thomasthoughts

I never took a class in : public speaking, poetry, quantum mechanics, a musical instrument, saying good morning, saying thank you & please, holding doors or being courteous and respectful. I never took a class to be a busboy, to put up christmas lights, to rig 125 foot machines with lighting & grip equipment or fill dumpsters with the broken pieces of wrapped sets.

I graduated from Staten Island Technical HS in 2003. It’s like Bronx tech or BK tech there is a limited acceptance. MY zoned school was New Dorp HS. New Dorp HS at the time had a dropout rate of like 60%. Both of my brothers went to New Dorp. Now both of my brothers got GED’s. I was lucky to go to the other school. I still never went. At the end of the 4 years I had 196 absences total. I think there are 180 days in a school year. I used to figure out what days I would be absent by only showing up for the ‘review’ day before the test. I never did homework I only did the necessary projects. I had cutting school down to a science. I worked harder avoiding school than I would have if I’d have just went.

I was doing fine until my senior year first semester. My 1st two classes were Gym and English. I don’t need to walk laps around the track. I was playing handball every day. As a 17 year old kid I was as fit as I could be. English – I love english, obviously I write all the time, I HATED the class. SO BORING. They would dictate chapters of books I’d finished reading in 2 nights. And here I am in this so called special acceptence ’smart’ school bored out of my mind because this shit is so simple. So I failed those two classes. Now the 2nd semester comes around and I have to make up for it.

The guidance counselor who was a very nice woman and I’m pissed I can’t remember her name came up with the idea that there are night school HS classes at the school and I could finish my last semester there. I had TWO gym classes and one english class. That was my last semester of high school. Because it’s a technical school with extra curriculum built-in I already had all the other required reagents and credits to graduate except for the 2 gym and 1 english. So off I am in night school. I show up at my graduation and not one of the kids in my graduating class had seen me for 6 months.

HOW’D YOU DO THAT?

I like to do things my own way. Common sense & experience have treated me very well and I’ve learned to trust them over data forced down peoples throats.

I’ll save my one and only year at SUNY Old Westbury for another blog. Ha. I haven’t been in a classroom in 6 years. I never stopped learning!