Houston...

I’d left things in rather a mess. A generous handful of Fs and Incompletes defined a transcript that spoke of utter indifference; I couldn’t remember taking half of the classes that were indicated, and of the few that I could recollect, my memories were of minimal participation and reluctant labour.

My best work had been in the invention of excuses for deadlines not met. In this regard, I had demonstrated diligence and guile - if Practicality had decided that an English degree made more sense than four years cavorting across the stage of the S.F.U. Theatre, then Destiny had made sure to keep a meddlesome hand on the wheel for what proved to be a reckless and largely joyless ride through hostile academic terrain - no subject was off-limit, no personage safe, and critically, I viewed my methodology - my performances - as necessary, as indeed they were.

House fires, drug addiction and cancer may seem laid a little thick to most, but I came alive in the delivering of these devastations. Other students, perhaps more honest, certainly less inventive, feigned scratchy throats or unmanageable workloads. I, on the other hand, was beset by calamity: held up, at gun-point, whilst waiting for a bus, for example. Understandably, under the circumstances, Leibniz’s contingencies stretched beyond the means of my shaken temperament.

Lest my boast be misconstrued, I will assure you, good reader, that these antics did little for my performance as an actual student. Whilst I was achieving some renown within the circles of my daily purview, I was precipitously falling out of favour with professors and classmates alike. My inactivity curried little more than a reputation for spotty attendance and general disregard.

Despite this, and by some miracle of averages, I dropped from the towering heights of Burnaby Mountain a scant three credits short of my degree requirements, knowing at least enough of myself to predict utter unsuitability as a professional educator. It was the Spring of 1996. I had spent four years sidestepping, albeit sometimes gracefully, most anything that one would deem a meaningful learning task; I had been required to withdraw twice, and my GPA (2.61) left one to surmise that academia and I had struck an ill bargain to begin with.

It should come as no surprise then, that the circumstances leading to my return to the bright (and costly) halls of higher learning were, if not desperate, then urgent. Alas, the details are hardly fitting for a publication of this standing; suffice it to say that the lure of questionably earned security was at the heart. I lived easily, albeit recklessly, for a good many years. Alas, when things fled to the proverbial south, I found myself adrift in a wholly unsuitable climate, unfit for a world whose rigours and responsibilities I possessed few mechanisms to soothe.

It was time, finally, to make something of myself.

To my great amazement and relief, my application for readmission was not hampered by my vast catalogue of indiscretions; and so, in the Fall of 2014, I found myself - older, humbler, and determined to make good - endeavouring once more to navigate the puzzling grid of the cavernous Academic Quadrangle, in search of a better result.

Re-entry was less than ideal. I felt, and may have appeared, as a vintage craft, that though technically rated for another mission, had been pressed into service for lack of a better suited, newer model; and this despite the concerns of the advising experts. The deep space of the lecture hall imposed itself forcefully on my stagnant intellect; the gravity, the air, the weight of expectation and purpose - these qualities imposed themselves on me, overwhelming my senses and thus endangering the very beginnings and prospects of my mission. 

My update to mission-control would not have inspired confidence; debate over the wisdom of continuing on would have erupted immediately. The cognitive scientists would have been roused for the purpose of scrutinizing my vital signs for indications of psychological anomalies. Issues of mitigated risk and rumours of impending mission abortion would have spread through the control room like a rising flood. 

I remember very little of that first lecture, only very distinctly that I did not feel capable. I felt out of place, chastised, lessened. The voice of my wasted future had spoken, matter-of-factly - not the right man for the job, it said, now run along. I may have run, in my hurry to put distance behind me, I don’t recall. Outside, still in the ghastly shadow of the experience, the riot of higher achievers moving purposefully through the concourse fanned the embers of my fragility, threatening thorough and complete system failure.

When I finally found myself stopped, far enough removed from the nexus of my emasculation to satisfy any lingering flight reactions, my thoughts ran to my mother. It is true, I believe, that much of human ambition and achievement can be credited to our basic desire to impress those beings that were largely responsible for nudging us into the world, and subsequently, in any manner of directions thereafter. Whether in gratitude, or spite, our actions find purpose in satisfying or rebuking the expectations of our parents, often despite our own wisdom and intent.

My own family dynamic is complex - replete with yawning gaps and frayed edges - but in a pinch, we coalesce, and become considerably more than under observation we might appear. And so, when I reported an honest appraisal of the morning’s events, I had to admit that the current task at hand seemed beyond my means. The weight of my misgivings had not lifted, and my voice cracked as I openly admitted that I did not think myself capable - there was too much that I had misremembered and forgotten; I lacked the skills required to move forward.

Very plainly, without emotion or pause, my father - who as it happens, had answered the phone - divested me of what I can now only describe as self-pity - “Of course you can do it. You’re smart.” It may be one of the nicest things that he has ever said to me, stark as it was, and it was immediately entered into the permanence of my consciousness. 

And of course, he was right. My brain was resisting the sudden and specific demands of scholasticism, a perfectly natural reaction - a body at rest will remain at rest - at least until acted on by an insistent force. All was unfolding as it should - the only way it could, in fact. Sure enough, over the coming days and weeks, I became re-trained, more familiar, comfortable in the skin of an academic lion. I became, perhaps not for the first time, but to a degree that I had not been able to maintain before, a determined student, a learner, a vital cog in the machine of improvement. 

Re-entry into university life was not uneventful; an otherwise stellar record was marred by philosophical disagreements over the relevancy of the literary and educational formulas that appeared, at times, mundane, predictable, and devilishly out of touch. I became known as a challenger of all things vested and canonical, to my delight; my rigour was noted, though not always in the grade book. Nevertheless, I executed a nearly flawless approach toward graduation, and had my pick of invitations to train as a professional teacher. Evidently, my resiliency impressed just enough to outweigh an uncommon litany of innumerable false launches.

And now? I learn voraciously; I pursue new and bright ideas with the appetite of one who has known famine. I crave, and answer to the craving, and in so doing, I impress on my own students the vitality and strength that is there for the taking and the giving back. I revel in their curiosities; I marvel at their inventions; I delight with every question, every challenge. I seek, after so long adrift, my place in the orbits of discovery and growth, nestling amongst the innumerable constellations of bright and shining stars.