Lakeland Mirror

Issue date: 10/4/07 Section: Fun House

Media Credit: John Sieglaff

What the @#$% am I doing here? I'm almost 35 years old, I have a wife and two kids, and I am a full-time Lakeland College student.

This can't be right. I should be stocking shelves at Wal-Mart or asking people if they would like fries with their McMeal. At the very least I could be doing something respectable like selling used cars or cleaning hotel rooms. But alas here I am, a non-traditional student just trying to fit in.

Well, I'm here and all I have to do is coast through under the radar until I get my diploma…right? That was my initial plan. I just had to make it through. That plan went straight to the loo!

I didn't want to get involved on campus…I'm old and I don't have time, but somehow the Lakeland bug crept into my system. It started out innocently enough, some football players told me to join Student Association. I would have said no but, frankly, they were a lot bigger than me, so I didn't feel that I had a choice. That turned out to be a pretty good experience.

Next, I ended up in the honors program. Whoa, slow down! This is the last place that I should be. Pretending to be intelligent has been a 24-hour-a-day gig. Sometimes I think it would be easier to actually learn something than to just pretend that I learned it. I have learned, however, that wearing shirts with buttons makes a student seem smarter to professors.

So, faking my way through honors has somehow evolved into me being a writing tutor. I ain't real good at writing though. I had to pay somebody on the Internet $49.95 to write this article for me. I think I overpaid!

Now I've somehow ended up as a staff writer for this great publication. At $49.95 per article I'm going to have to get a part-time job to finance this semester on the MIRROR.

Finally, I'm running, unopposed, for president of the Student Association. I'm not sure what my odds of winning are, but they have to be close to 50/50. This, I'm not too worried about because I know of at least one President who I can out-intellectualize. Don't worry, I won't go there.

Reflecting on my involvement at Lakeland and how I deviated from my plan to coast through has taught me the greatest lesson in my life…not to listen to myself. I may not have always been good at something when I started out, but I've always worked hard and have been relatively successful. Life at Lakeland has been a blast.

Now, if only I could write as good as that John Sieglaff guy.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools