My Future

I’ve learned a lot today. No, it wasn’t just factual information spurted out by some “so-called-academic advisor, who likes to take pride in helping me credit herself into my future. It was those ‘you-should-have-known-but-realized-it-but-kind-of-late’ kind of deal.

Which leads me to my next point; I’m an official English major with a Creative Writing minor. I declared it today, and it hit me today just like brain-dead mutant walking into an immaculate slate of glass that he swore was never there in the first place. I spent my whole high school career mostly with one person, Christine Pacyk. Freshman year, she was my first teacher of High School who truly cared and valued the student perspective, while managing to (somewhat) keep order in the classroom in the subject of English. Hell, we’ve been mistaken as a son/mother relationship by her senior students due to: A) we have the same physical and facial features, and B) I was constantly asking for her guidance. Our student/ teacher, son/mother relationship kept growing through the 4 years. Her class was always the class I went to after school. I couldn’t do homework anywhere better than room 145. She was my therapist, my mentor, my supporter, my favorite teacher all 4 years. She allowed me to be her sidekick, an independent student, and a teacher who taught a senior Creative Writing class. I NEVER looked at her as a teacher, I viewed her as a mentor and a friend. I guess I stopped trying as hard during college because I didn’t find that faculty member at Bradley. I didn’t have any teacher here who cared about my personal feelings while keeping a friendly/professional relationship. No one could compare to the Pacyk treatment. Maybe my standards are set too high, or I’m not opening up enough to any faculty, but they just don’t give me the vibe Pacyk gave me.

To get back on track, that was the main reason why I chose English and Creative Writing. While I was messing around thinking: I can learn the traits of a Psychology Major; I let a whole semester and a half pass me by being an undecided major, while that option was there, tickling my nose. I’m glad I scratched that idea for the 30 seconds it took for me to realize it in my academic advisors office. I’m going to drop the ideas in my head and pursue what I have been doing since a little kid, writing. Writing stories, poems, journals, anything. Writing is my chance to be heard without worrying about judgment. A way to inject myself through that flimsy syringe I was terrified of at the doctor’s office.

I’m going to write, write, and write since that’s what I want to be when I grow up. Words.

Sam