I was a bright-eyed student, ready to exercise my democratic right on the behalf of Iowa State to tell our legislators to stop the budget cuts. I had my story ready: about working two jobs and still being thousands of dollars in debt. Students like me flooded the Capitol dressed in purple, red and black representing their Iowa schools proudly. We were all ready to lobby.

It was my first time talking to my legislators, but it seemed easy enough, as I found out. You fill out a yellow slip with whom you want to see and give it to the clerk. Then the clerk will see if the representative is in and can talk to you. Then he or she comes out and you talk about yourself and the issue, and they respond back. I could handle that. I was nervous, excited and worried, but I knew this was important.

I turned in my slip for Pat Murphy, my hometown legislator. The clerk said he couldn’t meet me at that moment. I was disappointed, but I wasn’t giving in. I wanted to at least talk to one person in the House of Representatives. So I signed another yellow slip to talk to someone else, someone on the Education Committee. Another no.

My excitement soon drained when in my hand were countless yellow slips and failed attempts to talk to a legislator about the issues. Too many clerks telling me that my legislator, any legislator “wasn’t in,” “was busy” or just “couldn’t see me.” I started to go down the list looking for someone to talk to.

Out of eight people I tried to talk to, only one spoke to me. Cindy Winckler, a ranking member of the Education Appropriations Committee came out of her office to see me. She urged me to keep trying and that what I was doing was important. She heard my story and appreciated what we were trying to do and agreed the cuts should stop. She spoke of the $1 billion surplus we had and gave me information to help better my lobbying. It didn’t do much to lobby to the people who agree the cuts should stop, but it made me happy that a representative talked to me.

Ahna Kruzic, my fearless columnist friend was with me, and she tried a lot harder than I did. Out of 10, she had zero people talk to her. How can our representatives represent us when they don’t talk to us?

I get it, it was lunchtime, and legislators need to eat too. So I waited and waited with no response. The students handed their slips, ready to talk. The clerks seem to shake their heads more than bring out a legislator.

Lunchtime came and went. Then around 1:30 p.m., we were told that both Republicans and Democrats were going into caucus and wouldn’t be able to talk to us. We were told it could be anywhere from “five minutes to five hours,” a clerk said. So we waited outside their office, not giving up, but clearly disappointed. We would wait. We left at 3 p.m., and they were still in caucus.

I understand they have a job to do, but it was Regents Day. They knew we were coming by the buses, they knew we were pissed at our high debt and hikes in tuition while our class sizes were growing, professors leaving and scholarships dwindling. Couldn’t they allow a break in their schedules and pencil in time to see us? To hear our stories? To see our faces?

The Negative Nancy in me said it was a conspiracy that they didn’t want to talk to us. I mean, having a caucus when there are about 100 angry college students outside your office seems pretty convenient. Nobody wants to hear how crappy of a job they are doing. The clerk said they were in caucus that morning too, only fueling my negativity.

Yes, they were probably actually doing their jobs, not cowering from us, but it was still upsetting.

I know they are busy cutting our budget and all, but if they had given a half-hour of their time to the students who took time out of class to visit them, I would have been happy.

No wonder so many students are apathetic or think their voices don’t matter when our own legislators don’t want to talk to us about what is important.

Maybe it was just bad luck and the random representatives I picked were honestly busy, but seeing so many downtrodden faces makes me think I wasn’t the only one with poor luck.

I understand that some of the legislators were actually busy, and I am extremely happy for those representatives who did talk to us. It means a lot that you took the time to talk to us and I hope you take to heart our stories. You gave us the motivation to not give up and show what we can do in a democracy.

I really hope others had better luck than I did. I know some representatives did come out of the ivory tower to see us, and that makes me believe there is hope.

I am not giving up, but I am a whole lot more realistic when it comes to making a difference and lobbying.