What the hell have I been doing?/Stranded in Dayton

I just looked up the email address of one of my former teachers from Upper School. (yes, thats what Miami Valley calls it) and was looking at the Hyde School’s website. At the top they’ve got their values dropped as marketing points: Courage, Integrity, Leadership, Curiosity, Concern.

Those are things I care about.

In a lot of ways I feel like I’m stuck in a sea of people who don’t give a shit about that. Maybe I’m being down on WSU and the Dayton area, but I feel honest in saying that. I’ve been here half of my life. (A truly depressing statistic (no honestly, I’m not playing for sympathy — I’ve been out of place here well as long as I’ve been here.)) (yes, for those of you who noticed, I’m a programmer, I make sure my parenthesis get closed properly or things just blow up or refuse to compile.)

I feel justified in feeling that I’m in a sea of people who don’t give a shit about Courage, Integrity, Leadership, Curiosity, or Concern… I’m probably one of a few people who willingly have admitted to plagiarizing. It was my junior year of Upper School, I will never do it again.

This deserves some explanation… I’ve never been a good “english” student in class. Literary analysis isn’t my strong point, coupled with my strong procrastination skills this made writing english papers incredibly difficult. During my junior year, I found one paper on the net, and purchased another one. (it was seventy-some dollars) I reworked both of these into my style a little bit more, and turned them in as my own.

My teacher graded them but noted on the comments for the trimester that they “may have been plagiarized.” I got a laugh out of this. Later that year we had a all day session on cheating, when we watched the movie Eight Men Out and discussed it in groups. I was left with the definite understanding that I had done something wrong. I took a few weeks, and talked about it with my friends. They all felt that I had gotten away with it, so I shouldn’t tell on myself.

I don’t know what exactly my thoughts were at the time, but I decided that I had to tell my teacher what happened. So I wrote him a letter and dropped it in his mailbox, and didn’t hear about it for quite a while.

A month or two later he and I talked in the hall a bit, and he said he got that letter, but he and the principal decided to do nothing about it, because they felt that I had learned a lot. (or something like that, my memory is fading a bit.) I think you’ve gotta cheat once and either get caught or turn yourself in. I know I never take credit for someone else’s work now, even miniscule parts.

But back to being stranded in Dayton… I dunno. Its really sort of depressing. I feel like in some ways I’ve had half of my life ripped out from me. I never wanted to be here in the first place, I wanted to stay in Binghamton, and because of my dad’s work I’m here. GODDAMMIT.

I guess I’m nothing if not persistent, but the more and more I look at it I know I’m not going to be able to make living here be fulfilling for me.

Okay I had an epiphany moment while writing this. I just screamed out Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs! I know sort of a strange thing to just exclaim, but when you have had a teacher that makes it a habit to work “the triangle” into at least one lecture a week you tend to remember it.

I’ve been pining at the top levels of the triangle for quite a while, meandering around the Love and Esteem parts, and once an a while getting to the Self-Actualization section.

Have I been short circuiting the process? Under the Love Needs section this site says “We need to be needed” In some ways I’ve been forcing myself to be needed, and getting a similar feeling from it, but its not the same I don’t think. I’ve forced myself into Lambda Union, Directing, and lots of other little things. I’ve identified a (valid) need and gone out to fill it. This is sort of like what my father admitted to doing at one point when he was young of soaping people’s windows, then going and getting paid to clean them. I’m creating (or finding) my own spot to be needed so I can fill it.

Dang. Thats a big idea.

How is filling a natural need different? I’m not quite sure I know, because I’m not sure when I’ve done it and identified it. All of the examples I can think of are smaller helping people in the hallways find something, or pick something up. Or a better example, is when I was helping Jenni with quitting the job. I was needed then.

Hmm… my paper writing habits are coming back now, I feel a need to put a nice conclusion on this but I can’t. So……