Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

I was not the best student in high school.  I was never close to failing out and took Honors and AP classes, but I thought the whole grading scheme was bullshit.  Whether you did HW or not and how often you participated shouldn't matter.  Your grade should be based 100% on your test performance.  I remember some classes where you even had to turn in your notebook and you would get graded on how neat it was and whether you had the right dividers in there.  I should have just sucked it up and played there game, it wasn't like I was going to change the system.  But, I was even more stubborn and unwilling to listen to opposing view points than I am now. 

When it came time to apply for colleges, I noticed that you could apply to up to 4 State University of NY  (SUNY) schools on one application.  While most people were spending weeks and even sometimes months agonizing over college applications, I think I knocked it out in about an hour.  I believe I applied to SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Stony Brook and the SUNY Maritime College.  The first three were pretty typical large state universities with a large number of possible majors and your pretty typical college experience.  The Maritime College was different though.  Here your goal was to obtain a degree but also licensure as a third officer on a large commercial ship.  Kind of like the ship from Captain Phillips. 

It was the first school I heard back from, they offered admission and a full scholarship.  They had an admitted student's day where you toured the school, got to ride on the school's training ship and meet with various students already enrolled.  So my mom and I headed out bright and early.  As it turns out a bit too bright and early as we didn't realize that this was the day that the clocks move an hour back for Day Light savings.  Much like Clark Griswold's arrival to Wally World, we were the first one's there.  This was a while ago, but I still remember a few things very clearly.  First, it was a very impressive campus, lots of stately buildings and well maintained grounds.  Second, the school had done a great job of putting this weekend together.  There were lots of activities and it was all very informative.  Even though this was not a military organization, all students were expected to wear uniforms and there were a number of military customs like marching and saluting etc. 

Almost immediately, I knew, at least subconsciously that it wasn't for me.  Maybe it was because of my maturity level or something else, but I couldn't picture myself wearing a uniform for the next 4 years and choosing such a specific career path.  To my knowledge the graduates are typically employed, but generally you will working on a large ship.  Of course, there is some irony here that I did join the Navy - yet interestingly enough have never been to sea.  As the day went on, my feeling of unease began to become more of a panic.  Until finally at lunch it grew to be too much and I ended up just bursting into tears in front of my Mom and telling her that I didn't think I could do this.  She hugged me and told me it was OK and I didn't have to make any decisions right away and for some reason that was enough to change the whole experience.  Looking back it seems so absurd, of course I didn't have to choose.  But perhaps I had already told myself in my mind that I was going to go here, before even visiting the school because they had been the first to respond and had made such a generous offer.  It may have been because things can quickly grow inside your own head to such epic proportions because you don't have that objective outside voice telling you the one thing you needed to hear to put it all in perspective.  But, for whatever reason, the relief was instantaneous. 

The rest of the day was quite pleasant. The culminating event is a brief cruise onboard the school's training vessel and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  They told us that each summer we would take a cruise on this ship and gradually get more and more responsibility.

Of course, I did not enroll.  That day was my first and only day there and I trekked off to Buffalo to go to college and begin the next phase of my life.

 Looking back on it, perhaps it would have been fun. But it is a lonely life.  Generally you are out to Sea for six months at a time.  I am sure it would have led me to some adventures, but I have been lucky enough to have some wonderful adventures regardless.  Spending evenings playing games with the girls and thinking about the family I have now, I am so glad I could not make it through that lunch!

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