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I was never a good student until I got into college. I was held back one year in elementary school, I barely made it through middle school and I was at about the 50% mark in my high school class. I never quite understood why it was so important to do well in school until I had already graduated.
I had the habit of procrastinating whenever I had any length of time to finish a project. I got very good at doing as little work as I could at the last minute to get a passing grade. So, when I got to my 7th grade English class one day and found out that a report was do that I hadn’t written I panicked.
The report/speech combination was supposed to be about ancient Egypt and was supposed to include a prop of some kind. Not only had I not written the report and prepared my speech but I also didn’t have a prop, what was I going to do?
Back in those days I was a big fan of Metallica. I was the kid that wore a Metallica t-shirt to school every day of the week. If I remember right I had about 18 of their shirts total at that time. One of the things I used to do was wrap my drumsticks so they looked exactly like the drum sticks that Metallica’s drummer used. The bottom of the sticks were wrapped in teal sports tape and the top and bottom of the teal tape was capped with a strip of white sports tape. I would carry a bundle of these sticks around in my backpack with me all day from class to class. Luckily this day I had my sticks with me.
I sat, listening to everyone give their speech getting more and more scared as it got closer to me. I though over and over in my head what I was going to say when I stood up, hoping I could hide the fact that this was the first time I had ever thought about it. Finally the time came. The details of what I said are all but gone, but you can bet that it wasn’t anything of substance or value.
What I do remember is at the end I unwrapped the sticky piece of white sports tape and help it up. “This is my prop, it’s an authentic piece of linen from a mummy in Egypt�?. I looked at my teacher and I could tell that she wasn’t buying it. “Where did you get that from, Evan?�?. I tried to think as quickly as I could, she hadn’t asked any of the other students where they got their props from, why is she asking me? “Uh, my aunt and uncle are archeologists and they’re currently working on a dig in Egypt�?. She nodded, still giving me a look that let me know she was on to me. It didn’t matter though, it was over and I was able to sit back down. I could feel my face filling back up with blood and I was sure that she could see my heart beating in my face as I sat down.
I’m pretty sure that I failed that project. Even though she didn’t try to prove that the “linen�? wasn’t authentic, the content of the speech alone wasn’t worth a D-.