(no subject)

[johnnysorrow]

In a little over 4 hours from now, I become a college graduate. The first in my family, while not the first to go to college, I am the first that completed college. People keep telling me that it is a milestone in your life and that it is a rite of passage. While I agree with them, it is not the only rite of passage that exists. As most of you, my gentle readers know, I enlisted in the US Navy out of high school and spent four years in the Armed Forces. Which in a sense was college, but not in a traditional sense. I sat and watched week after week friends, co workers, and strangers get drummed out of the armed forces for any number of reasons. Drug use and AWOL were the biggest culprits. The Navy taught me a lot, but it also fucked me up. When I got back in 1999, I couldn't hold a job to save my life. My attitude and my work ethic were shite. Also the economy at the time and the way the job market ran didn't help either. So some two years later in April of 2001 after being laid off from Applied Materials, I swallowed my pride and went to school. Spring Quarter at De Anza College. 7 Years later at California State University East Bay I will walk with the class of 2008. Almost a full generation ahead of my "peers", but I will walk with them and enjoy this rite of passage. I will say goodbye to friends and loved ones I have met and lost while doing this and I will look forward to the future. A future in which I will be back in the fall in Open University, but a future in which I will still strive to gain knowledge and achieve my goal of Holding a PhD. But most importantly I will say goodbye to Heartbreak Ridge, the college in which all members of the Armed Forces enroll. I will also say goodbye to the person I was, because god damn does college teach you a lot of things. And for me it was all done for the low low price of 106k, to which I am on the line for a little over 40k for it. In case anybody is wondering, my favorite piece of legislation that ever past through Congress was The GI Bill. And to put it all into perspective. When I left High School, the Soviet Union had just collapsed and Russia was going into a winter in which it did not know how it was going to feed itself and Bill Clinton was starting his 3rd year as President. Also while in school, I watched a country reunify after 45 years separated and its former capital put back together with sledgehammers.

Comments

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

Ya done good. Congratulations!

[kshandra]

Congratulations, darlin'. You done good.

[themanabides.livejournal.com]

Regardless of how it treated you, thanks very much for your military service. And congratulations on taking advantage of your GI Bill before it expired (I didn't manage to do so).

And you're really only 30?

[waltzwithme.livejournal.com]

First time I've been on LJ in awhile, so let me say:

You are a rockstar, and I'm proud of you.