srsly.

Maybe it’s more correct to say she had a major effect on my life.  Hers was the first (and indeed only) grammar/literature class I actually enjoyed.  Part of it was her good looks and youth because let’s face it, I’m a male and testosterone rules my consciousness.  However, I’m not a completely superficial person; I enjoyed the way she challenged everyone in the class equally.  No idea was more or less valid than another.  This was refreshing as it was a dramatic departure from my previous literature classes where my ideas were most often characterized as incorrect.

Out of all the comments ever written to me, the comment she wrote in my senior yearbook has had the greatest impact out of all of them and defined the next several years of my life.  Read it:

Andrew,

You have one of the most creative minds I have encountered in my 26 years of experience. I will never again eat cheetos without pondering the meaning of life…ha!

I hope you will be very selfish in the next 4-5 years and squeeze every drop of success and opportunity out of the pulp that is college.  Keep me informed and take care!

Ms. Hotty McYoungpants

I haven’t talked to her since.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself.  At the beginning of my college career I had no idea what I would end up doing.  I had a music scholarship (for percussion) as well as a tuition scholarship.  I took no fewer than 18 credits and no more than 21 credits during my undergraduate career.  This included 1 credit music classes with 3-5 rehearsals a week and 3 hour engineering classes with 2 hour labs.  After the first year I gave up on the music scholarship and declared a major in Electrical Engineering.  I had completed most of my graduation requirements by my junior year, and started work on a master’s degree during my senior year. I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2006, and my master’s in 2007, five years after I graduated from high school.

I don’t mean to brag.  I only mean to say that I thought about what Ms. Hotty McYoungpants wrote in my yearbook no less than once a month since she wrote it.  Of course there were other motivating factors, and maybe she wrote that in everybody’s yearbook.  In any case, right now I’d like nothing more than to be able to say this to her in person:

“Thank you, Jill.”