Four years ago. . .
It was four years ago yesterday, August 16, 2001, that I made the maiden voyage down to Illinois State University and came upon Wilkins Hall and went to room 411 in the West Campus Tri-Towers. Four years ago, I was just exiting high school, beginning a new life as a college student. Fast forward to four years later, I sit on Tuesday, August 16 not really knowing where I am going with life. It is so weird to think that just four years ago I was entering a new world, not knowing what the future would hold for me. . . I actually packed up my room and made it look like I was leaving Des Plaines for good. I acted as if I was done and going to move on to a new life and figure myself out. Four years later in 2005, I am back in Des Plaines, sitting in the same seat I sat in on Wednesday, August 15 wondering what would happen the next day. So many things have changed in four years it's amazing. Four years ago no August 15, I sat on the front step of my really good friend Danielle Henmueller and we talked for hours about how I was scared to move on and that she was about to be a junior! On August 15, I guess I felt like I knew that I was going to go to college, but I guess I really never went past that point. There has been like an empty void as if something is on hold because I don't have this "magic date" that I am supposed to report for class or report for anything. For the last 16 years, I have had a magic date, the "you-must-be-here" for the first day of classes. Eight years ago on August 24, I was expected to report to B-218 at Maine West High School for the first day of school. So weird that all that time has gone by, yet all those memories too. Just to even think back to all the adventures and experiences that I had at Maine West and they seem like yesterday. I can still picture the first day of school and my firs time entering Maine West - it seems like almost yesterday. In fact, when I enter through the front doors and climb the stairs to the Theatre, I still think back to August 24, 1998, when I apperared on the top of the stairs looking left seeing the "yellow hallway" then looking right and seeing the "blue hallway" and wondering "which way is B-218?" Everyday after August 24, 1998, I could walk with confidence and didn't have to stop at the top of the stairs and ponder which way - I know that B-wing is left and A-wing is right. Don't we all go through this. August 16, 2001, new setting - which way is Walmart. I remember walking onto the Quad of ISU on August 16 as there was a welcome dinner for the freshmen. Then there was Friday, August 17 - you got your email address - the matuntl@ilstu.edu that I would have for four years - and you went to your first class. Now instead of looking left and looking right at the top of stairs, I would look at a large map or a large university campus and say "Which building!?" Stevenson 232 - my first classroom experience at ISU. I would ironically enough have 4 more classes of my college career in that SAME ROOM! Amazing - I would walk into STV232, semeseter after semester and try and get there early enough to sit in the same seat and watch how the "new class" would walk in. How was it different from my Foundations of Inquiry class with Carlie Kalianov as compared to my Literary Narritive Class. Again weird - . . . Growing old, weird. It was just one year ago that I was getting ready to begin life in Peoria. What would that bring me? I would be teaching, I had no idea what I was about to walk into. All kids like me, how can they not? Boy, was I an ignorant fool . . . Little would I know that April 28 would be a day to count down to big time! In the rest of the world though, seems like life is about to turn to politics. If you want to survive in anything, you must be political. It seems as though life in the Des Plaines Park District will be extremely political to get what you want. They pawn off on the part-timer the money problems and give very little to work with resource-wise to make programs run, which my fundamental belief is that programs run a park district, from the facility focus that is currently being pushed. Yea fine, if the place does not rely on tax dollars, then be money hungry and greedy. But why the youth programs (teen programs) have to opearate on less money than we spend on a tank of chlorine! Bizarre! So seems as I will get invovled with that aspect - something I never though I would get involved with on August 16 or 24! I'm also crossing my fingers that I can score a deal with a swim team that currently uses Maine West to bring year-round swimming to Des Plaines. There is a team at Maine West that wants to expand but really has no base - so I hope to help build their program and get more kids invovled - since afterall I coach 61 of them during the summer - just am given no help in keeping the momentum going for the winter. I hope to stay involved with swimming. I sometimes wonder why I am back in Des Plaines wanting to try and play these games. Olympia was pretty much offered to me and said it was mine if I wanted it. I could have been the Head Coach for the Olympia High School Swim Team as well as the Head Coach of the Olympia Country Swimmers! All the work was done and there would be no "going through the park district." I would be working iwth programs that are well established and have strong histories and strong support from parents that the coach is in charge. Why did I give that up? For some reason, I feel like I can make things happen in Des Plaines. There is nothign in Des Plaines and I would have had something at Olympia. Oh well, maybe that's why I still am not seeking to root myself down yet with a job or a family or anything like that. Maybe there is just a sly chance that I will go back to Olympia. I really did enjoy my four years living in central Illinois. I really enjoyed becoming a part of that life - not so much as the college kid - but just living in a different world than the nutso city. Sure you had politics and all that, but it just wasn't all about greed and money and power! No wait, there was - it was just on such a smaller scale and it really didn't affect the way of life. So eight years later, I am no longer a person who is looking to survive the first day of Maine West, a city of its own. . . Then four years ago moving on to Illinois State, a city of its own - to today society and life, a city of its own! Where will I be in four years? I have NO CLUE!
Peace out,
Mike
Peace out,
Mike