“I hate school.”
It was a simple motto. I shared it with a few of my close friends, and we used it as often as we could manage. In eleventh grade English class, we had to write a collection of poems, each in a different form. In typical melodramatic fashion, I called mine Ode to Alcatraz; each and every poem was about the mindless prison that I perceived school to be. I can hear Miss Davidson’s voice even now: “Tucker, you’re killin’ me.”
For years, both while I was breezing through high school and while I was dragging myself through college, my parents told me that I would miss education, and that I would want to pursue my education beyond my undergraduate studies, to the Masters and Ph.D levels. They thought I would be in school much of my life. I scoffed sardonically at this preposterous suggestion; as soon as I was done with school, I was done with school.