Epiphany in Baltimore

Thursday, Nov. 18, 2004

Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com

Today my alma mater, Michigan State, came to the high school where I teach to try to convince our students to go there. I sat in on the event, which saw about twelve kids getting all this Spartan information. The girl who did the presentation was at MSU the same year I was, so it was cool to compare notes a bit, and even more cool to express my love of my alma mater to our students.

It made me nostalgic for college. Like many people who look back on their restless college years, I'm disappointed I didn't take better advantage of my time at State. My god, I spent a large part of my college life tipping the scales at 310 pounds! Talk about not having my priorites straight. I'd like to say I was lost in my studies, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. I skipped class all the time, and I got by with my good memory and ability to BS a paper in a few hours. It wasn't until I came into my own in some English Education classes late in my college career that I became a consistently strong student. And, even then, I never even made the Dean's List; I got a 3.48 two semesters in a row to end my undergraduate career, but that was it - a strong B student at my best, a guy who had to retake Calculus (LBS 164) and The Supreme Court (PLS 352) because I failed them the first time because of laziness (first one) or depression/illness/I-don't-even-want-to-think-about-it (the second one). Despite all this, the time was mostly good, and I look back at my time there with fondness.

Still, the meeting confirmed for me that it is Baltimore that feels like home now. I look back at pictures of the campus, and instead of the yearning to be there that I sort of felt last winter when visiting, I instead just see that as a time in my life that is best viewed from a distance. I wish I could go back in time and tap the 19- and 20-year old Epiph on the shoulder, call him a fat ass, and tell him to try a bit harder in his classes, but am pretty content with my college time - it was what it was, a mostly good time that prepared me well for the world in most ways.

No big conclusions here. It was good to think about my time at State again, to remind myself that I still bleed green, but also nice to be doing what I'm doing here. And today was a long day full of battles with students about lost papers that weren't really lost and a stressful internal dilemma about whether to pass a kid by boosting his score eight points so he is eligible to play basketball. I think you'll be surprised by what I did. I did it. Basketball practice starts every day at 5:30 pm, so kids have to stick around school for two hours before then. During this time, they go to coach class and do their homework. I made the kid sign a contract with me that he'd come to my room at least two days a week for an hour to do his work or get extra help, and that he'd be to school every day on time from here on in if I did this for him. Plus, he's boosted his grade from 30s to the 60s in the last month through hard work, and I wanted him to continue that and not get dejected. So I did it. He's playing basketball and has passed English through some finagling on my part. I hope it works out.

I have to clean my house right now, as possibly the biggest house concert of the year is tomorrow night and you can barely walk through the living room without tripping on dirty clothes or junk mail.