Cockerham

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Nicole Cockerham
Mrs. Klein
English 12
January L5,2014

Retum of the Pirate

Ever since he was a high school student, my older brother, Brett, had trouble

prioritizing activities in his life. He first attended Charlotte Latin School for freshman and
sophomore year, and then transferred to Christ School in Asheville, NC for junior and
senior year. Promising to do better, Brett chose to go to East Carolina University

for

college as well as to continue to pursue football as a walk on freshman. He was not a bad
teenager; he just didn't know how to balance schoolwork, football, and a social life.

In

high school, Brett finished his senior year with a2.4 and with a 34 ACT. He was smart;
he

just never put forth the effort to show his intellect through his GPA.
During the final weeks of freshman year at ECU, Brett was asked to consider

community college his upcoming sophomore year due to his low grades. The letter stated
that Brett could re-apply for East Carolina University admission at the beginning of the

New Year with two requirements: after one full semester at the community college and
obtaining a minimum of a 2.8 GPA. Brett had one sunmer and one semester to get his
grades and his priorities in line to return to ECU at the beginning of the year.

Brett managed to apply to Pitt Community College in Greenville, North Carolina

online after much confusion of the admission process. Brett's College counselor at Christ

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Cockerham 2

online application. Another issue was finding an affordable apartment that Brett could
live in that was near the Piu campus, and not already vacant. Usually people apartment
hunted months ahead of time, and Brett would have less than two months. Brett was

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learning fast how much had been done for him in the past, and that he needed to learn

how to do this himself rather than depending on college counselor and parents.
As the witnesses of his joumey, my parents, my brother, and I prayed that he
would soon leam how to first apply to the school, and then once admitted, find the
balance between school and social events, and prioritize them in a way that he could

thrive upon the return to East Carolina. Brett's friends, too, hoped that he would improve
his grades and return. Leaving ECU meant that he would have to leave behind the Pirates

football team and all of his friends and fraternity brothers to attend Pitt Community
College. Upset by the thought of leaving, Brett also had to keep in mind that the

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Community College did not have a football team, and that he would have to find a way to
train and remain as fit as he was before he left East Carolina.
His semester at Pitt began at the end of August with four classes, all of which he
had picked online and selected which days and times he wanted to go. As all college kids

do, Brett picked Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoon classes; that
way he wouldn't have to wake up early in the mornings after long nights of partying. On
Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2:00pm he would have an English class, and at 4:00pm

he

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would have a science lab. His other two classes were scheduled on Monday and Thursdry^ .\P$
afternoon. After the $rst day of classes, Brett drove to a supply store and bought a binder

for each class, Axtt{aevery other Pitt student at the store for the last few textbooks,

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downloaded a study application on his computer in order to start offthe semester the

Cockerham 3

right way. He also scheduled meetings with each of his teachers and came up with a plan
to succeed and pass all of his classes in order to return to East Carolina for the spring
semester.

Two weeks after the start of the semester, Brett had his first English in-class
essay. He came out of the classroom feeling great.

A few days later the English teacher

handed back the essay" and Brett had received a D. Shocked by the grade he had

just

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received, he went to the teacher and questioned the grade. He asked, "What went wrong

with this paper, Mrs. Piper? It was the correct length and topic. Why did I get such
grade? This isn't how

a bad

I wanted to start this semester!"

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Mrs. Piper replied, "You didn't follow the guidelines on the rubric. It said the
paper had to include the vocabulary words from the chapter. Did you read the rubric?" As

Brett hesitated to answer, she continued and asked, "How did you prepared for the paper?

Did you even look at the handout from the beginning of the lesson?" Still thinking about
the previous question, Brett replied that he had downloaded an application to his

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had stayed up nearly all night at the first big party of the semester, a decision he would

think twice before making again next time.

His girlfriend, another one of the many bad influences on him, had just lost her
scholarship to ECU and was now going to apply to Pitt Community College as well.

Briftany demanded attention and always wanted Brett to attend parties and family events
with her. She was clingy, needy, and pressured Brett into making wrong decisions. Every

Cockerham 4

week they would attend party after party, spending more time having fun than focusing
on schoolwork. Worried about an upcoming science lab, Brett decided to skip one night

of partying to write a report on the lab they had done. Brittany, furious the next morning,
lashed out and cried that he never put her first. Brett, desperate to keep the relationship

alive, apologized and promised it would never happen again. The lab report was tumed in
and returned the following day. He had made a perfect 100 on the report.

At this two-week point, Brett had a D in English,

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B- in science, and C's in his

other two classes. Slowly, his dream of returning to ECU was fading away. One 100 on a
science lab was not going to get Brett back into East Carolina. Furious at his lack

of

grade improvement overall, my parents delivered an ultimatum. Brett would now have to
start supporting himself financially. My parents would only provide school money, and

everything else was to be paid for with his own money. They gave him one month to find
a

job, and the job hunt began immediately.

Brett knew he wanted to do something interesting to him, so he first went to the

Greenville Mall in search for a job. He went store to store, but no one needed help at the
moment. He then searched up and down the streets, going restaurant-to-restaurant asking

if help was needed. Brett then realized that if he worked with food, he would more than
likely gain weight and not be able to play football. Across the street was an Auto-bell
Carwash, something he was familiar with. Brett had worked at an Auto-bell in Charlotte
during the summer and knew he could make enough money to support himself as well as
enjoy working with cars, as it has always been a passion of his. He walked across the
street and asked to speak with the manager when he saw the sign, "moving location." The
car wash was moving across town, where

it would take nearly forty-five minutes to get to

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Cockerham 5

from where he was living. He decided it would be best not to waste his time traveling
back and forth across town and to find something closer, that way he would have more

time to study and less time to travel.

Three weeks had passed and the deadline was approaching. He only had a week

until the money was going to be cut off for everything except college payments. In

panic, Brett ventured to a mechanic shop down the street from his apartment. There was a
sign on the window that read, "Help Needed." Brett strolled in and offered his assistance.
The manager said that Brett, the 6'3", 2801b football player would be just the person they
needed, and that they would start his payment

off with $15 per hour. From that day on,

Brett worked every weekday from 8am to 12pm helping stack and store heavy parts, tires,

and equipment.

The semester continued on, and Brett began to pick up on study habits that

worked and didn't work for him. He began to organize his papers in the notebooks he had
bought at the beginning of the semester, and began meeting with teachers for help.
order to return to East Carolina

In

I
in the spring semester, Brett had to get at least a 2.8 GPA'

At this point, he had a2.6 and only had a short amount of time left to get his grades up.
Brett scheduled a meeting with his counselor at Pitt to find out where he stood with his
goal. Brett scheduled the meeting for 1Oam on a Saturday morning. Friday, being the

ultimate

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night it is, clouded his mind making him miss his meeting. Waking up in

panic, Brett quickly rushed to the counselor's office three hours after his appointment.

His counselor refused to see him. Brett had to reschedule for a time later that week. His
counselor scheduled the meeting for Friday night at 8pm, making sure Brett missed his
next night of partying. At that meeting, his counselor concluded it would ultimately come

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Cockerham 6
down to the exams at the end of the semester to determine his fate at ECU.

Mid-November Brett realized he also had to get football-ready before January in

keep up with the rest of the players. Homemade workouts began at the

apartment

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complex gym that included cardio and weight lifting, and once a week agility training
that Brett paid for himself. The freshman fifteen quickly shed off the first week, and thebeer belly was slowly shrinking. Alcohol was to blame for the weight gain, and

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created another reason in his mind why he had to quit the frequent partying. In less
three weeks, Brett had returned to his healthy weight and was quicker, stronger,

that

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faster than he had ever been before.

Exams were now a week away, and Brett asked for a week off of his job in

order

to prepare as best he could for the four exams he had left. After speaking again with

his

counselor, Brett decided he needed to make at least all B+'s on all of his examinations

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order to reach the GPA needed to go back to East Carolina. He studied his butt off, day
and night, and took his first steps into the Pitt Library, a place he would have never

pictured himselfjust a couple of months before. He met with teachers day after day, and
made sure he was one hundred percent ready for these exams.

All

he needed were four

B+'s, but he challenged himself to get three A-'s and one B+ (or better)'
Exam week was finally here, and Brett was more exhausted than he had ever

in his whole life. He had

finally

realizedhow hard people worked in high school

been

and \{

freshman year at East Carolina, and the commitment to schoolwork needed in order

to

succeed. Brittany begged that Brett attend a family dinner with her, but he declined

(remembering back to the science lab earlier that semester). He went in for his first tw-o

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Cockerham 7
exams on a Tuesday, and felt as

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if he had done extremely well on both of them. He went

in for a third examination on Wednesday, and finished with his final assessment on a

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Thursday. The test on that Thursday was the English exam, the only test he was truly

wonied about. He came out of the room praying that he had done enough to achieve his
2.8 GPA and re-admission to ECU.

Two weeks and Christmas passed, and Brett was home with our family when the
grades came in the mail.

My Mom was the one who went to get the mail that day, and

rushed inside with the envelope in her hand. She quietly gave Brett the envelope to open
and he put

it offfor nearly two hours. He was so nervous he could hardly stand

Finally, the moment of truth came. He opened the envelope slowly, and viewed

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it.

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section at a time. His first exam B*, good news! His second exam, A, thfud exam, A-, and
the English exam, B+! He had achieved a GPA

of al.9with the help of these final exam I

grades. He sprinted down the stair from his room into my parents'room and shared the

good news. My parents were so excited they took him and the rest of the family out for
dinner that night!

At that dinner, Brett went over everything he had done that entire semester, all the
ups and downs of his journey. From starting the semester

offwith

a D, to

finding a job, to

getting in shape for football, to the all nighters in the library days leading up the exams.

But his joumey wasn't quite over yet. Brett still hadn't received an acceptance letter from
East Carolina.

At that dinner, my dad pulled an envelope out of his pocket with

name on it. It was from East Carolina.

It had come to the

house

just

Brett's

a week earlier

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had "Admissions Decision" written in bold on the outside. As we all sat at the dinner

table, Brett opened the envelope as fast as he could. All we had to see was the grin on his

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Cockerham 8
face to know he was going to be a Pirate again.

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