Oh God, I've been writing thank you notes all day. My hand hurts. They all feel so copy/pasted, since I can't write everyone something nice and personalized...whatever, I'm almost done. First, to all of you who were listening to me in IRC the other night (lil, am_Unition, galen, and others) I got the housing contract figured out with my university! (Due to a typographical error, all of the emails were being sent to the wrong address, and I missed the deadline by 2 days.) I had to go in in person to hash out the details, but all of the faculty were very kind and understanding, and it only took maybe an hour. All in all, it ended very well, just like you all told me it would! I leave for a week long canoe trip on Friday (I'm certain I've talked about it on pubski before), so I'm consolidating all of my camping gear and getting organized. It's going to be a hell of a trip--just my family, and two good friends. Three of us are eagle scouts, and everyone has been camping for their entire lives, so it seems like a perfect combination. I'll tell you all more about it afterwards, I'll try to take pictures and draw a hub-wheel somewhere!
Toldja. Glad it worked out. :) The best thing you can do when you're in a real pickle is to show up in person. Especially if you're at least somewhat presentable and well-mannered. I have found that treating employees in any service industry as people is something that occurs far too sparingly for anyone interfacing with the public. Maybe you treated them fairly decently. I made life scout, was just shy of eagle two merit badges and my service project. Everyone warned me; "Cars... and Girls," they said. Get it all done now, because of cars and girls. "Cars" turned out to be other things, in my case, but they were right about girls.
Personally, I'm not a fan of the BSA on a national level, but my troop is full of great, tolerant, and generous people. Two of our adult leaders are lesbians, and as far as I'm aware, it's never once been an issue within the troop. I'm proud of getting my eagle, and I'm glad I listened to my parents when they told me to finish it! What exactly were your "Cars," if I might ask?
I have the same thoughts on BSA. It was a set of experiences that are foreign to many. Really applicable stuff. But the whole LGBT thing... seems pretty regressive, which does make some sense given the traditional/conservative nature of BSA. Anyway, you should be proud, of both the eagle and graduating high school (I think you just did that, right?). Already got one thing to set you apart from your peers, and that's usually a positive feedback loop that perpetuates throughout the rest of your life. My "cars" were academics, music, and work. Am I about to use this phrase? Oh boy, I am. Here we go. Gettin' old. Look, I'm rambling and everything. When I was your age, senior year, I was working as a grocer bag boy thirty hours a week, taking something like five AP courses and three regular ones, one of which was band. Piano lessons. Oh, oh, and I drummed for a Church youth band, lolz. I did about half of my sleeping in class. Actually I think the following all happened when I was a sophomore, but whatever, I never slept enough throughout all of high school. So one night, I had simply been not ninja enough and my mom wakes up, and bursts into my room (another mom story, sorry guys, it's like a once-a-week Pubski spectacle now): "Is that AOL Instant Messenger?" "Pshh, no, you know we only have internet downstairs." "YOU ARE TALKING TO YOUR FRIENDS, am_Unition, I KNOW WHAT THOSE SCREENS ARE FOR! WHERE IS THE CORD? HAVE YOU DRILLED HOLES IN OUR WALL TO RUN THE CORD UP HERE?" Damn, I was in tears. This lady was pulling my desk away from my wall to look for shit at 3 AM. I definitely got grounded for that one. Too bad the company I used made their antenna so obviously an antenna. I'd gotten Wi-Fi three months before I got caught, but you'd have never known it because the tech had come out pretty quietly, and my parents weren't looking for that sort of thing (but yeah, I was). I hid the router downstairs, and had to buy the NIC chip to install into my motherboard. Damn that chip's chubby little rotating antenna. OK, back to work, good watercooler break, amigos.