Educational

Education is my First Obsession

As a child, my parents moved around quite a bit. I never had long standing friends and I learned quickly that knowledge was almost as helpful as a teammate, and often it led to others wanting to befriend me. As I matured into a young adult I tried to capitalize on this as much as possible. I worked hard to successfully convince others that I was smarter than I was, and they still didn’t think I was very smart, but we work with what we have. With much repetition I formed a life time learning habit that still plagues me today.

In 1999 when I formally matriculated to Northern Michigan University, I declared my major as Pre-Med and dove into the science heavy course load and picked up some medical classes like phlebotomy and Fecal matter testing. While I enjoyed the course matter, the realization that I would be surrounded by suffering people for my career soured the idea for me of working in the medical field. At this juncture I realized my learning habit and that it was separating me from the main stream. I thought I could manage the monkey by changing my major to Education and trying to blend in, hide my growing habit in plain sight. But learning was consuming more and more of my time. Sometimes I would come to and find a book in my lap and the light still on. Some times I wouldn’t even go to bed.

Soon, I realized that I was often isolating myself to study, a complete antithesis to my original intent as a bridge to others. I felt myself increasingly alienated from the world around me. What would people thing if the knew what I was really like?

My thin mask of normality begin the wear thin as I further studied, as I turned to philosophy and literature. Unable to watch the same number episodic shows due to my dedication to the habit, I was unable to keep up on the pop culture references necessary for keeping others at ease. Soon the world around me started viewing me with caution.

From there the downward spiral was fast and consistent. I quickly landed at the bottom of the social heap and my habit became a full time occupation. At this point, I’m long past being able to return to any appearance of normality.