My Unit 5 Permanent Record: The Dark Side

Cutter's Log - Supplemental

All throughout my middle school and high school years, I've been called "very smart."

Truth is, I was simply an average-to-slightly-below-average student academically. My class rank is too embarassing to reveal, considering what people know of me outside my grades.

I am only referring to middle school and high school here. Grade school and college are different stories.

In classes that I loved to take, I hovered around a B+ to A. In classes that I hated to take, I hovered between D- to C. There was no gray area, and I can't remember ever getting a B- or C+ on anything. Truth is, I even failed two classes (one as a penalty due to that controversial Factory paper - mentioned in the previous Entry - and the other being an accelerated Algebra 2 class that proved to be too "accelerated" for me).

To say that I "survived" high school isn't true in the sense that I didn't struggle with lower-level classes (I didn't take any lower-level classes). I was in that rung between average placement and Advanced Placement. I could have reverted to average placement, but I chose to plow along with some challenges here and there.

I was a well-disciplined and well-involved kid early on, but struggled at times academically. This, I'm sure, caused about 80% of my teachers to toss and turn at night at this strange and confusing anomaly that was Cody Cutter.

There was also a "red alert" portion of me in my record that consisted of things such as Crisis instructions and Security proceedings. My friends do not know this until know, but I was on the verge of exploding at any time. Teachers and admins knew it. I was never the kid that had to sit down with the school resource police officer, but this did happen once and it caused a great deal of internal security concern.

Ask about 80% of my teachers, with my back turned, and they'll tell you that I was a royal pain in the ass to teach.

Normally, those students with such distinction are those who goof off in class and have no respect for the authority of the teacher. Those kids are considered irritating. I wasn't that irritating, smart-alec kid. I was just a sickening anomaly. I think my specific case caused scientific studies in the teacher's lounge.

The biggest reason is this:  They never knew I had Asperger's.


He Doesn't Participate In Class

I participated when I wanted to. There were many times, about 95% of the time, where I did not feel like participating. I'd rather have someone else have that moment in the sun, and learn through trial and error. If it involved useless trivia, my hand was the first one up.

Whenever my hand was up in non-trivia or non-game situations, I was almost always picked. This, of course, came after a weird look on the teacher's face ... that "is this a mirage?" look. I think one time I raised my hand, was called upon, got the answer right, and remarked to one of my teachers, "see, I do participate in class!" I think I was in a bad mood that day.

If I wasn't interested in whatever was being taught, I had one eye on the teacher and another on something else. Sixth and seventh period was almost always revolving around lining up what I was going to do after school. I didn't cut off the teachers entirely, because I knew I needed that for whatever homework assignment was given.

The biggest reason why I stopped participating in class was because I always felt insulted by teachers who would randomly pick me. Sometimes I was too insulted that I simply said nothing and gave a blank stare. I felt insulted in front of my peers, thank you very much. Yay, you caught me off-guard, do you want a prize?

Don't get me wrong, there were classes that I loved participating in: World History, US History and Government. It got to the point where Walton, Wylde and Preston were saying "Anyone other than Cody?"

And, my God, NEVER, EVER ask me to read a passage from a book to the rest of the class. You are asking for punishment. I rarely ever raised my hand to read something, and when I did read something, I was always the first kid picked "out of random." I felt that insulted me. What did I do to deserve this? It's not like I was ever goofing off in class to anger the teacher or anything.

Truth is, I can read well silently. I can talk faster in my mind. But when I have to verbally read written words, they come out at a fourth-grade level. Don't get me wrong, I can read. Most of the time, it goes in one eye and out the other. You told me to read the book, you didn't tell me to understand the book. I had to re-read these books, and that kept eating into my time.


He Doesn't Work Well in Groups

I was shy. Still am. Therefore, I have trouble communicating and such to the point where I was acting like a freeloader to get a top grade.

Random group settings were bad because we just didn't click. When we chose our own groups, it felt a little better. Especially for the history classes. One exception is groupwork that involved something that I had a grasp on. In this case, I would almost always partner myself with one of the legendary poor-performing students in our class to help them understand.

I always had trouble finding partners. I felt like they didn't want me to be a part of their "special group" because I was a bit of an outsider. I had this feeling that I would let them down. I was always thinking negative.

This reached a boiling point with a certain science teacher in high school who was big on group work. Almost everything involved groupwork. I had the same teacher for my senior year, and it just got to the point where I just wanted to do this alone. I didn't want to question her motives for it out of respect, so I was a sitting duck.


The DARKEST Side

Because of my poor participation, poor grades, and poor interaction with others, and the unusualness of these, I believe that teachers considered me as someone potentially dangerous or suicidal. Remember, 9/11 happened when I was a freshman.

I had a counselor visit in 6th grade involving something love-related, and how disappointed I was.

"This is just between you and me."

Bullshit.

The darkest parts of my permanent record involve the Top 50 lists, the whole Sterling/Rock Falls thing, and thoughts about love and life. The social side of me was a sad and unusual one.

But perhaps the even darkest files of me are not even at SHS. Perhaps they reside at RFHS, where things such as applying for a student activity card, the bikeride to Geneseo, and that day I'd like to forget, are in it. I think simply because I was a Sterling kid interacting so much with RF kids, that they considered it all strange. And it was all far from that, and I hope one day that they'll see the truth behind it all.


Hated English, But it Got the Last Laugh

I hated, hated, hated English and literature going as far back as grade school.

Today, I have a college degree in mass communication: a form of journalism, which is a form of english studies.

How weird is that?

I still hate literature. Language arts wasn't all that bad. However, my english grades reflected my very poor performance when it came to literature.

You could count on a well-written paper from me, however.

My first long writing assigments started as including fluff to maintain a minimum. Then it turned into trying to surpass the minimum to a certain extent to feel as if I actually cared about the darn thing. Including these fluff sentences became a habit, to the point where I was writing elsewhere - short adventure stories, philosophical statements beyond my age, love letters, etc.

I'll credit writing articles for PSO as the thing that saved me in high school english. As much as I loved to be durable in writing about these high school sports events, that carried over to writing for class. My writing career eventually made it to the local newspaper sports section during my junior year, so all of the teachers knew that I could write something, and write it well.

As mentioned earlier, I failed the first half of my sophomore communications class because of that controversial Factory paper. I was to take the English portion of the class the next year (I was the only junior in that class, taking English 2 and 3 simultaneously). Likewise, I was struggling in the second half.

The final project, which accounted for a huge part of the class grade, was either one of two things: a speech or a routine performance. I was the only one in the entire two-block class that opted for the speech. Because it involved writing something, and about anything I wanted to write about. I just simply had to recite it on a podium.

I came into that final day needing to do well in this speech to make or break my academic career. It was the end of my sophomore year, and many things were on my mind. Girls. Friends. Sports. The dream job.

I think I did well in the speech about the Sterling-Rock Falls Rivalry and got a standing ovation.

And added in the ninja yell in an acting routine to boot.