Sebastian Hagan

Back when I was a young little lad my grandmother won a raffle. The prize she won was a three week long sleep away camp. In this camp I would have to sleep in a platform tent with 3 other kids and a leader. During the day I would be able to do any activity of my choosing. The activities included Wakeboarding, Water Skiing, Tubing, Fishing, Sailing, Rock climbing, Bike riding and anything you could possibly do in the woods. I was very excited but my grandmother was worried. She would always say things like “are you going to be ok" or” if you need ANYTHING, you just call me" and I would always say "OK MA", I never did call.

My aunt Sue, who I had stayed with prior the trip, drove me to the camp which was located along the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Once we arrived I was shown around the camping ground by this hippie that had long dreadlocks and no shoes on. I remember my aunt asking him if his feet hurt not wearing shoes. He replied "No I have thick calluses" as he stepped on a bee. He jerked up his foot and said that the sting was nothing. Once I had settled in and my aunt had left I realized that I was alone, that I would have to make friends with the other kids. I soon realized I was the youngest kid in the camp. I was 10 or 11 years old and everyone else was 13 to 17 years old. At that age I was very... hyper to say the least. I was always over excited and wanted to do something.

The words "chill out ya tweak" were shot at me allot. By the end of the second week I seemed to be getting on peoples nerves. I had never really analyzed my behavior before that point. I was in Christian school at the time and there people were mostly like me. So I realized that I needed a behavioral change in order to befriend the other kids at camp. I effectively made this change and became more reserved. Not long after I started this did I realize that people were not as adverse to me as before.

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Growing up all I wanted to do was PLAY. Whenever responsibilities came up I would fight them with every fiber of my being. I didn’t want to do school work. There was a whole world out there to see and discover, WHY ON EARTH WOULD I SIT INSIDE AND WRITE. Naturally this type of mind set worried my parents. Slowly as I became older I started to realize that one day, I to, would need to "get a job". This concept had always haunted me. Listening to my dad and many other people saying that they hated to work. The one thing I seemed to notice is that WORK SUCKED. I never wanted to work; I just wanted to play video games all day. At the time I was a big on games. Obsessed might be a good way to describe my relationship with my Playstation one. So in turn I decided that I was going to make video games. My father would say "GOOD, now we can get to work on that entire math you need to learn in order to do that". Once I figured that out, I thought that instead of that I would become a marine biologist and swim in the ocean with scuba gear and pet sharks. Once again my father would say “AHH, so you’re going to go to college for 6 year the right?". From there on I jumped from Astronaut to astronomer and considered, meteorology, archeology. Once I discovered that all these things I wanted to do require many years of study, at the time I despised going to school, I gave up.

One day years later, not until high school, did i actually figure out a career path. The arts, i realized, were a way to have a job and to have fun. This is when i realized what i ment as a kid when i said i never wanted to work all those years ago sittiong cross armed on the ground pouting while my father stood over me like a colosus. Even now im in Chicago pursuing this dream. I may stillo do graphic design or do TV. Im always changing my mind but atleast now i have a real direction.