KNOW WORRIES #2 - "School Daze"

The second installment of my new weekly column!

School Daze

Honestly, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Like school’s not that bad. I mean, even if school isn’t your thing, you tough it out for a couple of years and then you can just move on and dream about the very worst parts of it literally every single night for the rest of your life. Wait. Listen…

School is a big deal. Kindergarten, grade school, high school, college, grad school and beyond—the school experience runs through our lives like Tom Hanks through a Dan Brown novel. And that’s no knock on Dan Brown, I legitimately love his books. Honestly, as a neuroscience major, there’s almost nothing I’d rather read than a revenge fantasy about some nerd’s hyper-niche education finally paying off. Symbology, huh? Good luck with that.

But I digress (see, I told you I would be doing that a lot in this column). School is something we all have in common. The good, the bad, and the terrifying. The hopes, the fears, the things we’ve learned, and the things we’ve unlearned. We’ve all been through it. It used to fill our days and now, now it fills our nights.

And we all do actually dream about it. Right? Like, that’s not just me? Have I forgotten my homework? Am I gonna miss the bus? Where are my pants? Seriously, where are my pants? Holy shit, why are my teeth falling out in Algebra? Why is there nobody else here in the classroom where I’m supposed to take my final exam?

Okay, so that last one actually happened. To me. Like actually happened. I’ve only failed two classes in my life, and one of them was very well deserved (more on the other, less deserved failure later). It was my senior year of college, and I had already fulfilled all the requirements for my major, so I was basically just taking classes for fun at that point. Wait…not fun. What’s it called when you do something you don’t like because you’ve already paid for it and don’t wanna feel cheated. Spite! That’s it. I was taking classes for spite.

Anyway, for some reason, I decided to take a graduate level course on John Milton. You know, figured I couldn’t go wrong with some light reading. Now, I’d never read any Milton before, but I was aware of him in the sense that I knew he was a writer from a long time ago. Like maybe the first writer? Idk, history is not my strong point. But books kinda are, so I thought how bad could it be? I like old books. I love the classics. I’m a man of letters. Listen…

I lasted two (2) classes. I’ve never read anything so dense and undecipherable and self-serious in my life, and I still haven’t, because I didn’t read any of that shit back then either. But the way I looked at it, I was basically paying for a grade anyway. So if I could get that same grade, which I already paid for, without actually going to class, well then that would be some even spitier spite. Like graduate level spite.

Now, this particular class’s grade was comprised of pop quizzes, which accounted for 10%, and the final exam, which accounted for the other 90%. Now, I’m a man of letters (I really like saying that), so I figured this was gonna be as easy A minus. I mean, I can write my way out of anything, right? So, I’ll just never go to class, sacrifice the quizzes, and knock the final out of the park. And as for Milton himself, I can just buy the Cliff’s Notes, right? Nobody actually reads this shit, right? Listen…

I did buy those Cliff’s notes. And I did actually read them. And I was ready to bullshit my way through whatever questions might come across my desk. Like, I didn’t even get stoned that morning. In college. That’s how dedicated I was to seeing this through. I was ready, I was loose, I was uncharacteristically sober. And when I arrived at the designated time and place, there was nobody and nothing there except a note on the chalkboard. Just one little note. And that note read…

Please leave your take-home exams on the desk. Have a great summer.

Listen…

What could I do but laugh? I mean, I cried, so I guess that was an option too. And then I calculated what my GPA would be after taking that F to the dome, and when I realized I would still be able to graduate, I laughed again. And then I got extremely stoned. Like graduate level stoned. And then I cried some more. And the funniest part about allll of that is that it’s literally a perfect allegory for Paradise Lost, Milton’s seminal work.

Okay, that last part isn’t true at all, but I had you going, didn’t I? See, you didn’t read that shit either, so don’t judge me. We’re all the same, and we’ve all had our struggles in school, and literally none of us have ever actually read any Milton.

But Jonathan, I hear you ask. What about the second class you failed?

The second class I failed was also senior year of college. Big year for me. Big year. It was Economics 101, and the final exam was 70% of the grade, and sure, I didn’t really go to class this time either, but in the spirit of the material, there was just too much supply and so little demand for it.

But I had learned my lesson. I was three months older and much wiser, and I read the whole textbook. I even studied and I made sure there was no take-home exam. I was locked and loaded and ready to go…and then I got food poisoning. The night before an 8:00AM exam. And not the kind of food poisoning that you lie about to get out of taking a test, either. Real deal, grip it and rip it, sweet baby Jesus, what have I done to deserve this food poisoning.

That’s it. That’s the story. The end. There’s no lesson here except never trust a midnight turkey hoagie from the wawa at William and Mary. I’m sure my professor would’ve allowed me to reschedule, but I was full of spite and spoiled turkey, and that exam was the very last thing I had to do in my college career, so I was gonna take it that morning even if it killed me. And honestly, it almost did.

But through spite, all things are possible. So, I showed up. Praise be. And when I went to get my exam from my professor, he said, and I quote, “Jesus Christ kid, are you okay?” I said “Nope,” took the exam from him anyway, and immediately brought it into the bathroom with me, because that was the only way I was ever going to finish it on time.

Now, I’m not a particularly religious person, but food poisoning has a way of making a man pray. We’ve all been there—curled up in a fetal position on a bathroom floor wishing for the sweet release of death. Dying of dehydration and drinking water only to undrink it minutes later in one of two equally horrifying ways. It’s a whole scene. Now, throw an econ final and a public university hall bathroom into that mix, and you’ve got yourself one standard deviation of fuck this.

So, once again, I calculated if I would still be able to graduate with another big fat F, and that was the last bit of math I ever did in economics, let alone college. And that’s literally how my school experience ended after fifteen years of the stuff—passed out in a public bathroom stall with an unfinished exam in my hand, and both spite and probably E.coli in my heart. So, when people ask me if I had a good time at college, I say, “For the most part,” and I leave it at that.

But Jonathan, I hear you say again. What good is an ending if we don’t know the rest of the story? Omg fine, but we’re gonna do the short short version this time, so buckle up.

Kindergarten – Didn’t fail a single class. Nailed it.

First grade – Nothing. I remember nothing.

Second grade – We all had to participate in a play, and I didn’t want anything to do with it, so they dressed me up as a giant flower and had me stand there for the entire runtime. I was a carnation. A pink one. My mom still has the pictures and uses them at her discretion.

Third Grade – My best friend dumped me because he thought I was gay. Honestly, great call on his part.

Fourth Grade – Wall to wall Hardy Boys.

Fifth Grade – Was scheduled to give a presentation on the great pyramids, but I forgot to bring my homework in that day, so I had no notes to use. The teacher thought I was lying and I just didn’t prepare, so I got up there and raw-dogged it with no notes, and absolutely nailed it. She gave me a perfect score, and to this day, I still consider it my finest academic achievement.

Sixth through Eighth grade – Fully repressed.

High school – Didn’t have to wear uniforms anymore, so that’s how I found out I was colorblind.

And that, my friends, is my life in school. Was it perfect? No. Would I trade it though? Of course I would, did you not read the part about my economics final? Listen…

School is a big deal. How could it not be? It’s the glue that holds your most formative years together, and sometimes it’s the also the thing that tears them apart. It sparks our dreams and gives us nightmares, and sometimes, it even gives us food poisoning along the way. You’ll all be happy to know I’ve since made peace with Wawa and their delicious turkey hoagies, but I still can’t look at a supply and demand graph without wanting to soil myself. The body keeps the score.

And yes, the subjects we studied and the tests we took will always be important, but it’s the things we learned outsideof the classroom that really counts. So as long as those things also terrify you to this day, you can rest assured you had the good runs. Er…a good run. Listen…