Breathing again!

I turned in my big paper yesterday, and now I'll wait to see what grades I'll get...I hate being graded, but that's another blog entry...

Now I just bought a fun book, Alone; it's supposed to be a mystery thriller. So that means I'll probably be hearing little things and sleeping with the phone next to my pillow. The alternative could be waking up from a nightmare about a paper.

Thinking Back

A few days ago I was sitting in the dentist's office waiting as usual, and I stumbled on a local magazine that featured average SAT scores at local high schools. I then began to think about my average SAT score from 1990 (www.infoplease.com/ipa/. My GPA helped that average score, and fortunately I was awarded an academic scholarship to a pretty good school. Unfortunately, I needed a $500 deposit for the dorms. I didn't really understand how the scholarship worked and knew my dad didn't have the $$$. So I called the school and told them I would not be attending in the fall. Really simple, really quick. My next call was to the U.S. Army. What I still think about often is why no one tried to stop me. I wonder why the counselor at school did not intervene. Although I was a very quiet student, my favorite teacher did not even ask me what I was doing. My parents were more worried about "Why I wanted to be a man?" than about giving up that scholarship. Moreover, why didn't I ask...I just gave up. I wonder what would have happened to me if I had gone to college right after high school...I sometimes think about this. I guess writing papers about the digital divide and access make me contemplate my own literacy and educational journey.

School in General and This Semester

I have to keep in perspective that my grades do not measure who I am and the extent of what I have learned. As I complete my final essays, the doubter in me lurks over my shoulders. The dark shadow tells me to stop revising and just turn it in 'cause it (the paper) is what it is. But I keep sitting here rewriting and rewriting trying to make it better. Sometimes I feel like it is like trying to clean up a junk yard. And I can see the finish line, can touch it. Here is where I want to just stop running/writing/thinking/ and sit on the curb. Running out of gas/flat tires/cannot go anymore...But everyone is watching me run this race and waiting for me to fall out...I am breathing so loud.