“The Spectacular Now” — School Was Never My Strong Suit
“The Spectacular Now” begins with the movie’s protaganist, Sutter, a charming slacker with an alcohol problem and a heart of gold, writing his college essay. He knows he won’t get into college. Still though, he sits in front of his computer, stumped by the standard college-essay prompt: “Tell us about a challenge you’ve been presented with, and how you dealt with it.”
Almost four years ago, I sat in front of my computer with a similar prompt on my mind, and a blank Word document on my laptop. My dream school, The University of Texas at Austin, took the common app, and I knew my grades wouldn’t get me in. I knew I wouldn’t get in. At this moment, I was like Sutter. I was a slacker all through highschool, and even through middle school. I got my first B in the fourth grade. No matter how much my teachers pleaded with me, how many times I switched Adderall prescriptions, how much my parents guilt-tripped me, I just hated school. My GPA wouldn’t get me into UT Austin, so my college counselor told me I’d have to deliver a knockout of a college essay. She knew my saving grace in academia was creative writing, so she said that with an outstanding essay and a dash of luck I might be able to make it into the accepted list. We were both unsure, but it was worth a shot.
I kick myself when I think of how lazy I was in high school, but I also can’t really blame myself. I’ve always been frustrated by the concept that everything you do in school is rhetorical — it goes nowhere. To me, I couldn’t reconcile the fact that a 90 meant you go onto honor roll, and an 89 meant remedial English. What was that 1%? A misused semicolon? A book-report turned in a day late? If I missed mailing in my registration, that meant I would have to do another art class instead of the journalism elective? God, I should have gone to a Montessori school.
But I didn’t. I was at Pace Academy, a top three prep school on the rich side of Atlanta. I do feel guilty that I was so privileged, and didn’t use it as much to my advantage as I should have. I was mediocre, at least on paper. I knew it stressed out my parents to no end that I could never really focus. That was selfish of me to not think of them, and how much they sacrificed to send me to a good school.
But, at the same time, Miles Kessler’s family owned Rooms-To-Go and donated yearly to the Pace fund. He had the same GPA as me. Somehow, he ended up on the dean’s list and graduated with honors though. How am I supposed to respect a system that allows for that?
What I knew I had on these kids though, is that I had dealt with life. A lot of kids complain about college apps because they feel like they can’t be responsible for knowing who they are yet. I may not have been able to memorize Enlightenment thinkers, but boy, I sure had a sense of myself. By the age of seventeen, I had looked death in the face. I had caught my own mom cheating and had to deal with that confrontation, resulting in my parents’ divorce. I had earnestly believed in God up until I couldn’t anymore. I found my love of writing, and worked my ass off over a summer to get my first byline with Paste Magazine at the age of sixteen. I knew passion, I knew hard work, I knew pain, and I knew how to be grateful. Unfortunately, none of those experiences could be uploaded into the Common App’s website.
This seems to be the rationalization of Sutter’s complacency in “The Spectacular Now.” He continues to assert that instead of focusing on school, he’s living in the now. He’s going to every party, he’s dating the hottest girl in school, he’s the lovable class clown. This wasn’t exactly my story, but I definitely felt similarly. Why on earth would I waste my time learning the lifespan of mitochondria, when I had known exactly what I wanted to do since I learned how to make my first metaphor? What was the point in wasting my time?
I sat before my computer, late night at my dad’s house, staring at a blank screen, knowing that I had to convey that message in 500 words or under. It was a challenge I enjoyed, one that felt meant for me. I didn’t have to force a conflict — I had been through them.
“One of the things I like most about you is that you don’t let what you’ve been through define you,” my college counselor, who had been acting as a quasi-therapist, told me. “Write about something hard, sure. But tell us how you were able to move on. Brag about yourself. Tell them about how while you might not have job-application qualities, you’re stacked with wedding-toast qualities.”
I was applying for UT Austin’s journalism school, with a certificate in Music Business. All the sudden, it hit me that I would need to write this like a real music journalist would. I channelled Chuck Klosterman, Michael Azerrad, Jessica Hopper. All the ones I looked up to. I started typing with an angry ferocity that only comes when I really know what I’m talking about. I came up with this:
I got rejected from UT Austin a couple months later. In the online portal where I checked my application’s status, a rejection letter appeared where their software glitched, and they addressed their apologies to “Applicant 5431–9076.” After a lot of crying, a lot of throwing out Longhorn paraphernalia, and a lot of furious diary-writing about broken dreams, I moved on.
I look back at this essay and I cringe at a lot of the writing, but for the most part it still holds up. I still feel proud that I made my own way through school, even though my GPA idles at a steady mediocre. This is a weird thing to look back on, because I don’t really feel like I’ve changed that much this way. I work so hard in everything except for school, it seems some times. The song “Late” by Kanye West comes to mind, where addresses his own issues with the school process. He raps: “Made it to school with barely ‘nuff time to sign in/Yeah I hear the alarm, yeah I hear you mom/Yeah yeah I don’t wan’ be broke when I’m 31/They said the best classes go to the fastest
/Sorry Mr. West there’s no good classes, and that’s what yo’ ass get/Not even electives?/Not even prerequits?/You mean I missed my major by a couple of seconds?”
I’m grateful and proud though that I’ve always learned how to go my own way, and part of that has been through living in that spectacular now. I graduated, I went to college, I did it my way. Even when I didn’t necessarily want to.