Grade 13

Grace and I graduated from Grade 13. Yes, Grade 13. OAC to be exact.

Just a little history lesson for you kids, OAC was our fifth year of secondary school and had been around for 76 years before being axed in 2003.

Our course load involved passing six (6) Ontario Academic Credits to be eligible for university. If you didn’t have those magical six (6) credits, you were being groomed for a beautiful post-secondary future at college. Grace was on the fast-track to getting her six (6) OAC credits (but now I know she had a little calculus help from her bro to get her there) and guess who graduated with five (5) – thanks a lot Mr. Difranco. I’m sarcastically thanking Mr. Difranco because he failed me with a 47% in my sixth course. Economics. And I liked that class… a lot!

It all came down to one night of impending procrastination and a new home computer. Now, keep in mind it’s 1997, and a new home computer was bare boned compared to them today and did not have “Autosave”. (I love Autosave. It has “Autosaved” my ass a number of times over the years.)

I was writing an essay about a local high-tech company on the topic of supply and demand. It was a long document and in my books – well researched. I had about half of it hand-written on paper, but as you know all well, once you get typing it flows sometimes and that trusty paper gets put to the side.

It was late in the evening and the final essay was due the next day. I was really good at procrastinating and loved the rush of an impending deadline. That must have been foreshadowing my future career path in the deadline-driven trade of graphic design or my impending anxiety diagnosis at 25.

It is well past 11 pm and I’m in what I thought was “the homestretch”, and then… it happened. The typing JUST. STOPPED. The curser sat there, stuck solid, not flashing at me begging to deliver the next character. Just frozen. Now, I was comfortable using a computer, but I wasn’t skilled enough to troubleshoot anything. All I knew was, if you didn’t save your work, DO NOT reboot or you’ll lose everything you wrote.

Had I saved anything? Cue the crickets… and unleash the cursing. Fuck. Fuckety fuck fuck.

I frantically called my Dad (he worked in tech), and he calmly tried to walk me through un-freezing my Mom’s computer. Props to my Dad for taking the call and being my calm in the storm when he’d usually be in bed by 9 pm. “Try this…” Nothing. “Try that…” Still nothing. Then there was silence. He muttered, “Sounds like you’ll have to hard boot the computer to get out of this, but you saved your work right?” More silence. “You did save your work, right Patricia?” I’m sure my Dad could hear the tears rolling down my face because I had not saved my work in at least a couple of hours – and that’s like 15 light years in typing time. Shit. I had to let go of my negligence and see where I was able to start from… at midnight, the night before it was due.

Fast forward 8 hours.

I had only salvaged about 10 of the 30 pages I had written. I showed my Mom (who was also a high school teacher) and explained what had happened. My Mom was never really forgiving if we lacked effort towards our schoolwork – but in this instance, she knew I was downstairs for a looooong time getting this much needed credit required essay done. She kindly wrote me a note explaining the situation – back then we weren’t granted extensions, you either delivered or you failed.

Mr. Difranco could see my weary tired face in class that day. I waited until after all the students left and gave him my note. He looked at me and just said, “It’s too late.” He wouldn’t accept it. I was crushed. Even with a note from my Mom a phone call from my Dad, nothing could “Autosave” my ass here.

I had officially failed my OA year.

Grace ended up going on to an out-of-town ivy league Canadian university (frankly I think she did that just to move out and drink her weight in Singapore Slings and Blue Lagoons), and I rocked community college here at home (and couldn't be more grateful for the career path and opportunities it has brought me.)

The lesson here kids, it’s a hard one, but a good one.
Accountability and perseverance.

YOU are in charge of your future. Parents, teachers and other mentoring-type figures are there to simply guide, support you and enable you for success.

No one will do the work except you.
No one will persevere through life except you.
No one will give you that certificate, that career opportunity, that spot on the team, without you putting in the work and proving you earned it.

Life tends not to offer charity, but it generously offers chance. Be sure to take yours.

Love,
​Patricia

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