Here's a little Gratitude for you............
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| Graduation Cap |
Well as this semester winds down there is only one last
thing for me to do and that is Graduate. Now that I have my cap and gown, I
have all the invites sent, and there is less than two weeks till commencement I
am left with the thoughts of all the things I have experienced in my college
years, and may I add I have had a lot of years. In the 1990’s I began college
at what was then known as Seminole Jr. College. I had always figured I would
goto college, I just never knew that I would take this long to do it. When I
went to Seminole I can say one of the things that I experienced was sitting in
a history class and back then there were not cell phones, so information
traveled a little slower. We even had tape decks to record the lectures. Back
to the point I was sitting in class and people were coming in and sitting down
but it was not the normal attitude in the air that most days was pretty relaxed
and friendly. Today people were talking about some building in Oklahoma City
that had blown up. I had never heard of the building and at the time people
immediately knew it was some sort of terror attack, although most of us thought
it was foreign and not domestic. Immediately after class that day I went home
and turned on the news. What most people don’t forget is that originally there
was a man known as John Doe #2, not Terry Nicoles but another man that they
never caught or believe may have never existed. I dropped out of college at the
end of that semester. One of the reasons was because I failed English comp 2
for a second time. Back in those days’ windows was not as advanced as it is
today. Spell-check was hit and miss and in my hurry to print up my final paper
in the class I didn’t print up the corrected version of the story and because
of that I failed due to too many misspelled words, thus I received and F in the
class. The previous semester I had been in a car wreck and was failed because
of too many missed days. A few years later I went back to school and took
English comp 2 again, but at that time I was more interested in drinking and
having a good time than school and I once again failed because of lack of attendance.
When I turned 31 I was dating the woman of my dreams. I was so in love and well
she dumped me. After I hung up the phone I looked at myself and thought “Wow I
am 31 years old, a bartender, and I have no education. No wonder she dumped
you. You have no future.” I became so angry that I was determined to prove her
wrong so I enrolled in a math class at Seminole St. College the next day and
started going to class. The next semester I transferred to Rose St. College and
I once again took English comp 2. Once again I failed the class and was forced
to withdraw from it. The following semester I was determined so I enrolled once
again into the same teachers class and this time I was placed into a group
project. The young students I was placed in were terrific students as well as
people. Together we came together and created a project that I am most proud of
about hate crimes. Not only were these projects part of our final grade, well
actually they were our entire grade, but they were also a competition. I loved
seeing the look in the professor’s eyes as she had to hand me my reward for
Best project. Seeing the look in her eye was important because there were some
issues that the professor and I had that I felt and still feel went far beyond
her professional boundaries. To put it bluntly I hated the professor and she
hated me, and it was absolutely no secret. After that I transferred to OU. When
I arrived at OU I was in heaven. I was at my dream school and I was finally perusing
my degree. One of the first classes I took was a class on Islamic Law by Dr.
Vishanahoff. I mention this because after my second week in class I received an
email from him that would inspire me throughout the rest of my time at OU. I received
an email and I am paraphrasing it, but the basic point was that I talked too
much and the things I had to say were dumb and if I didn’t stop I would not
pass the class. This forced me to look inward at how I project outward to
people and make changes. By the end of the semester I had received an A in the
class and to this very day Dr. Vishanahoff is one of my favorite professors. He
has no clue about how much he improved my college experience and for that I
will always be grateful to him. I took a few years off and returned in the
summer of 2013 to finish school. That summer I was introduced to the world of
Native American language. I took Cherokee. The professor was Prof. Armer. She
is one of the most amazing people I have ever met and I feel that she is truly
everything that a college classroom environment should be about. I am so
grateful for the time was able to spend in her class and all the many times she
put up with me in her class. Truly an amazing professor. With the exception of
my poetry professor all my college professors here at the University of
Oklahoma have been exceptional. Kim Roppolo, Laura Gibbs, Joe Sullivan,
Christopher Carter, Dr. K, Kenneth Hodges and the many others that have been a
part of my college career I owe a great deal of gratitude to because even
though they may not be away of it, they have helped me in my personal life.
They have each forced me to get the best out of myself and for that I thank
them and will always honor the time I was able to share with them. So what I
guess I am trying to say is that it has been a long road but I made it and I
really just want to say thank you to all my professors with the exception of my
poetry writing professor…..Thank you guys!!!!!!!!!!
Picture Attribution
By User:Fred the Oyster [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html) or CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons
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