"I'm holding on to something that used to be there, hoping it will come back."

When I first started school, I thought I had it all figured out. I was a mere freshman I walked around chin held high, chest puffed out, thinking I was top dog. Well, I was clearly wrong. I was the bottom of the heap, shining sh*t trying to pass it off as gold. I have a long list of regrets, a list of things I should and shouldn't have done, girls I chased away. But this isn't about those regrets. No, the biggest regret I have is my academics.

I was always a smart kid, yet I never applied myself. My dad had always told me I needed to apply myself more, and I never listened. And now here I am, trying to figure out how I am going to graduate. I had a meeting with the registrar and I found out that I still had 14 credits I need to take to earn my diploma. I can't believe I allowed things to get to this point. In high school, I always skated by doing the bare minimum, and I thought I could do the same thing here. This was the first time I had ever had time to do whatever I wanted in between classes. Sometimes I would skip classes to do something else because I thought it was far more important than attending. I would never ask for help because I thought I could do it all on my own.

Stupidity and arrogance have landed me to where I am today. I've never been proud of my grades and my dad would constantly ask to see them. I would hold off for as long as I could so I didn't have to show him. I was afraid he wouldn't allow me to return. To be honest, he probably should have pulled me in the first sign of trouble. But he always believed that I could do better. He would plead with me to study. I never listened, because I never believed in myself the way he did. It wasn't until first-semester junior year did I finally come down from cloud nine. I wasn't on academic probation. Finally. A breath of fresh air. Then boom, second semester came and I didn't do well at all. Back on academic probation, I go and this time it was bad.

I already told you about how I had my financial aid taken away, so I won't tell you again. The last semester and part of this semester I have finally exceeded my own expectations. I have attended every class and done well on almost every test and quiz I have taken. I just wish I could go back and it all over again and do it correctly. if there's one thing you take away from this, it's that you don't do college the way that I did. I did it all wrong. I waited until it was all but too late to fix things. Now I'm putting Scotch tape on deeply rooted cracks.