John Gerner - Creativa

Semester from Hell

(These were the beginning paragraphs of a college term paper entitled "Mental Illness and College, One Student's View". Unfortunately, the professor was not amused.)

September, 1978, and classes already? It seemed summer would never end, with its day-in, day-out routine of work at Busch Gardens. At Busch there were friends, excitement, and a sense of accomplishment. But now there were classes.

I hadn't realized how much I hated classes until that September. Yet there was still a respite. Someone was needed to drive a Rhine River boat on Mondays and Fridays in September, and how could I refuse? I'd cut only a couple of classes on those days, and I could catch up in October. What was there to weigh against the enjoyment of driving a Rhine River boat? Hell, what have I ever gained by going to classes anyway? There weren't many classes that I didn't spend half of the period watching the clock, mechanically writing down the major points, since you never knew when the sucker was going to put an item on the test that's not in the readings.

October came and went and I was further behind. It must have been because I was still working weekends. They became a contrast to the dull hum-drum days of classes. Difficulties appeared and I had to pull some all-nighters, with No-Doz, Dr. Pepper and M & Ms in order to write a couple of papers.

It amazed me that some of my professors could be so naive. Weren't they students once? They appeared to be saying "you took this class not because you need the credits, or because it appeared non-threatening, but because you want to journey once more down that wonderful yellow brick road to a liberal arts education. To aid you in this glorious quest you'll be reading these six books written by academians who are all trying to write like Daniel Webster, and who have no sense of humor. All of which, of course, you will love to read. In fact, your enjoyment will be of such magnitude that your frail body will be unable to hold it in any longer, and it will pour from you onto your required term paper, of which 15 to 20 pages will suffice." Unfortunately, since even the most fanatical student has yet discovered a method of reading and writing at the same time, writing those papers put me even further behind in the readings I had neglected in September.

It was not until Thanksgiving that I realized, using the colloquial saying, that "I was doomed". In the next three weeks I would have to write nine papers, and read over eight hundred pages of printed text. I became desperate, and started doing all-nighters every other night. I was drinking Dr. Pepper by the gallon and eating M & Ms by the pound. It was about this tine that McDonalds was having one of their giveaway games and I began to consume large quantities of Quarter Pounders in the dire hope that if I won $5,000 I could pay off my professors.

The reading was not too difficult, though, since it consisted of underlining the major points and later outlining them in my notes. It was the papers that were driving me up the wall. My professors kept demanding that they be creative. I felt like a drug addict going through cold turkey as I hunched over my scrawlings at three-o'clock in the morning, with a monkey jumping on my back screaming "be creative, be creative." One 15 to 20 page philosophy paper demanded that I imagine myself as an Ecotopian in the year 1999 commenting on what it was like to live in America in the 1970s. I had no desire to imagine myself as an Ecotopian in the year 1999 commenting on what it was like in America in the 1970s. I wanted to imagine myself sitting by a swimming pool in Florida, with a Pina Colada in my hand, on Christmas Day, 1978, laughing at what I was doing a month earlier. I tried to avoid them, but the more I did so, the more I realized these papers would not go away.

The forty-eight hour days began to take their toll. I was tired, nauseous, extremely tense, and very irritable. I felt victimized, hopelessly buried under the load, that my whole future hinged on them, and that I would be labeled a "failure" because I couldn't "hack it". I began to think aloud "Jesus Christ, what do they want from me? Don't they have any idea of what this is doing to me? What have I done to deserve this?" I could honestly say that if a high school senior would have approached me at that tine, said he was interested in going to William and Mary, and asked me my opinion; I would have quietly taken him by the hand, driven him up to Richmond, led him to the assembly line at the Philip Morris plant, shown him how to place the little filters on the cigarettes, patted him on the back, and said "learn to like it, kid, you'll be better off in the long run."