Category: mood disorders

A Treatise of What is to Come

Author: G. Collerone
Copyright: February 23, 1992
Publisher: Global Issues – Mr. Bennett

When I was graduating eighth grade, I thought high school would be hard, offering challenges that would be difficult to make. But freshman year seemed easy once I’ve gotten to know my teachers well and the work was not as difficult as I thought it would be. I’m a sophomore now and it’s more difficult to keep the grades up than it was last year. Last year I studied so much mostly so I could keep sane. Problems at home made me want to study more just so I wouldn’t think about them. Now that the problems are resolved, I’m sort of not as motivated as I was before. That doesn’t mean my grades dropped considerably, they just slipped a little bit.
My goal in life is to join the Navy and become a doctor or a researcher in the medical field. Someday I would like to find a cure for AIDS or cancer. By the time I graduate from college, I hope to have settled on a career path.
I want to join the Navy because while I was in eighth grade, I had the opportunity to tour the “U.S.S. Alwynn”. It is a frigate class ship that was docked at General Ship near my school. Captain Hess, the commanding officer, invited us to lunch and I got to sit at the captain’s table. We learned a lot about the ship and the Navy. I even got to see a torpedo. The feelings I got, made me feel I belonged in the Navy. I then decided that day to join when I got older. I knew that the Navy would pay for college and possibly medical school. If I chose that profession. The branch I would like to be in is the Reserves. The way I’d go into it would be to join an NROTC (Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps) unit at the college that I choose. Not all colleges have a NROTC unit so I have to pick one that does and hope I like it. They also offer good scholarships that will benefit my education. But the real reason I want to join the Navy is the chance to get away from home, be independent and explore the world.
Right now, I’m studying to earn A’s in every subject. If I am to get a scholarship to college, I’ll need this average. The Navy also requires high average persons to handle the high tech machines it operates. The subjects in tenth grade are tougher than they were ninth. So it’s harder to keep such a high average. After school I play basketball. The positions I play are guard and forward. I used to hate playing forward, but now I’m starting to like it. I play on the school team. Last year I also played. I was on J.V. (Junior Varsity). This year I play both JV, which is now called secondary, and Varsity. Last year, the team made it to the city and state finals. We didn’t win. Hopefully we will win. Basketball is my favorite sport. When I’m not on the court, I’m watching TV or listening to the radio. If nothing is on, I’m either reading, studying, or hanging out.
When basketball season is over, I’ll be hanging out at the social center. I am a member of the Boston Youth Network (BYN). What the program does is basically keep kids off the streets and off drugs and/or alcohol. We go on field trips, have odd jobs around the neighborhood, sports, tutoring, games, groups, and other fun things. The program is run by Laurel Lamont, who, in my opinion, is an air brain, literally. But she’s a good person. I met her this past summer at my summer job. I worked at the East Boston Playschool down at the Harborside Community School. I was a counselor’s aide. I helped take care of five to six year old kids. It was a good summer for me. I relaxed from a hard school year. I know I said that freshman year was easy, but that was the school part. The hard part was home. My parents were always arguing and having to put up with it day in and day out was pretty difficult. Then during the middle of the year, around March, my mother had enough of it and said she was getting a divorce. The way I felt then, I didn’t know exactly how to feel. Parts of me were happy, because the arguing would finally end. But other parts were sad and hurt at losing a parent, which happened to be my father. So when summer came, and I had a job, it gave me responsibility and some time away from home which I needed badly to clear my head. After a long and tiring day of working with about 30 five and six year olds, I was too beat to deal with life at home. So I just put it aside and became a little happier than I had been in a long time. But unfortunately, the summer came to an end and so did the job. Then I was stuck with it. When school started in September of this year (well last), my mom kicked my father out. Things for me seemed pretty good, well much better than they had been anyway. I miss him quite a bit. I try to see him at least 2-3 times a month. It’s kind of hard because I’m so busy. At one time in my life, before the past year, things changed so much so that it was like I hardly knew him anymore. I knew that one day something like this was going to happen, but I just didn’t think it would happen so soon. In a way I like him being away. Things are less tense. But in other ways I don’t. Since He’s been away and since he changed so much, I’m not so close to him anymore. It’s not that I love him less, because it’s quite the opposite. I love him more than a lot. It’s just that his change made us move apart instead of closer. Things are sort of the same with my mom, except we were never close. Maybe when I was a little kid, but not anymore. I’d rather have it better being apart than close because once I join the Navy, I’m not coming back. So why get close to people you’re not going to see after you graduate from high school anymore. It isn’t that my mother and I don’t get along good. Well sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t. But most of the time we do because we stay out of each other’s way.
Besides living with my mom, I also live with my two younger sisters, M and S. I’m the oldest, M is the second oldest and S is the youngest. S and I get along fine. M and I don’t. We’re always arguing and fighting and doing everything sisters do when they mad at each other. We cuss each out, cat fight, etc. We’ve been this way since we were little kids. Now that we are teenagers, we fight but not that often because we stay out of each other’s way and when we don’t we have a little (sometimes big) arguments. Other than that we get along fine.
Of my two sisters, S is the one I feel closest to. Her and I talk about everything and anything. If I have a problem, I go to her and vice-versa. Or when we just need someone to talk to, we go to each other. She’s my little sister. I take care of her and she takes care of me. M and S sometimes gets along but not always. Event though S is my little sister, she sometimes acts as my older sister. One thing that I like about her is that she makes me laugh. Whenever her and I and/ or her best friend are together, we all crack up laughing. She tells me what happened while she was in school or what happened afterwards and it’s a riot, for us anyway. I guess you can say we are more than sisters, we’re best friends. I feel more comfortable with her than my other sister and mother.
Aside from family matters and home life, things are pretty good. My best friend T, have a good friendship. We’ve been friends for thirteen years now. Through our years of friendship we’ve gotten our share of good and bad times. We got into arguments and made up the next day or the day after. The longest argument we ever had lasted a week.
When we are together we have a great time. We do almost everything together. When we were growing up, we wanted to be many things when we got older, from an auto mechanic to cable installers, to firemen to paramedics. You name it we wanted to become it. But as we got older we decided to become auto mechanics and start our own business. Things changed when I started junior high. Since he had stayed back a few years, I had started without him and we didn’t see much of each other after school. When we caught up, I was in my last year of junior high and our ways separated quite a bit. He wanted to become a police officer and I had wanted to become a doctor and join the Navy. But it didn’t affect our friendship. We exchanged career plans and started hanging out more and getting more goofier together as we didn’t so. Then in December of last year, we became girlfriend and boyfriend. We had a good relationship for a while but it didn’t last. Our feelings were different so we had to break up. We did. I think our friendship, plain old friendship is better.
I like collecting stuff. When I was thirteen, I started collecting baseball cards. I have over five hundred cards. I lost interest in collecting as I got older so I stopped. But I still have the cards. I then started collecting “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (STTNG) books. I love the books and the TV show. I’m a real trekkie (Star Trek fan). To boldly go where no one has gone before! I’ve been watching the show since it first began in 1987. I started collecting the books, manuals, pins, etc. about two or three years later. I’ve become a real fan of the whole crew, especially Wil Wheaton who is the youngest cast member. He plays Ensign Wesley Crusher. He’s also played in the movie “Stand By Me”. I’ve been such a big fan that I joined his fan club called “Wil Power”. I’ve been a member since 1989. I’ve also joined his pen pal network, which is members who want other members as pen pals. I have four pen pals, one of whom I’ve written to for a little over a year now. He’s from England and we’ve become good friends. It’s been a real good experience learning what it’s like outside Massachusetts and the US. I really like it a lot.
After high school I plan to go to college, get a pre-med degree and then medical school. Before that I am going to join the Navy. I want to go to college out of state. With the Navy, I hope to see the seas and the world. To see what the world is like and to get to know what life is like outside of Massachusetts and the United States. I don’t travel much outside of Massachusetts. The only time I’ve been out of state was to see a tour of a beer factory in New Hampshire and that was when I was 10 years old! I’ll never forget that place. It smelled nasty and was cold, very cold. It must have been like 60-70 degrees outside and zero degrees inside. I swore after that I was never going to drink beer as long as I live. Not that I could at that age, since you had to be at least 21 or older.
The way I see it, the Navy can let me be independent and self-disciplined so I can support myself and have time away from friends and family. The Navy can offer opportunities no one can match. They train you to do the job you want and pay you. No employer can do that. I’d like to be a commander some day. I hope the Navy can make that dream come true.