My Realization

Well, it wasn't quite ME who originally came up with this realization, but it's very valid no less. I kinda already knew, deep down, I think, but not until I heard SOMEONE ELSE say it did I realize how true it was.

I am a student. School is where I succeed, excel, and most of all, belong. Years back, I was discussing school with my grandma when she asked if I missed it. Thinking about it only for a moment, I agreed I did, and today, hearing that ever since I finished school two years ago I've been lost and directionless, I realized that was totally true.

I've always been good in school. I get good grades, I pay attention damn well, and I've aced more tests than I can count. I've almost ALWAYS been the best student in all my classes, unless I either didn't care about the subject, or someone else was an ass kisser or OVERDID it. I've always been known as the smart kid, the one who does best on the tests, who doesn't have to study very much to ace all the exams and I do all my homework PRETTY easily and with little effort, minus all the time it took. I've just always been good in school.

The problem is, when I got OUT of school, while MOST people generally AREN'T so good at school, but then excel OUTSIDE of it, I was pretty much fucked after my final graduation two years back. I never learned how to really go out there and GET that job I worked my butt off, so to speak, and learned all that crap in school for. It was like my focus was the learning and the schooling, rather than what happens AFTER school is over. I wasn't working hard for some end goal, really, but enjoying the learning process along the way. Now I'm a student, out of school, so out of the environment where I excel, so yeah, bad times.

When I graduated, I wasn't really happy, I now remember. It sucked losing all my new friends, those I'd spent the last two years with, and it sucked the graduation before THAT one too, losing all of THOSE friends I'd spent the previous two years with. I was at ITT for four years, and I really, REALLY enjoyed my time there, even though the schooling generally sucked, minus a few awesome teachers who went above and beyond what the books told them to teach us and actually gave us real-world knowledge, cuz the entire experience was just so... easy and felt like it was meant to be.

Through high school, I never had any REAL goals for what I was gonna do after I graduated, but when they built an ITT Tech just down the road from my house, it was just... perfect. I was the first student to sign up, from what I recall, and I was pretty much the BEST damn student they had for their first four years. I watched the school grow from like two sets of students into MANY students, along with the building itself growing, and since then, has grown even further. Anyway, I learned a lot, and enjoyed my time there, but unfortunately, the degrees didn't mean shit and now I'm like $60,000+ into debt thanks to school loans (fuckin' Sallie Mae...) Awesome. Just awesome...

I don't think I would have done anything any differently had I known anyway, cuz I did enjoy it, met some good people, one of which I still work with now as we're both busting our asses every single fucking day to make ourselves successful and HOPEFULLY earn a bunch of cash in the process, to both pay off our loans and fulfill some other interests along the way.

So yeah, I'm a student at heart, I guess, so now being in the "real world" and ALSO having the economy suck fucking ass, especially here in shitty Michigan, things suck. I do miss school, I realize, and badly, and if I could go back, I probably would. I just love the entire experience of school, no matter how hard the classes, whatever the content we're learning, or whatever. School is fun, and most of all, it was one of the ONLY places where I had regular positive attention, both in my grades, my hard work, and just being smart in general.

Nowadays, seemingly no matter WHAT I do, no matter how hard I bust my ass, almost no one seems to care. It can be my writing, my photography, or anything else, really, and people just don't give a fuck, and that's sad. Really, REALLY sad. I'm now in the "real world" and apparently in the "real world" people just don't care.

That's enough for today. Time to read and forget about the "real world" for a while, cuz yeah, it sucks.