It's like Bill Cosby said. You can't fight brain damage.

On Monday, one of my professors (Helena Sarkio, for the record) told me that I was the most frustrating student she’s ever had.

“We get so many kids who come through here that can’t write, and you could be a great writer if you’d just apply yourself.”

I’ve heard variations on this theme for 20-odd years.

So here you go. To make up for being lazy and getting Cs and Ds because I never saw the point in applying myself to get, you know, good grades, I’ve got A List.

(An aside: Part of the reason I’ve earned Cs and Ds throughout my schooling career is that I don’t understand the mindset of people freaking out because they got one B this semester. OMG ONE B NOW YOU’LL NEVER GET INTO HARVARD OH NOES. Calm the hell down.)

You see, it’s not that I’m lazy. It’s that I just don’t care. Math? Don’t understand it, couldn’t care less, just let me get a C so I can get on with my life. On the other hand, if I’m in a class where I’m learning something new and get to work with my hands? Hell yeah! I’m your man! Which is why I’ve aced my classes where I get to play with a camera and edit on Final Cut.

But a class where we have to write? I already KNOW how to do that. And if I’m not getting paid to do something I already know how to do well, then what’s the point? As don’t put food in my belly or keep the rent paid. If it comes down to boosting my GPA or getting my bank account into a position where it isn’t threatening to crawl under a duck, hey, sorry. Drift takes precedence.

Not putting down the concept of education or learning. I love to learn. I just prefer to do it on my own, without someone judging me. Or “grading” my progress, if you prefer.

The rent, by the way, is now a week overdue and I still don’t have my paychecks from Drift to pay it. But I digress.

So for Ms. North, Ms. Bigwood, Mr. Gordon, Ms. Hardy, Ms. Essen, Mrs. Cook (who, in 1997, told me, “Look, I know middle school sucks. High school will be worse. Just PLEASE get your work turned in so you can get through it and I promise you that college will be the best years of your life.”), that one teacher that ran Gifted at North Andrews when I was in 5th grade and I cannot for the life of me remember her name despite driving her crazy, and, yes, even for Helena Sarkio, here’s the list of what I’m going to do after I graduate to make up for me not caring about school between 1991 and 2010.

I’m going to be Ernest Hemingway:
-Catch a fish.
-Kill a bull.
-Make love to a woman.

I’m going to be Douglas Adams:
-See something on my last chance to do so.
-Learn to enjoy the “wooshing” sound deadline makes when it goes flying by.

I’m going to be Hunter S. Thompson:
-Get a fast car with no top.
-Fill it with two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.

I’m going to be some combination of Ken Keasey and Stephen Fry, in the document-a-trip-across-the-U.S. sort of way, not necessarily in the eat-acid-and-go-insane or become-an-icon-of-British-comedy sort of way.

I mean, that’s the plan, anyway. Apologies to all my teachers who’ve looked at me with that mixture of depression and regret (If only there was some way to paddle motivation into the boy! Alas, alas) but I’ll make it up to you all.

Just not in the gradebook.