So, here I am. Last day at Three Rivers, just sitting in the computer lab because I finished an essay and the professor won't be there to pick it up for another 25 minutes. What better to do, I thought, than type up an entry?
I remembering arriving here. First day, had Professor Maynard, the supernuke, and right there was where the trend started. I slowly learned, from that day forward, that I was not going to meet many people at Three Rivers. I met characters. I have always felt that while I am here, I am in a staged setting, full of faces and names that don't really have much to them (at least to me) and that I would probably never talk to. Along with the few "people" that I actually met, there were an endless amount of these characters, the people that stand out in the show, while everyone else forms the backdrop and the ensemble. And though I only made maybe one lasting friendship, some of the most memorable people I have come across are these characters that I have met at this school and at Millstone, including the professor above. Call him weird, look down on him for what he wears or the way he goes about doing things, but that guy knows exactly what he wants in life and he's not going to go by anyone else's standards in doing it. You've got the security lady who doesn't know what happiness is, who can crush even a simple, awkward tall kid riding half a bike with policies that stop him from having fun (much to his short friend's amusement). You've got the "Glass House Man," who didn't even bother to learn the context of the conversation before butting in with his advice: "Hey man, if you want to smash a window in a house, don't bring a rock --- use a gun!" You've got Lantz, the sensei of all things related to flow and heat. You've got sexual freaks, a confrontational fat man, a professor who has a firetruck in his garage with the knowledge of how to deform a baby by hand, and an advisor who reigns with a Neutron Fist. Millstone, too, was a goldmine for these people. There's just something about engineers that gives them personalities unparalleled by all other professions, excluding physics teachers. I can sum up the entire summer in one quote: "Sssssssssschhhhhhh. Holy shit...that's fuckin' hot."
This is not a bad school. I know that I joke all the time about it being "high school" and simply a waiting basin for those who don't know where their life is going to take them after high school, but that's really not the case. I was done with everything when I first graduated, and I had burnt myself out on work in general. I know that if I had gone to a university away from home in the state I was in, I wouldn't have succeeded by any means. Three Rivers gave me a place to learn to focus again, to figure out why I was living, and to change my path before I had gotten past a point where I couldn't return. I am so glad that I took the time to learn how to set goals for myself again, and that I took advantage of the resources provided, at least for this last semester. Believe me, first semester I got by every test with the help of my incredible short-term memory. I'd take the review pack twenty minutes before, without having paid attention to a tidbit of information throughout each lecture, and got the image into my head. I got A's on all the quizzes, but if you asked a thing about what I was learning back then, I really couldn't tell you. If I didn't leave here at the top of my program in terms of knowledge of nuclear technology, I have certainly left a more developed person and all the better for it. It's cliche, but the education is definitely what you make it. I'm taking that with me to school next year.
So, I've reached the point where I can go turn my paper in. I'll miss the school for some of the characters that roam the halls, but memories will serve their purpose in that regard. I've made it, and it's time to move on to the next beginning. So thanks, Three Rivers. You've been swell.
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