mood for anything for a long time. It was very discouraging to go through all that work just to not do it. So I wanted to make sure that if I'm doing this, I'm doing it. So I planned, I put certain things into place as fail safes, if I could. I started building my credit. I applied early. I tried to do everything I could to hit those boxes and even still, my anxiety levels were going up. Maybe it was just my time at the Atrium where I've kind of learned, you go in always expecting the worst because then you won't be surprised when something bad happens. Timothy Webb: Oh, I see. Patience Bookout: You learn to expect the worst. I know it's horrible to think, oh, you're going to go in expecting that something's going to go bad or something's going to break. Somebody's going to get hurt. But I had to have that mentality or I would lose my mind. Timothy Webb: Again, you already kind of touched on this, but what are some of the obstacles you've had to overcome to get to this point? Patience Bookout: It was getting out of my own way and just going forth and doing it, even if I was a little scared to do it. Timothy Webb: What are the lessons you can take from all that? Patience Bookout: You don't have to do everything alone. It's good to have people in your life who believe in what you do and will be there to support you as much as they can. Timothy Webb: Well, it sounds like you've came a long way, Patience. Is there any achievements you'd like to tell us about that you're most proud of? Patience Bookout: Being here. Timothy Webb: Yeah, choosing to go to college. Patience Bookout: And wanting to stick with it. Timothy Webb: Yeah. So Patience, where did you grow up and what was it like there? What did you grow up here in Hot Springs? Patience Bookout: Well, when I was younger I lived in Bossier City, Louisiana. I don't like Louisiana. Timothy Webb: No? How come? Patience Bookout: There was a lot of crime. Timothy Webb: Oh. Patience Bookout: My parents were bail bondsmen, both of them. And whenever I wasn't with them, I was with my nanny, who was my grandmother. That's what I call her. I would say I was very sheltered, but I noticed a difference here when we came here between there. Timothy Webb: What was that difference? Patience Bookout: It felt safer. Timothy Webb: How old were you when you came here? Patience Bookout: 12 years old. Timothy Webb: 12. What's your time from 12 to 26 been like here? Patience Bookout: It's felt a little bit more freeing and it's had its ups and downs, but better than if I had stayed in Louisiana. I love my family in Louisiana. I just wouldn't want to specifically go back. Timothy Webb: Not even for a visit? Patience Bookout: I go back for visits. Visits are fine. I wouldn't want to live there. Timothy Webb: Yeah, I gotcha. I gotcha. There's a lot of places I don't want to live. Can you tell us about an influential person on your life and how they impacted your life? Patience Bookout: Oh, well there's my mom. She was the youngest of three siblings and she basically had to raise everybody because her mom worked and her dad couldn't work because he was prone to epilepsy. I think he worked when he was in his younger years, but he was just having trouble for a long time. Timothy Webb: And what kind of impact did she have on your life, your mom? Patience Bookout: She gave me everything she could. She sheltered me from a lot, but she also taught me a lot of lessons about life. And we have our differences, but I'm glad that we can sit down and have a good mom and daughter relationship. Timothy Webb: Did she inspire you to do art or anything like that? Did she give you inspiration? Patience Bookout: Yeah, she did. My father, a lot of my family, my friends, my boyfriend. Timothy Webb: So Patience, if you could give your younger self any piece of advice, what would it be? Patience Bookout: I've asked myself that question before. Everybody wishes they can go back and redo something or not say something or not do something. And then you realize if you did do that, would you still have learned the lesson from that? Would you be the person you are if you just never did anything wrong? I don't know if there's anything that I could have told me that could have affected anything else because, yeah, I've made mistakes. I've said things I wish I'd never said. I've done things I wish I've never done. But if I'd never did those things, would I have remembered not to do them? Timothy Webb: Yeah, definitely, we all have those moments. Is there any direction you would give yourself? Patience Bookout: Listen to people more. And I don't mean just on cautionary things, don't do that or make sure when you do that, you know what I mean. Listen to how other people feel more, because I feel like I was a really self-centered child and I didn't listen to enough people and just wanted to talk about what I wanted to talk about. So that's probably what I've told myself. Timothy Webb: Okay. That's good stuff. What is it about National Park College that brought you here? Patience Bookout: Well, it's close. It was fairly affordable and I thought it'd be a good way to get into continuing an educational career. Timothy Webb: Other than National Park College and art and graphic design, what are your hobbies? Patience Bookout: Sometimes I play Pokemon, just casually. Timothy Webb: Yeah, yeah. Do you have any of the old Pokemons that are going for so much money these days? Patience Bookout: Maybe. I think I have Crystals somewhere. If I still have it, there's no way I'm getting rid of it unless somebody giving me top do up. That's the first Pokemon game I ever finished. Not the first one I ever started, just the first one I ever finished. I remember how sad I was when I beat the Elite Four and the gym leader and the credits rolled, because in your mind you're like, that's it. It's over. I don't play anymore. So I actually got upset, but then I waited at the end and all of a sudden, okay, it's back home. Did it reset? I'm like, no, it didn't reset. I'm like, oh my goodness. So, huge relief. Timothy Webb: That's cool. Yeah, my son's looking for a first edition Charizard, if you got one. Patience Bookout: Oh no. Charizard's great. But yeah, my starter and that one, no, this is the thing I would've told myself, don't get Meganium, don't get Chickorita. Chickorita was great and all, but Chibi Crawler would've been better. Timothy Webb: Okay, there you go. So what is it about Pokemon that you like so much? What drew you to it? Patience Bookout: It was one of my favorite shows as a kid. And then when I found out it was actually a video game, obviously, of course, I wanted to get into it because I can play with my own Pokemon and it's one of my inspirations in art. I always drew Pokemon. I'm going to continue to draw Pokemon, but now I get to draw them better. Timothy Webb: Yeah, that's cool. Patience Bookout: I even used Pokemon as my center for 2021's Inktober. Timothy Webb: Yeah. Patience Bookout: Yeah. Timothy Webb: What was that design like? Patience Bookout: I tried to follow every prompt of those days incorporating a ghost or a dark type to go with the Halloween theme, but I wasn't able to get every day. But it was fun, because I got to start practicing a design process and I found that that design process could be applicable to my studies here when working on my art projects. Timothy Webb: So Patience, if you could talk to anybody from the past, present, or future, who would it be and why? Patience Bookout: I don't know who's in the future. Timothy Webb: That's a good point. Patience Bookout: I feel like I know this question. We all have this question. We all know the answer to this question. I just blanked. Timothy Webb: Any famous artist you'd like to talk to from the past? Ask Van Gogh why he cut his ear off? Patience Bookout: I think I know why he cut his ear off. I think it was to impress a woman or something because he was really depressed. I don't know if I want to talk to any of the artists back then. They were all crazy. They were geniuses, but they were all crazy. Timothy Webb: Yeah. Patience Bookout: I don't know. Maybe I'll talk to the younger versions of my parents. I don't know if they'd even believe me. Timothy Webb: Oh, nice. Patience Bookout: But I feel like I'd end up accidentally going into the whole back to the future scenario where I just somehow don't exist. I don't know if it's that drastic. Timothy Webb: All this talk of the past, it's only fitting I ask, what are your future plans? Patience Bookout: Well, once I get done with my two years here, I'm going to work a little bit more, build up a better portfolio, and then in about another year or two I'll finish up at UALR. Timothy Webb: What's your degree going to be at UALR? Patience Bookout: Be a bachelor's in Design, I believe. Timothy Webb: Okay. So Patience Bookout, it has been wonderful sitting down with you today. I really enjoyed talking to you today. Thank you for joining me on Elevate. Patience Bookout: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Timothy Webb: Oh yeah, it's been great. And thanks to all of you for listening to Elevate today from the Razorback Camper Sales Studio. New episodes are released each Thursday. Special thanks to National Park College and The Sentinel-Record for making this podcast possible. Until next time, this is Timothy Webb reminding you that every day is a chance to elevate.