July 9 Well, now I've done it.
I've gone and officially "disenrolled" from high school. Or, the more widely used phrase, "dropped out." Okay, so now I'm a dropout. Funny, I don't feel like a dropout. I guess a piece of paper that didn't even require my signature has little to with the actual act of dropping out, because in my mind at least, I did that years ago. I can be there every day, all day, half day, on home instruction, or on another planet and the situation would be exactly the same. The presence of my physical body has very little to do with it anymore, because even that can grant me a diploma. I've known this for months, just haven't been ready to relinquish everything that has held me back... that everything being the convential route accepted by society. There's no doubt in my mind that I can be successful without a diploma; my Dad has a Ph.D. and dropped out at fifteen. Many more people than the administration are willing to admit have deviated from the educational standard, and have ended up doing quite well. As much as it might pain them to fathom the thought that I won't be scooping ice cream until the end of my days.
Also today, I registered for my Good Enough Dilpoma, more commonly referred to as the GED. It seems that there's a three and a half month waiting period to be spent regretting my decision in light of its irrevocability. That said, I'll be taking the retard-proof test on October 20. I guess I'll just have to nonmatriculate until five years from now when I get my scores back. And I haven't even gotten my final report card yet. Gotta love the system...
On the brighter side of things, my college course began today. English Composition 1, English 101, it's all the same deal. It'll be from 6:30 until 8 four nights a week, which isn't bad at all. I really like the teacher a lot, he seems like a cool guy. I was skeptical when I picked up a handout reading "MLA Rules", as the MLA Handbook is surely the work of the devil. It turns out that he feels the same way toward the ever-changing, overpriced publication, and that's exactly why he condensed three hundred pages of bullshit into twenty simple guidelines. I can deal with that. Michael, as he asks to be called, is unlike any other teacher I've encountered, which makes perfect sense since I've never encountered an instructor of college level courses prior to today. One of the first things he said is that "most teachers suck." Agreed. He said something to the extent of: They do little more than fill students' minds with bullshit and pass them on regardless of progress, can't tell a plagerized paper from a real one and probably don't care either way, are usually incredibly stupid, and just plain suck. A lot. I think it was then that I realized that I'm really going to enjoy this class, and officially welcomed myself to college (albeit community) level education.
He said that the book we'll be reading and reading again is George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion". This is ironic, because it's one of a couple from English 3 that I was required to read but didn't, because fuck, who hasn't seen "My Fair Lady?" The only problem I see is trying to write papers of exactly one page, consisting of four paragraphs of four sentences each. I suppose this is policy to reduce the bullshit factor and focus on what makes effective writing, but sheeeee-ut! How do we go from five sentence paragraphs in high school to four sentences in college? And this will force me to work on my tendency abuse commas, as, through my experience, they only lead to run-on sentences. Which could make for more than a page. Also, eight words are contraband. These words are:
1) finally
2) suddenly
3) now
4) then
5) very
6) really
7) truly
and...
8) so
My transitions! My beloved transitions! Oh, parting is such sweet sorrow. And maybe it would be a good idea to cut back on the adverb intensifiers with help from a twelve step program and avoidance of specific people, places and things.... Ok, so I'm overreacting. While I do adore transitions, he explained that we just won't need them in the papers we're writing. The first four are storytelling transitions, and we're not telling stories. And he there were no omissions of my favorites: still, however, even so, also, and on the contrary. SO... things are REALLY looking up. I guess the others can be omitted through proofreading. Maybe I can convince the talking paperclip from Microsoft Word that the evil eight aren't in the dictionary, and to underline them in red just as he does with my name (well, not since I clicked "add" during spell check).
After class I went and got some coffee with Justin. That was cool, as I was severely lacking for both a) social interaction, and b) caffeine. Killed two birds with one stone without reuniting with the clockers or setting foot inside the Rustic. Score. And Justin, who just might be reading this if he's added the crucial "i" to both my name and my URL, is a TRULY cool person, for reasons other than beating out odds of 1 to 366 (leap year) and landing the best damn birthday on the calendar. I think a lot of it has to with quality of conversation, and my intermittent ability to have one. It makes me wonder why, sometimes, I find it easier to talk to my guy friends than to my chick friends. I guess more of it has to do with my current mood and whether or not I've enclosed myself in a stultifying bubble following one of my"shut-the-world-out" moods. It happens.
Before I went out, my Dad wanted to tell me something about his a decision he's made, of course regarding his cancer. I could have ventured a guess toward exactly what it was, but having been on the verge of tears all day, I decided that it's best to wait until after I came home. I didn't want to leave the house minutes after hearing what I could have predicted, and have my mind be on that more than it already has been. My mom told me what it was when I got home, and I more glad that she told me, since I feel slightly uncomfortable completely breaking down in front of my Dad. I know he wouldn't want to worry as much as I do, and as ridiculous as it sounds, I don't want to give him anymore grief about worrying about me worrying about him. Mom said that he doesn't want to go through with the surgery or the treatment, since it seems too invasive and risky. Surgery on the throat, regardless of the credentials of the surgeon performing it, can result in his permanent inability to speak, swallow or feel partially human. He'd rather live with it than deal with disfigurement, tubes everywhere, mucous membrane-frying radiation treatments and stomach turning chemotherapy. What is there left to do if the treatment is worse than the disease? There's no way to know what the turnout will be, and how long he has.
It seems that every online journal either talks about petty shit like a cute new pair of shoes, or the damage inflicted by REALLY sick emotional traumas, like getting raped by the Maytag repairman on top of a washing machine. I've thought myself different as everyone does, search for a common ground with my head always in the clouds. I know I'm not alone in this, and should I desire to talk instead of listen, people are there. Friends that were there to save my life will surely see me through this. And of course, I'm aware that it's not about me at all. It's about my Dad, my family, and making the best of the time we have instead of counting the days.
What else is there to do?
