The Coburn Blog

Welp, after 18 years, its almost official. 18 years of struggling not being able to see well enough and figure out how to get information off the blackboard, overhead projectors, Powerpoint presentations, in my classes, it’ll be finally official May 9th at 6pm at Notre Dame in South Bend Indiana, finally a college graduate!

I tell yah, after all these years, I never thought I would get this far, never thought I’d graduate. I remember certain individuals in my life I’ll keep silent about, telling me I was a looser, that what could have been a promising Career field for me, was nothing more then a alcoholic addition to the Computer. Ya know how I respond to that kind of a comment? Sure, I may spend 24/7 on the computer most of the time, but so what, Computers are everywhere nowadays, I’m proud of my alcoholic addition! and you can’t tell me a kid who has spent his whole life on the computer since Kindergarten, cannot become successful in the world today with an alcoholic addition to something that is everywhere on the planet today.

I’ve always been proud of who I am, even if others don’t care, and there isn’t a person in this world I cannot train to use a computer, or repair, or design a website for. The only thing that is scaring me right now, is I was offered a Co-Op job this summer. I volunteered to get involved in the Co-Op program at Ivy Tech, I’m the only IT student at Ivy Tech who even took the time to volunteer to do it, so I’m going to be working for free this summer designing websites, or whatever they ask me to do for them.

I’m just so scared, because there using a web language I’m not familiar with, and I’m supposed to learn by May 12th. I’m so scared of loosing this job, I don’t know what to do. I’ve been working 18 years to get to this point, and now I feel like a failure. I’ve spent the last couple of years learning PHP, XHTML, CSS, ASP, so on and so forth, and now I have to learn a language called ColdFusion, and for the first time in my life, I am scared of something I have to do on the computer. I’ve spent all these years trying to prove myself, and this comes up.

So even though VR has decided not to pay for any additional schooling anymore, I’m going to find my own way to go back for my Bachelors degree, even if it means a stafford loan I may not ever be able to pay back, because I can’t give up after all this time, I refuse to give up now, but I may have to if all this doesn’t work out this summer. I’ve never been more scared in all my life then I am right now.

All I can say is, THIS is why I didn’t want to get into web design in the first place.. All these years my brother inlaw encouraged me to get into web design, all his encouragement and everything, and now I say, this is why I didn’t want to get into it, everytime I learn something, something new comes out and have to learn all over again. I hate everything to do with web design, and this is why.

but I have to give myself credit, after I lost my job last year in Boggs Industrial Park, anyone else would have just stayed on Social Security the rest of their life and given up, but noo, I didn’t want to give up, I busted my butt to go back to school, despite my disability. Ya know, for 8 years I worked in boggs industrial park, doing a job that didn’t pay any better then McDonalds, fact I make more on Social Security then I did at that job, and the hospital, for over a decade, but I didn’t give up because I don’t want to be on Social Security the rest of my life. Anyone else would have taken the lazy way out, but not me, I continued to never give up, now I’m excited about graduation, but scared of this co-op thing coming up, for the first time in my life I’m scared.