OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

Another resource hogging flash applet thingie...click the gray background to begin loading,

photo

then navigate with arrow keys. You'll need something other than Internet Explorer.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Mirkwoood....


Mirkwoood...., originally uploaded by use2blost.
     Twenty five years ago I was asked to leave high school. I had committed an offense (Not particularly bad, I thought.), and my Father was called to the school. Not for the first time.The closed door was unusual. My father and the principal on one side, and me on the other.
     My father had been abandoned by my mother. He already had a few issues going on, and a wayward 17 year old is difficult to handle in a healthy family environment. (I suspect he may have gone bat for me, but taken the walk, so to speak. I know he was tired.) Afterward, we never discussed the interview. I was relieved. From my seventeen year perspective, I had escaped without consequences.
      I was smart. My career as a slayer of brain cells was picking up speed, but heyWTF? I had plenty. At this time in Georgia a dropout could take the GED exam, period. Classes were offered, but not compulsory like they are for teenagers today. The Friday they threw me out of school as a sophomore, I got my GED and registered for college classes. Or a college class. English 101. My father took it too. He got a B. I got an A. Oorah. This was working out pretty good. I had kicked Dad's ass...and he was happy about it. It seemed the whole issue of me being unable to hold a job had fallen by the wayside, and I was a grown up college student.
This didn't last long... the following semester I flunked out of Macon State. Then West Georgia. Then I rallied at Georgia Southern, and began to learn about Bullshit classes. Mountaineering. White Water Rafting. Scuba. Also, at this point, I could occasionally show up in a real class and perform. I would make like A, A, F. Or A, B, F. Or F, F, B. You could limp along for a while, if your mother paid cash. Mom had a guilty concience, and a new Christian husband.
      I seemed to not get the hang of life, and though some of this is not my fault, I freely admit the larger part of this was simply a lack of character. I've been working on it.
      Today, as a transfer student, I wish to enter the nursing program at Macon State with a GPA of 3.64. Macon State, where I could walk to some of my classes, denies me financial aid, based on academic performance. When I was seventeen. This seems a little hardcore, to me. I coulda cleared a felony off my record by now. It will cost me several thousand dollars more over the course of my education to attend an out-of-town school. I will probably need another vehicle, and I am scared. Plus, this problem comes as a result of being a screwup, so it makes me feel bad. I am puzzled. The money comes from the same place. The school I attend now mails me stuff telling me I have kicked academic booty...and for fifty dollars an organization of greek letters will even put a big stamp on my transcript. I shit you not. (I'm still thinking about that.)
Anyway, that's my gloomy, whiny rant. Waah.

3 comments:

  1. First that picture is stunning!

    I don't understand the whole school system either. When you are a child that is when you are most apt to screw up. And there are a lot of us that do. We end up taking GED's. Some of us pass them with flying colors.
    However, that doesn't seem to matter farther down the road. Neither does the fact that you have grown into yourself and are no longer a screw up. Or that you have learned the difference between right and wrong.
    That is a failing in the system. And it sucks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Look at all of the things you have done! You are a success, Chris. Don't be scared - be determined....

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really shouldn't bitch Jody, or worry Nicole. Just seems like the last few months have been HARD!

    ReplyDelete

Oh Yeah! Comments make my DAY!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

The occasional visitor from REALLY far away is surprisingly satisfying.