School. How I feel about it now. And how I felt then.

When I was in 1st grade, I had an incredible teacher named Mr. Palmore. Mr. Palmore was incredible. He was nurturing and caring. He had lots of stories to tell. And he had spent much of his life trying to be an actor. This love for performance and theater was passed on to me by way of the annual class play. He would write his own scripts and pepper the scenes with songs he wrote, or, oftentimes, parodies of popular and classic songs to fit within the script.

It was these theater experiences that would prompt me to continue performing and eventually take up dance. I still attribute Mr. Palmore’s ability with words and people, as well as his mentorship, to many of my best attributes today.

In Waldorf school, teachers move with the students as they ascend their grades, and he was still with us at grade 5. I was restless and had spent much of the previous year performing with a professional theater troupe as the lead of the performance premier of “The Garden Behind the Moon”. These experiences had opened my eyes, and I was craning my neck as far as I could. I wanted to see the world. I decided to move on from my Waldorf school to “Seabury Hall”, a college prep middle school and high school. Mr. Palmore was of course, sorry to see me go. But as I hugged him goodbye on the last day of class (as well as the rest of my classmates), I could see a glint of approval and hopefulness. I sensed he understood I needed to expand and leave my homely roots.

I can still remember walking out of the entrance exam to Seabury Hall. My hand was tired, and I simply had no idea how I had done. We hadn’t had tests at Waldorf school, and though I felt I understood the subject matter exceptionally well, the test had just seemed so limited. So inefficient and analytical.

“What did this prove?” I wondered to myself when I received the results.

I had a fantasy in my mind about this new school experience. I knew I would get a locker, and that was strangely cool for me. I couldn’t wait to customize it and wire it to be high-tech. I knew there was a cafeteria, which excited me even further. We had always packed our own lunches at Waldorf, and being able to choose between so many choices myself seemed like a dream.

These things in mind, I attended my first day of school with more enthusiasm than I had ever shown for anything in my life. My dad dropped me off, and he had patted me on the shoulder as I got out of the truck:

“I sure am proud of you, son. I hope your first day goes well. I’m sure it will.”

I walked straight to my new locker, excitedly removing the special locker supplies I had bought. This included a shelf, a mirror, some magnets (the locker door was made of aluminum), and a bright blue master-lock. I carefully locked my things inside and walked down to the assembly hall.

And for the next three years, 6th to 8th grade, I would have some of the best and worst experiences of my life.

At some points, I wanted to kill myself. Literally. Halfway through 6th grade I was brought in for a schizophrenia evaluation, and had to see the school counselor to talk about my suicidal thoughts.

“What is the main problem you are having with being alive?” the counselor asked me.

“I am trapped at Seabury for the next three years.” I told her, tears running down my face. “I just want to learn on my own. I don’t want to go to school.”

But the years went on, and I became better and better at coping. I learned to deal with the system, and though each year brought momentary challenges, my most efficient and successful strategy was simply not to try. Math was the hardest thing for me to skate by in, and at the end of 8th grade, I brought the “D” I had accumulated throughout the year up to a “B+” by hiring a tutor and acing the final exam. I wanted nothing more than to escape.

My father and I took a trip to California and Oregon to visit family and escape. We were visiting San Francisco, and exploring dance supply shops when I brought up the idea of trying to find a performing arts high school. He thought it was an okay idea just to explore, and so we did. We visited schools in San Francisco, in Los Angeles, and finally, just outside of LA, we visited Idyllwild California. A friend of the family had recommended the school, and we decided to take a special trip up just to see.

It was a majestic place. High up in the mountains of Southern California, the town of Idyllwild stood proudly like the trees that grew within it. It was small, but artsy. And just a few minutes down the road from the center of town was the “Idyllwild Arts Academy”.

I loved the school when we visited. What I loved more, however, was the concept of escaping Seabury. Escaping Maui. Escaping the life I had there, and starting over. I have learned since that a strong drive to start over is a continual thing for me, but that is for another story. I auditioned on the spot and was accepted both into the drama and dance programs. I chose dance.

I went back to Maui and finished out the summer. My parents kept double-checking at every stage. Was I sure I wanted to go? When I needed some reinforcement, I would pop open the booklet they had sent me. It was full-color and glossy, and had incredible pictures of the campus. How could I not be happy and satisfied with something like that?

My first day, I was even more excited than I had been at Seabury. My mom and I had done some traveling and she had bought tons of furniture and draping from IKEA for my dorm. My dorm-mate Brad was one I had requested. We had met over the summer on Myspace, and we got along well.

The first night I slept in my new dorm bed, I couldn’t imagine how I could be happier. How cool was this? My own life. Up in the mountains. Independent at age 14. I slept better than I had ever slept before.

Every night after that was fraught with worry, exhaustion, and hopelessness. At first I was able to bolster myself up, actively getting involved in the freshman drama around me. But within a few months, I was miserable. I had hurt my knee terribly coming down from a leap, and had needed to miss a few dance classes. I sat with my computer on my bed and looked at photos from home. I lost myself in friends photos on Myspace. I chatted with people far away I didn’t know. I liked this so much, I made myself sick.

I don’t even mean I faked being sick. I literally convinced my body it was sick so well that I forgot I was faking it. I wanted so badly to escape. If I couldn’t do it physically, I would mentally.

A few conversations with my dad later, and I realized there was a way out. I could escape. I felt lonely, depressed, borderline suicidal once again, and wanted nothing but to return to my fuzzy memories of home. This program was just too much for me. Too intense. Too isolated. Too controlling. Too much of a cage. I called my dad and told him I needed out. My sister drove up to get me two days later. Brad, my roommate, was so angry when he found out I was leaving he slammed the door so hard it fell off of its hinges. I slept in a friends dorm room that night.

I came home tattered and feeling worthless. I couldn’t survive even dance school? But I was happy to be home. I went to the beach (something I had almost never done while I was growing up) every day for two months in a row. I bought a weight set and started working out.

After a few months, though, the vacation was over. My parents were pressuring me about somehow returning to highschool. Seabury was not an option. So I came up with another plan.

Internet highschool!

Of course, internet school. What could be better for a guy like me? At that time, I didn’t even believe in ADD, let alone think that I had it. Needless to say, two weeks into internet highschool, I flunked out. No structure. Very little accountability. Too much real life available that fascinated me.

For one of the first times in my life, my parents shrugged their shoulders. How much fighting could they do? What other options were there?

It was then that I met Peta. Peta was an educator at the time, working with kids and teens with the Hui Malama learning center. I met him through a mutual acquaintance, and thought he was so interesting, I decided to base a character in my play on him. We became very quick friends, and he suggested I get my G.E.D. at Hui Malama.

It didn’t take much to sell me. Be done with highschool forever by taking a test that proved I knew everything already? What could be more perfect. My parents were slower to accept it, but Peta, through many conversations, was able to convince them that it really was an okay thing to do.

I took the G.E.D, and passed with excellent scores. I took a breathe of relief. I was done with school.

The next few years filled themselves very well. I worked for a year at a public access television station, and quickly rose in the ranks thanks to my ability to convince people I knew what I was talking about. I went from receptionist to technology director in just a few months.

After a year, I met a girl who convinced me to move to Germany. I quit my job, started a web development business (again, based on my ability to convince people I could achieve the incredible), sold all my things, and moved. The relationship went south, but my sense of adventure remained intact. I traveled for as long as I could, gradually losing discipline with my business until my client list was empty. I re-injured my knee, and had to return to the U.S. for surgery. Conveniently, I was also out of money.

I wound up back on Maui, convalescing and reading books. I read books on body language, on communication, on Psychology. As my knee improved, it became clear that I needed to start “doing something” again. I was convinced, after many conversations, on the idea of attending the local community college.

My first day was filled with enthusiasm. I made friends with everybody I was introduced to, and quickly had a thriving social circle. It was this social network that would bring me, through a mutual acquaintance, my girlfriend Chanterelle.

The classes at MCC seemed easy, but I would often do poorly on the tests. I hated doing boring projects, and as the second half of the semester approached, I found myself mentally zooming ahead of the students and the teacher’s curriculum. This simply frustrated me, and I sat mentally detached from my classes and the lectures. Knowing I could easily pass the midterms and finals, I began to begrudge the school more and more. My frustration with the school prompted my first novel, “Please Be Mind”, a psychological love story focusing around the main character’s hatred of high school.

When my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, I escaped without even trying. She had gone to California for treatment, and I went to visit her there. Its hard to think of much else when your mom is dying, and school was out of the question. On a trip back to Maui to pickup some stuff and see Chanterelle for the last time before she would join me in a month, I had an “epiphany”. I was reading “You Mean I’m Not Stupid, Crazy, Or Lazy”, a self-help book for people with ADD, and one of the case-study examples explained me perfectly. It explained how I felt frustrated for not being able to do well in school, and thus use my intellect to justify an escape.

This resonated pretty close to home, and I assumed, now that I understood this, I simply needed to try harder to focus. I needed to understand that my inability to focus was just something I had to live with. And needed to work around it. I chose the Advertising program at the school Chanterelle was planning on attending when we both moved to San Francisco, the Academy of Arts. I assumed this would be different. I had learned many things about myself. I could just work a little harder at it.

My mom passed away, and I felt a kind of liberation. For months all I could focus on was my mom’s illness and eventual death, but now I could have a life again!

I attended the first day of class with so much enthusiasm, I later found out many students nicknamed me “golden retriever”. I seemed so excited to be there.

And as the weeks went on, I managed to keep up that act. But frustration built. Sketching class was hard as hell. I never was a visual person. My paintbrush had always been words. Advertising class was challenging, and I worked hard to be the best. Marketing was the issue. I had read all of the top marketing books that summer by pundits like Seth Godin and Chris Anderson. As the class went on, I began to realize it didn’t include any new concept at all. It was horribly out of date. The teacher was fantastic, but obviously frustrated with his curriculum. I began to see the same patterns in other classes. And my faith and trust began to dwindle. The respect I had for the teachers in their roles began to decrease, and suddenly I found myself frustrated at our assigned busywork again.

All of my thoughts, my conversation with family and friends, have culminated to a realization that I am not a visual thinker. And should not be attending a program in which everything is tailored purposely for them. The new plan? Attend City College next semester. The programs that look like the least of the evils (and interesting enough for me) are Gay and Lesbian studies, and Theater classes.

But all I really want to do is write.

The problem is, I need life. I need frustration. I need challenge. My first novel was written when I was frustrated at Maui Community College. My second will be written in November, in the middle of yet another frustrating period. And most of the decent writing on this blog has happened as an outcropping of the emotion I’ve felt about my mom’s passing. Every time I have time to “just write”, it never happens.

What then is my solution? It seems I have a pattern. I get easily and repeatedly frustrated with programs and tracks. Even my own plans falter after they become the least bit routine. How can I make this constant drive for newness work for me? Without dropping out of a thousand more schools?

Anyone have the answer? You don’t have to raise your hand.

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