Jen

My sister graduates from high school on Sunday. In all honesty, I think I'm more excited about her graduating then I was when it was my turn to do so three years ago. I slacked off a lot in high school. My grades weren't bad or anything, but it's safe to say I flat out did not care about high school. Besides journalism, I couldn't have cared any less if I passed the class with an A or D-. Each day was nothing but fart jokes, talking with my friends about video games, and preparing myself for another miserable night at work.

I worked between 30 and 40 hours a week in high school at Dairy Queen. While it was miserable at the time, and I hated myself every single day when I walked in there, I seriously think it was better for me that I worked as much as I did. It prepared me more for college than any piece of shit AP class could do. And I didn't have to take some stupid placement test that cost me ninety dollars. I worked with ridiculous low life adults who'd been through a marriage carousel fifteen times, or kids my age that had already been in jail enough to have a reality show based around them. At work, I was the loud kid who played baseball, skateboarded, and made fun of every customer that walked through the door. Really funny to think that I was being the one chastised and stereotyped. It's not the like work is going to directly follow me through the rest of my career. What it did was make me deal with people. Regardless of how worthless the people were, I had to coexist with them and make the restaurant work.

On the other hand, it's guaranteed that Jen has worked a lot harder then I have. Luckily she got to be the second kid put through college. My parents and I were clueless when I was filling out applications, scholarships, and the FAFSA form. Same goes for my high school counselors AKA, the most worthless, irrelevant people on the planet. Jen did well in school. I got the Core 40 diploma, she got academic honors. She got into several schools and was lucky enough to have her choice. I couldn't get into Indiana University or Indiana State, and had to settle for my third choice, Ball State (which turned out to be the best thing that could've happened to me.) She also got into the honors journalism program and got a journalism scholarship.

I guess it's just really exciting getting to be a spectator (albeit a distant spectator) this time around. Getting through college sucks, it's totally fucking gay. I'm really happy for Jen and I'm proud to say that I'm her brother. She worked her fucking ass off for four years, and has really prepared herself to do well when she comes up to Ball State next year for her freshman year. Something I can say I didn't do in high school. I was extremely lucky that I got into Ball State, and I have made the best of it since I've been up here. My GPA has steadily hovered around 3.3 and I'm one of the 0.0000001% of students that is actually going to graduate in four years.
This is probably one of the only times I actually wish she does the same.

Plus, she's gonna love her graduation present.