"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten," he threw at me from behind his desk. I suppose by now I should know this speech by heart, having heard it three or four times a week for my entire senior year. Sure, the words changed here or there, but the message was always the same. "You're smart, Jack, and you can go far, if you just -apply- yourself."
Apply myself? To what? Should I spend some extra time painstakingly carving my name into the bottom of a pottery piece? Should I dress out for gym? Should I bother to remember the three or four causes of World War One? Why?
"If you continue on this path you will not make it to college."
Who says I'm destined for college? They way I see it, filling my head with a bunch of useless facts is just going to make me