Why do you even bother? If you don't want to be here, why do you come? Do you like getting in trouble? Do you know you look ridiculous? No? Well, allow me to enlighten you.

You look like idiots. And you are wasting your time. You are wasting my time. You are wasting your teachers' time. You know what I'd rather be doing with that time? Learning. And your teachers, they'd rather be teaching. And as to what you'd like to do with it, I don't know, but I'm sure you could wait until after school.

Say you screw around in school all day; you neglect your classwork, your homework, any kind of work, and you fail classes. So you repeat a grade. And then you repeat it again. Your teachers force-pass you into the next grade up, but by then, you're eighteen and you figure you don't really need to go to school anymore, since you're eighteen and therefore ready to go into the world. Only you can't get a job. You don't even have a high school diploma, so you're stuck at the drive-thru asking me if I "want fries with that." Does that sound good to you?

I know you all have high hopes. You probably watch MTV Cribs and dream of owning a crazy mansion and a couple of Bentleys. I do, too. The difference between you and me is that, at this point, I have more of a chance. But it is not too late for you. Stop messing around. Stop talking back, cursing, pushing and slamming. Start working. High school is not that hard. And when it's over, think about what you can do. You have so many options, it would be insane to give them up. The world is out there, but you can't go there until you're done here. Baby steps, people.