So, I’ve had a lot of people ask me what I plan to do with my life. Walking around the downtown mall, at a concert, or out with people, one of the first questions people often ask me is, “Are you going to college.”
Honestly, I hate answering them because along with the answer comes assumptions. I’m not a lazy person. I’m not an unskilled person, unteachable nor dumb.
My freshman year attending PVCC (Virginia) I was the passenger in a car accident. Going back for a minute, I was taking 19 credit hours and making A’s (and 2 B’s). When there was something going on with my ‘friends’ of course I’d skip class! I mean, I made sure I wasn’t skipping too many, I always found out what I missed but I figured I was having no trouble in the class, so why should I stay if something else popped up? Now, my friend, Bryan, and I were meeting some other friends at the John Paul Jones Arena to eat pizza, drink slurpies and stuff our faces with donuts (this was a normal thing for us, but this time we just started a little earlier than normal).
Anyway, we were cruising down Massie Rd (see map below) a little faster than the posted speed limit (I was the passenger). The driver of a white Audi A6 coming out of the Law School decided he wasn’t going to look both ways before crossing the road…nor actually stop at the stop sign. Bryan swerved to miss the car, drove over the median, and hit one of the steel night lamps posted all around the campus. The poll was not only seperated from the lamp part, but the huge concrete base was lifted out of the ground! Bryan did a really good job of aiming the car so the poll would hit on my side.
My right hand went through the windshield while my left went into the stereo, my knees pushed in the dashboard, and the pizza box in my lap kept me from even touching the air bag while my seatbelt popped off from the pressure (recalled). To put it simply, Bryan got air bag dust in his eyes while I was completely f**ked up. He has to get out of the car to run around the other side to pull me out of the car. I couldn’t feel my legs, nor my right side. The pizza box withstood the pressure of slowing me down from about 50mph to 0 in a split second which definitely had it’s mal-effect on my spine. I had a quick adrenalin burst as soon as I got out of the car which lasted about half a minute before I collapsed. I don’t really remember a lot after this point. I remember flashing lights, I remember seeing a blur of my dad, and this really cute girl working on the Ambulance. I don’t know how many classes I missed because I couldn’t stand up, let along walk. Eating was proving to be quite difficult. I missed about a week and a half of classes. (5 periods of each class) Now, as I mentioned earlier, I skipped a few classes. This accident pushed me WAY over my limit. The reason the school did not allow me to get away with it as an excused absence was because I had previously skipped classes. According to the school, I was irresponsible (I mean, I only had A’s and B’s… jeeze).
My first semester I had to Withdrawal Fail out of 4 of my 6 classes. For those two classes I missed quite a bit. I did not do so well on upcoming tests. I got C’s in both of those classes. So you do the math: 13 credits of 0 and 6 credits of 2 going towards my GPA. My grants were revoked, my scholarships taken away and my Stafford loan canceled. I actually received the NSF Scholarship (full tuition paid for PVCC students transferring to UVa) but that was also revoked. Pretty much a GPA of /63 is enough to discourage anyone.
This whole situation caused too much stress at home, so I decided to move out (big mistake). The following semester I took 2 classes. Both I WF’ed out of again because my girlfriend at the time, was attending school in North Carolina. She was having a mental breakdown (seriously.. going psychotic) and needed me to be there for her. I went down there for 2 weeks, racked up a $1000 debt on 2 cards for gas and food and bills I had to pay with money I wasn’t making (I’ve paid one off so far.. the other one.. not so much).
I took another class the fall semester of last year and got a B (a little confidence booster) but am still working a full time job. I decided to do something no one my age should do… I bought a new car. 13,000 loan from the bank means that the bank owns my life. Insurance is through the roof. After my accident, something clicked in my brain. I’m not afraid of getting hurt. Ive racked up so many driving tickets it’s not even funny. I wont go into all the details but I lost almost all interest in going to college part time.
This leads me to my plans for the future. I’ve sold a lot of my things, still working on getting rid of the rest. I’m enlisting in the National Guard later this week. I’ll be shipped to Lackland AFB for training which will last just under a year. When they send me home, I want to attend UVa at Wise, Virginia. The government will pay for school and I’ll get a nice bonus check which should last me a while. I will have enough in savings, if I can live reasonably and not blow the cash on useless crap, to last me a few years without needing to get a full time job. Hopefully I will be able to find a scholarship which will assist me in paying for food among other necessities.
Talk about ‘Everything happens for a reason.’
Posted by Tatum 