Monday, May 20, 2019

Ah college


Last blog I'll write about college, I promise.

With so much going on with my daughter's exit from the University of Colorado at Boulder and the end of tuition bills and the promise of financial freedom for my wife and I, at long last, it's hard not to think back on my own hazy and, in retrospect, lazy days at Syracuse University.

So much so that I went online and found I could retrieve my official transcript.

It cost me $12 but because I'm about to post it here on my blog it's an automatic tax deduction.

Plus, in terms of sheer self deprecating humor, the document is quite priceless.

I should note that in high school I was a pretty good student. Pretty good, despite my lackadaisical attitude. I never studied. Rarely did homework. And as several of my high school classmates can attest, never stopped cracking wise in class. Frankly I'm shocked one of my more burly teachers didn't just haul off and hit me.

I would have.

While I was able to get by on wits and good looks in high school, the same cannot be said when I ventured off to college 230 miles to the north.

To wit, I humbly submit...


Good night nurse, I'm surprised they even gave me a sheepskin. Maybe my father preceded Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and wrote out a check to the school regents. 

My cumulative GPA was a mere 2.321. I was the John McCain (a legendary bad student whose studies were also adversely effected by the presence of alcohol and women) of the class of 19__.

I failed Newswriting 205 because I couldn't pass the mandatory typing test.

And I failed Math 398 Calculus 4... because it was Math 398 Calculus 4. 

You try figuring out the area and volume of a conic hyperbola as it spins along on the y-axis and rotates on the z-axis at a speed of 3xy-7y+11. Making it even more difficult was a professor who had just migrated to the US from Islamabad and who often spoke in English and Urdu, simultaneously, or what I would call, Urdish. 

Plus it was in Syracuse, where it was always so fucking cold.

The good news is, that despite all my academic deficiencies, and there were quite a few, it did not stop me from making a decent living nor has it diminished my eligibility to join the Magnificent Men of the Illuminati.









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