I used to joke about the purgatorial nature of community college. It's less funny now.

Yesterday was my first and last day at Salt Lake Community College. I've determined that community college is really just an elaborate scheme to punish bad students and bad teachers by way of each other. The freshman girls, obviously enjoying their emancipation from high school dress codes, were visibly freezing in their camisoles and their tiny denim shorts, chewing gum and text-messaging and glowering periodically at the professor. There was the obligatory group of guys in the back of the class who practice that bizarre, smirking mock-politeness that seems to come so naturally to them. I was on the set of some hackneyed teen movie and the only one without a copy of the script.

Western Civ was the longest fifty minutes of my life to date. Our teacher, Lolene, prefaced a long string of her personal opinions with a practiced explanation that we would be "leaving our opinions at the door", because in this class we would be discussing and analyzing the facts. Luckily there was a student in the front of the class who used her every statement as a pretext to express some outlandish and tangential opinion, peppered with unrelated names and dates so he would appear informed and well-read. Examples: "back in the 90s, Russians were all drunks... but I'm not anti-Polish or anything"; "It's like Sean Hannity puts his face next to the Statue of Liberty, and now he thinks he's up there with the Founding Fathers--his book was just like Mein Kampf".

It reminded me of street contacting homeless guys in Memphis--that degree of craziness, but spoken in an even, erudite tone by a South Asian kid with square glasses and a green canvas shoulder bag. Which was almost funnier.

As obnoxious as it was, I could have handled it; but I got home and discovered that this nonsense was going to cost eight thousand dollars. So I immediately dropped all my classes, and I'm going to apply to LDS Business College as soon as possible. It may not be a better education, but it certainly can't be worse, and it'll only cost $2600. Naturally my grandpa, who likes things planned out and consistent, is subtly galled by this development. I know, because he keeps popping in to my room to give me new reasons why SLCC isn't so bad. Not that he's even hinting that I should reconsider my decision; he just likes to dispense vague counsel. I count at least five times today, and the first two were at 6:30 and 7:00 am; he woke me up to say, "You know, eight thousand dollars really isn't that expensive, for a year of school."

My rebuttal: "Can we talk about this later?" mumbled through the pillowcase.

"Well, I'm leaving soon. It really isn't that much, it's only $2,000 a quarter."

"We've got two weeks, Grandpa... can I go back to sleep?"

"I just think you ought to think about it, that's all."

And he slowly goes back to whatever else he was doing. I can expect this routine to continue until I am successfully attending classes somewhere (and maybe a little while after that). Which may be as long as a semester. But... it's $100 a month, and I don't have to buy groceries. So I can handle it. Philippians 4:13.

--Kevin