Week 3.
by Ben Davis
Staff Writer
I was perusing Facebook the other day and noticed that one of my friends had given up Facebook for Lent. Her status was - appropriately - “AFK, Lent.”
While I won’t use this column as a forum to discuss my own beliefs or personal doctrines, I will say that I was intrigued about giving something up for Lent. I also figured it could serve as an enhancement to my doing life.
I made a list of prospective things to give up. I wanted to make sure it was something that would positively affect my life, not something arbitrary like popping my knuckles or biting my fingernails. I had quite a few ideas listed, but there was one that was sticking out the most. It’s also the one that I wanted to do the least, confirming to myself that it was probably the right decision.
I would give up skipping class.
My five current teachers can affirm that this is probably a good idea. I’m the student that immediately turns the syllabus to the absence policy on the first day of class. And classes with teachers that don’t take attendance? Those are dangerous territory for me.
I consider myself a relatively smart guy. However, I also consider myself to be on the lazier side of the bell-curve. I scored well on my ACT, so you can imagine my surprise when I got rejected from the University of Arkansas the summer before I was supposed to start college. I hadn’t even applied anywhere else. It turns out that my 1.9 GPA wasn’t too impressive, and that colleges look at work ethic over potential intelligence. It’s a good thing UCA took me under their wing, and I’m glad I didn’t end up in Fayetteville.
Of course, before I started college I told myself that I was going to change my habits. I was done with high school and I was going to turn over a new leaf. I was going to attend every class, take thorough notes and be engaged in all discussions.
Nope.
After my first semester, I got the letter saying I was on academic probation. I needed to bring my GPA above a 2.0 or I would be kicked out. So, of course, I hit 2.0 right on the head, enabling my academic career to continue another semester. And so it went, a semester on academic probation followed by a semester off and so on and so forth. I even found out what happens when you don’t register the 2.0 requirement. They have a special class for these people called UCAN. Believe me, you don’t want to find out what it’s like.
The world is full of people that do just enough to get by, and while these people have more free time, are better at video games and get to party more, they aren’t the people that make something great of themselves. It’s taken a while but I’m learning it. I’ve learned that absence policies aren’t there to let me know how many classes I should miss, and that staying after class to ask teachers questions gives me an advantage. I haven’t quite caught on to how to conjugate Spanish verbs correctly yet, but I’m working on it.
Doing life isn’t about doing the bare minimum. I’m learning it. I just hope I’m not learning it too late.
So that’s where I’m at. No skipping class until Easter. Probably a good choice, right, Señora Barr?
