All throughout my days at school, “State Boards” was the relative euphemism for The Bogeyman. We were trained to fear this test. Everything we did and all the skills we learned and all the methods we were trained to apply were done so in order to appease the dark gods of the State Boards.
“At State [...]

(Continued from Part One)
I decided I would take this challenge and make it my own. To me, this was more than just a job training program. I was going to use this environment as a form of life re-training. I seated myself next to the most difficult girl in the class, in order to help [...]

20 Years ago (give or take) I was fairly destitute. No prospects and no particular aim. I had a minimum wage job that barely kept me fed and sheltered, and did nothing at all for my sense of purpose. I wanted to change things, get a little more direction, get something better. So I reflected [...]

We’re now down to hours that I’m counting. I have 10.5 hours of school left, and then I’m graduated. I am graduated and I can officially take the state boards and get licensed… and as of sometime yesterday I’ve completely checked out.
Let me clarify, when I say “checked out” I don’t mean that I’m going [...]

If you’ll pardon the pun, this list illustrates what it can be like to go to this school. I asked “Emo Teen” to make me a list of the products I needed to buy for next week’s state board mock exam (ie; The Final Practical Exam). Just a simple list, scratched onto some scrap paper [...]

Some days it seems like I’ve been here only for three or four months, other days it feels like I’ve always been here. I’ve grown to like school. At first I was really unsure, but I’ve come to enjoy the place. The experiences, the people, the whole routine. It seems odd to feel that way [...]

When I started writing about my experiences in this new school, I was a man in a class of sixteen students. That might not sound like a whole great big army of pupils, but it sure felt like it. When you think of a classroom in a regular university, you’re picturing a teacher lecturing a [...]

So today started out rather dreadfully, my first client started out wanting one haircut, then once I was completed she decided she wanted another one altogether, then one more. After three haircuts in a row I was awarded the “attaboy” that only a one-dollar tip could provide. Yepper, a single dollar. I didn’t get a [...]

This week our school participated in a student body fashion show. After more than two months of meetings and planning and brainstorming, followed by weeks of preparation and stress, all our efforts came to a close during a two-hour event. My synopsis of the event? A little stressful (but not enough to matter), a bit [...]

I’ve been spoiled in the jobs I’ve had for the last ten years. If nothing else, my decade-string of low-ceiling jobs has kept me isolated from the general public. It also kept me in small offices staffed by low numbers of young single nerdy males with no family. I haven’t been prone to catch so [...]