Preface

Hello,

My name is Gannon. This is a blog I'm writing. I'm writing it for my parents; so my Dad can keep tabs on my adventures and so my mom will know that I haven't been murdered by some lunatic on the interstate. I'm writing it for all of the friends I've made this first semester of college in hopes they'll drop out too. I'm writing it for anyone who wants to go, but needs to see someone else do it first. I'm writing it for all the books and blogs that helped me along the way.

My name is Gannon McCullough. This isn't my real last name, but for all blogging purposes it will be. I haven't gone anywhere quite yet. Heck, I'm still at college typing this in a computer lab; though, my last day is tommorow. These first few blogs won't be accounts of daring escapades, but more of an introduction. I've always been curious what influences people to do or say the things they do. I'm especially curious what influences some people to journey abroad at their own peril. Hopefully, I can shed some light on my inspirations.

Like I said above, my last day of college is tomorrow. I'm not graduating. I didn't get kicked out because of any heroic rebellion against the Man. I won't receive a degree. I don't have any job offers. I'm dropping out. I'm a college drop-out. Well, Thursday I will be. I'm letting it sink in. Oddly, I feel a strange sense of accomplishment.

It was my original plan to leave at the beginning of the summer, but my parents persuaded me to give college a try. I have given it a try and almost $10,000. College is too expensive for me. It's not too expensive in the sense that I can't afford it (I could easily apply for loans), but to apply for such loans feels like indentured servitude. I can't afford to give four or five years of my life to school and several more years after that to pay back loans with interest. There is no guarantee that all this will even pay off in a job that I enjoy or even utilizes my degree.

I haven't learned much in college. Contributing to my persuasion to give college a try was the idealized expectation that college would be a sort of intellectual haven, fostering my growth into a responsible citizen. In my experience, college is rarely this. A classroom education often trades experience for abstract application removed from reality in time and space. Creativity atrophies and dies. I go, like Louis L'Amour, to find my education in wandering the world.