I Quit

            That's it. I'm done with Edinboro University, and I'm done with northwest Pennsylvania. This area, dear reader, is not a good place to grow up.

Bah!

             Sigh. But forgive me for not introducing myself. My name is Zach, I'm 20 years old, and I live with my family in that wretched place indicated above. More specifically in Franklin, the center of economic nowhere. There are few jobs and absolutely no place to hang out. In fact, just the other night, the best my sister, her friend, and I could come up with for a crazy night was to go to Walmart.

            I attended Edinboro University for two and a half years, majoring in Secondary Education in Social Studies. Basically I wanted to be a history teacher. But that was only part of the plan. I wanted to use my teaching job to fund journeys around the world, helping people. I wanted to be big in the field of human rights. 

           But it came to me over winter break that I hadn't learned the things I needed to learn. 

That semester, I worked hard to get good grades. I'm smart, so things like tests are easy for me. I also have ADHD, so things like attending classes are not. 

           I believe January 2nd was the fateful day. I booted up the family computer, a process which takes ten minutes at least. My mother, ever paranoid of viruses, has put every free antivirus program onto the old machine, causing it to be as slow and difficult to work with as it would be if it caught a virus in the first place. 

            Anyways, I checked my grades. All Bs, save for one. An F. 

            But it had to have been a mistake. I studied hard for that final. A few emails later, the professor informed me that it was not a mistake. I had missed seven classes, and University policy had dictated only two had been allowed. 

            Now by this time, I had hated Edinboro. The university, not the people. It was as though the university didn't care about its students. This is true of most universities, but many at least pretend. When I visited my sister's university in Mansfield, I nearly cried. It was so...nice. They seemed genuinely interested in your progress.

Bah!

           Anyway, I decided that I was, as a coworker so amazingly put it, "tired of the rat race." America is so artificial, and compared to other countries, so fake. I'm not saying I don't like this country, mind you. I just am tired of the lifestyle. This is a place where having the right paperwork will let you live your life. In Africa, paperwork doesn't get you clean water. That's a place where your daily decisions do matter, a place where, if you don't fill your daily calorie recommendation, you might not have another chance the next day. I'm tired of meaningless choices. They don't care how many classes you missed there, as long as you kept the lions away from the cows. 

SATs will not help you here.

            So now I'm off on a grandiose adventure. I'm saving up my pennies and traveling through the many places on this earth full of danger and struggle. I figured out how to travel and live at places for free. I simply volunteer. There are organizations that let you work your way over on a boat, and other organizations that will have a family take care of you as you volunteer and help them. There are just endless possibilities when it comes to travel.
           
            In a nutshell, I'm done with this life of filling in bubbles and writing essays. I'm off to live with the Maasai.