Last year, I fulfilled a second chance at getting my driver’s license. This time, I’ll pursue my second chance at a college degree. And if it goes as well as expected, I should receive my Associates’ Degree in Information Technology by 2009, and then I may transfer to Wingate University for the chance at a Bachelor’s Degree.

In 1997, I dropped out of the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore after just three days, because I did not fit in there. It took nine more years of misery and bad luck for me to realize that Maryland, and especially Baltimore, was not the right place for me. So I moved south to Charlotte, and the rest is history.

Back to the present time: I already have a lot of email addresses and phone numbers from my new friends at CPCC; in fact, I might have to get a new address book. I do intend to keep in touch with all of them to inform them of my own goings-on, and I hope that we can get together for special occasions, such as Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day. This coming from the same guy who once got beaten up every day in middle school and was severely made fun of in high school, and also decided not to call his former classmates, despite having them leave their numbers with him. This one is different now. I am enjoying my new life in Charlotte so much that I do not intend to return to Baltimore, except to visit.

So who knows where this new ride will lead? Will one of the women in my group be my eventual wife? You might have to find out…