I was 17 when I decided… ok settled on my next step after high school. I was rejected from nearly every school I applied (I know what you’re thinking, I have NO idea why either). But apparently just because you get your SAT score back and your Mom and Dad console you by saying, “That’s alright, Honey, it’s only a test” that doesn’t mean a thing to Bowdoin, Tufts, Bates, Colby or Conn. So you can imagine my utter shock when I wasn’t wanted by anyone. I mean not to brag or anything but I was a good kid, I won the “Leadership Award” my freshman year, they even gave me a plaque and this huge book of wildlife animals with the nicest note about how unique I was! (this book also contained a picture of a whale’s “dork”, Google it… YIKES!) Upon graduation my GPA was fairly… consistent (a few biology and pre-cal set backs), I was my school’s first female All American athlete; even my dental hygienist was impressed, having only one cavity! So, when I received that crisp cream linen papered envelope in the mail with the bold blue seal “WHEATON COLLEGE”, I knew this was my safety (literally). The school that would accept all 840 combined points of me.
Fall came and I entered what was referred to as the “Wheaton bubble”, a liberal arts microcosm tucked away in Norton, MA, or more widely known as “that school next to the Tweeter Center” or “where the PGA golf tournaments are held” (many of which I had to work 12 hour shifts with my lacrosse team for “team bonding” and Spring Break fundraising in the scorching heat or monsooning rain wearing some ridiculous neon crossing guard vest that convincingly stated “SECURITY”, upon which I was driven via golf cart to some mysterious checkpoint that I was told to “guard” some zone marked by pink tape and cones that sure as hell wouldn’t keep anyone or anything out much less the drunken middle aged men I was subjected to smile and grit my teeth at) or more recently known as, the school that Anne Curry ***ed up the Commencement Speech by naming all alums from the Wheaton in Illinois (no affiliation)…
This was Wheaton College, an institution that promised four years of academic excellence, a commitment to my leadership development and a dedication to my unique potential. Yes, it was here that I had so arduously stretched my procrastination ability down to “reading” a 500 page history book, writing and printing off a précis in 45 minutes flat, perfected the concentrated nod and take notes method to avoid a professors questions, where I mastered the culinary art of preparing a cinnamon raisin, peanut butter, banana and cape cod chip sandwich, and consumed more Sparks (an alcoholic energy drink recently banned in the state of Massachusetts) and Strawberry Andre every Saturday night with enough coherency to request my most recent jam of guilty pleasure, this was usually something from multi platinum (in the UK) recording artist Craig David with song titles like “Born to do it”, “Hot as Fire” or my personal favorite “Just Chillin” you know, real sophisticated stuff. Only to wake up Sunday morning with barely enough mobility to call my partner in crime, Alexa Jurczak and repeat my Sunday morning mantra, “I want to crawl in a hole and die”…
To my parents and grandparents whom financed this education, I want to assure you your investment was well spent. Afterall, I’ve traveled the world, now live in New York City, I have an internship, sleep on a floor bed, I bartend at a Mexican restaurant in Brooklyn...Hey! I even have a blog! These are all tangible things.. Things I can hang my hat on at the end of the day when I step back and think, could I have done ALL this without those four crucially influential years at Wheaton College???... ALL this for four easy payments of $51.999.99?!!… Sometimes Im not so sure.
brilliant
ReplyDelete