Life is tough. Suck it up by Laney

Life is tough. Suck it up by Laney - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

I know that high school is supposed to prepare you for college and your future, and I know teachers are supposed to stretch your mind to a point that it feels like silly putty in your skull. I had one teacher though that every student thought was a teacher sent straight from the grasps of Satan and that was Mrs. Foster. Mrs. Foster had a disposition that kids during this day and age were soft and privileged. Her favorite thing to say was “Life is tough. Suck it up.” Mrs. Foster had no room for excuses in her classroom. Didn’t know how to work a problem, she was at her desk one hour before school, one hour after school and twenty minutes during lunch. No excuses for not knowing how to do an assignment. We never got a substitute in Mrs. Foster’s class, because she did not take sick days. If she wasn’t feeling well and a student said something about it, she would say “Life is tough, I have to suck it up”. Whether we realized it or not she was teaching us what it was like to be an adult. She was not only teaching us Algebra, Calculus and Trig but in her own subtle way she was teaching us that the world outside our high school walls did not care about excuses or privilege. She was teaching us how to be a responsible adult. The summer of my junior year is when this Life is tough philosophy really struck me. Sitting at work I overheard some older coworkers complaining about another co-worker who would call in with every excuse in the book. Mrs. Foster’s words started echoing through my head and I realized someone needed to teach this young coworker the philosophy “Life is tough. Suck it up”
My senior year I would sit and listen too many little things Mrs. Foster would say and I realized that she was preparing us for life. She was preparing us for the hard times. She was preparing us to take responsibility for our actions. She was preparing us for life not just college. She taught me something that no book could teach me. She taught me that when things are down and I feel pity for myself, well “Life is tough. Suck it up”