We Don't Need No Education

I wouldn't say that I'm a huge Minnesota Timberwolves fan. Yes, I consider them "my team", but mostly because of obligation. I mean, I'm a Twins fan, a Wild fan, a Gopher fan, how can I just say 'no' to the Timberwolves, as terrible as they've been? I can't, especially since they symbolize the growing pains of adulthood. They're like the guy at your high school reunion that still lives with his parents and works at Target, but isn't a manager. They've just run out of excuses on why they're so incompetent.

The 2003-2004 playoffs was the only time in the existence of the franchise that warranted any hope and pride and I wasn't going to miss out on this opportunity. I visited Bruce in Minnesota that year and we went to a T-Wolves game and watched them win. I wanted to watch as many of their games on TV because they were actually good. This wouldn't have been a problem if I was still in high school, getting out at 2:10pm, but unfortunately I had a class between 7pm-10pm on Thursdays, I believe, a Race in TV and Film class.

I really didn't have a problem with my professor, or the subject matter of this class, I just wanted to see my team bask in the spotlight for perhaps the only time ever. They were the #1 seed and they had just beaten Denver to get out of the first round for the FIRST TIME EVER. While the class was fine and all, it was inconveniencing me from experiencing winning, and I wasn't going to put up with it. Of course I needed this class to graduate, so I was kind of between a rock and a hard place.

This is when I turned my dilemma over to this girl in my class, lets call her Yoo-Jin (this may actually be her name, I don't remember, which makes me a very very terrible person). I was pretty sure she had a crush on me, so I'd ask her to sign in for me while I went to the Pub to watch the games. She seemed pretty disappointed in my lack of work ethic but I'm also pretty sure she also signed in for me (crush, right?). She didn't seem to understand my investment in this team that was halfway across the country, but she did seem to understand that us both liking Belle and Sebastian could possibly lead to a date down the line (it didn't). Maybe she thought I'd need to study with her at some point to get through the class, but she still allowed it. All I know is that when Kevin Garnett hit that 3 in the 4th Quarter while being double teamed and with the shot clock winding down, I knew that I had made the right decision. That shot validated it all. When he jumped up on the scorer's table at the end of the game and screamed, I wanted to do the same.

The Wolves got eliminated in the next round by the Lakers, but that wasn't important to me. I finally saw my team overcome their futility. After 7 years of getting knocked out in the first round, they had gotten over the hump. I returned to regularly going to class and aced out my final presentation. I talked about how Long-Duk Dong from 16 Candles has single handedly made Asian American men the laughing stock of the American dating world (I actually don't believe this because I not a fan of self-pity). I passed the class, I graduated college, but life was not happily ever after. I bounced around jobs and lived from paycheck to paycheck for a few years until I hit a wall. I got out of a relationship and lost my job in a span of 48 hours, and while I don't feel like I hit rock bottom then (it gave me ample time to play and beat Super Mario Galaxy), I finally felt like I needed to grow up and get on with my life.

I needed to make adjustments, I didn't necessarily need to start over. I didn't need to go back to school (though I did ponder it), or change my career path (IT by day, writer by night), I just needed to refine myself. I needed to do some re-prioritizing, and learn to start setting some practical goals for myself. I realized I though living paycheck to paycheck would keep me from being too comfortable, that it would push me to finally get a screenplay sold, or what have you, but in the end, it was just keeping me paranoid about my finances. The free time I had after work was not going to productive for writing if I had bills to pay. While the starving artist way of life works for some people, it was obviously not working for me. I got a new job, found a church where I wasn't just twittling my thumbs during service all day, and get some friends who actually enjoyed their lives. I know I'd love to say "then I got a book/TV deal, got an amazing girlfriend and bought a house", but lets be realistic and take things one step at a time.

After 7 years of post high-school life, I finally felt like I got over the hump. I was finally ready to jump up on the scorer's table and scream from the top of my lungs that I was a winner.