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Like I said in the last post, I moved around a lot as a kid, as well as into
adulthood, and it had an effect on my schooling. For kindergarten, my
parents sent me to a hospital academy in Springfield, Missouri. They had
some sort of connection to someone there, but as I was so young, I don’t
know much about what it was all about, nor whether it was any better than a
regular public school. I ended up moving on to that public school the next
year, though, for first and second grade. We moved to Lawrence, Kansas
before third grade, so I attended a school where we would walk through a
tunnel underneath the street, which is not all that common in Kansas, since
we tend to have more space. We moved to Overland Park a year later, so I
switched schools yet again. Then for fifth grade, they built a brand new
school in the district, and I was zoned there, while most of my peers were
not. Notice how I said peers instead of friends. The last person I could
confidently call my friend was in Springfield, and he grew up to become a
republican, so that relationship was doomed to fail eventually. Anyway, most
of the kids in my fifth grade class went to the middle school right next to
it, but they rezoned the district again, and I ended up going to the middle
school that was generally fed into from the elementary school that I went to
for fourth grade, which placed me back with all the kids I thought I would
never see again, and in many cases, hoped I wouldn’t. Funny enough, three
years later, they built a brand new high school, and most of the kids from
my middle school didn’t go there with me. I actually think we technically
lived closer to the older high school, but somebody was apparently
gerrymandering the school district. I guess it can happen in all levels of
government, eh?
After I graduated from grade school, I took a gap year. I didn’t call it
that; I doubt I even knew that that was a thing that some people did. My
parents didn’t think that I was ready for college, and they were probably
right. We didn’t know at the time that I had a diagnosable learning
disability, which led to a lack of skills in maturity and socialization,
which teachers don’t get paid enough to focus on, especially not since their
funding is often dependent upon their students’ standardized test
performance. Instead of continuing my education right away, I flew to
California, where I volunteered on a farm. The greater organization provided
livestock to developing regions of the world, and this particular location
was designed to promote awareness of their mission, and educate visitors. My
autism bit me in the ass when I was having trouble getting along with the
other volunteers, so they kicked me out. I won’t tell you what the
organization is called, but they made up these lies about how lazy I was,
and how I didn’t do any work, which anyone could see were lies, because they
kept changing their reasons. So they’re assholes, and I hate them. I’m the
type to hold a grudge, and the only reason I don’t hold more of them is
because I have a terrible memory. But I remember this traumatic experience.
I’ll never forget how they treated me, and I’ll never support them again. It
turned out to be a blessing, though, because Hurricane Katrina destroyed the
gulf states soon thereafter, and I decided to take classes with the American
Red Cross, and fly down there right away. That’s why I’ve been to Texas,
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. I went home after one round, developed
my first staph infection, got it cleared up, and then went back, this time
being assigned to Florida, so I finished out the southern row.
After that second stint with the Red Cross was done, I enrolled at my junior
college for a few classes, only one of which ultimately transferred properly
to my four-year school, which I started the following summer. It’s annoying,
really. When you do the math, I am quite certain that I could have graduated
from college in three years, extremely plausibly in two. I kept taking
summer classes, and took a full load for each term, plus I failed out an
entire semester, plus several other classes after that. If everything had
gone well, I’m really sure it could have taken me less than three years, I
just had too many credits when considering how much I had from dual
enrollment during my high school career. I failed too many courses, yet
still made it in four years, for that not to be true. If I could go back in
time, I would have graduated by the time I turned 21, I’m sure of it. In the
real timeline, I graduated in 2010 with a degree in Linguistics, barely
eking by with the minimal requirements. For the final semester, I was taking
a geography class, because I thought it would be fun, but it turned out to
be too technical, so I dropped it, and switched what I thought would be an
extra linguistics credit. I literally signed the paper on the very last day
allowed, and had to take a test with everyone else on my first day of the
new class. I aced it, by the way, even though I had zero time to so much as
open the book, so don’t act like you’re not impressed. A few weeks later, I
was talking to my advisor when I learned that I needed an A in one of my
linguistics classes and a B in the other in order to make the minimum GPA
for graduation. If I had not switched classes at the last minute, that would
have meant an entire extra term there. Thank God Geography 101 was so
boring.
I didn’t learn a whole hell of a lot in school, if I’m being honest. I know
that people will argue that I’ve retained more than I realize, but I dunno.
I did a lot more studying in the decade afterwards than I did in the four
years I was there. I did learn a valuable lesson once. In one of my
linguistics classes, I was notoriously absent. I only showed up for tests,
and other students’ presentations, because I wanted to be respectful. I
didn’t do well on the assignments, and only kept myself afloat with my
superior writing skills. That’s a bonus lesson that I learned; that
teachers’ standards for writing had to be so low that I could get an A on a
paper even if I phoned it in. Give me enough time to craft my words, and I
could probably figure out a way to convince you that liquid water was dry.
But that’s not the lesson I learned in this class; I already knew that I was
a writer by then. No, what I learned there was far more valuable, because it
applies to everyone. The other students were more interested and focused, so
they formed a study group that I was not a part of. I would like to think
that they would get up to entertaining shenanigans like the characters on
the show Community, but I will never know. Still, I benefited from their
hard work. The final exam was an open notes test, and someone in the study
group let me have a copy of their study sheet. I can’t remember how well I
did, but it was well enough to pass the class, when really, it should have
been another failure. So what did that teach me, that slacking pays off? No.
It taught me to trust and believe in others, and to accept help when it’s
needed. I don’t have to do everything all on my own, and I shouldn’t want
to. Humans are a tribal species, and community—there’s that word again—is
the only reason we have managed to advance to the point of dominating this
planet. So instead of ignoring people, or dismissing them, try to listen,
surrender to their expertise when warranted, and let’s all work together to
build a better tomorrow. No one gets through this life alone, and it would
suck if they had to.
Oh, PS, I took a few more classes over the years after getting my degree,
but we’ll talk more about that in the next post, because I signed up for
some of them in the pursuit of figuring out what I could do for a living.
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