I've had it. I'm at breaking point. My rage has built up and there is no damned vent big enough to let it all out.

I've had my life dictated to me since I was 11 years old. Towards the end of my Middle School years, my father told me that he wanted me to go to Rugby School, a public school which provided a very good education (that's private school for our american readers). The fees it charged were torturous, and so the only way I could stand any chance of attending was to ace the entry exam and get a scholarship. Which I did. I attended Rugby School for two years.

During my time at Rugby School, I learned that the world is a sick fucking place. Money fucking talks, and I got sick of the injustice rapidly. Someone got expelled from the school for dealing heroin in the dormitories... And was miraculously reinstated when his dad coughed up enough cash to buy the school a new library. The whole place reeked of corruption from top to fucking bottom. Sexism and Racism were rife. One teacher told a hindu student "If you don't concentrate in my lessons you'll end up owning a corner shop like your dad." After my first year I was already hating it.

If I hated the school, the school hated me more. The teachers disliked me. The students disliked me. Nicknames cropped up, invariably along the lines of 'Stig', and other hilarious literary references. What was the reason for all this? My family was not exceedingly rich. The only reason I was able to attend the school was because I didn't have to pay tuition fees. The teachers didn't like that, because it meant more money out of their pocket. And I swear to God, they plotted against me. Every single week I was in detention (detention took place on Saturday night, 8:00 til 10:00PM), often for no reason. My entire social life consisted of Sunday afternoons (we had class on every other day), and it was destroying my spirit. In fact the only person at Rugby School that had any respect for me was one Ronald Reeve-Johnson, a South-African physics teacher. He saw the potential in me, and he gave me the confidence to say 'enough is enough'. I was threatened with expulsion unless my 'unacceptable behaviour' (read-being a teenager) was curtailed. Without Ronnie's help, I would have calmed down and become the automaton they wanted me to be. But I quit before they could throw me out.

I learned about a year ago what happened to Mr. Reeve-Johnson. He was given an ultimatum by the Headteacher, one Mr. Mavor. Ronnie had been suffering with back trouble for some time, and had had to take a good deal of time off work. Mavor told Ronnie that unless he returned to work in the next week, he would lose his job. Ronald Reeve-Johnson took his own life. Words cannot express how angry I was when I heard this. I was ready to feed Mavor a Molotov Cocktail.

So I left Rugby School, and attended a state school, Ashlawn Comprehensive. I did well in my GCSE's, and was told "You must go on to 6th form and take A-Level maths, you're a born mathematician, etc. etc." Most of my friends at Ashlawn had their lives mapped out. They knew exactly what they wanted to do, and so chose their paths accordingly. I had no idea what I wanted to do, and so was blindly led into my A-Level choices by my parents and teachers.

The first year of Sixth Form went alright. I was doing well in my course and was enjoying it. Then something happened that changed my whole outlook on life. A friend of mine died in his sleep. He was 19 years old, and completely healthy. I realised then that there's no point planning for the future, because so much can happen to destroy your plans. Any direction I had gained in the past year was instantly lost. I had no more motivation, and my work started slipping. Most of the time I was supposed to be in school, I'd skive off with my best friend. We'd go to town, or paint wargames miniatures, or just sit and have a good laugh. The more we did it, the less we applied ourselves at school. My predicted A-Level grades were straight A's. My actual grades were B, C and E. I was the school's biggest disappointment. But in that last year I learned more than I ever would if I had attended school. I learned about what's really important in life. If I had the chance to go back and do that final year all again, I would change nothing.

As I was nearing the end of my Sixth Form course, I was pressured into choosing a university course. University courses are damned specialised. Whichever degree I chose would narrow my opportunities drastically. But it's the accepted thing, and you need a degree, don't you? Pressure from my parents and from teachers had me selecting a university course. There was just one problem - I still didn't know what I wanted to do. I had always worked well with computers, and my parents kept saying "Oh, you'll earn a lot of money in computing". I didn't care about the money. I wanted to do something that I enjoyed, but I still had no direction, and time was running out. So I signed on for a Multimedia Computing degree, which I thought at the time was like computer science geared towards the entertainment industry. As it turns out, that was not the case, and it was geared towards the internet, web application development, etc.

The first couple of years went fine. My third year was a work placement. I worked at a small Multimedia company in my hometown, doing a variety of multimedia based projects. My year there taught me much. I gained experience of the 'real world', andlearned new programming languages on the job. The most important thing it taught me though was that I do not want to work in Multimedia Computing. An urge to work in comic books which I had suppressed for a while was suddenly kicked into overdrive and I started practising my colouring skills. The more I coloured, the more I wanted to colour. I really enjoyed it. If I could get a job as a colourist, I'd be damned pleased.

All too quickly, the placement year was over and it was back to University. This time, things were different. Knowing that I did not want to work in Multimedia Computing, my degree seemed completely pointless. All motivation had completely left, and there was nothing I could do to bring it back. Not wanting to waste the last few years of my life, I'm continuing to the end of my course, to get my degree, but I can't help but wonder what would have happened had I not gone to university in the first place.

The most important thing I have learned at university was not even on the syllabus: specialising breeds weakness. That is a lesson that will stick with me all my life. I've been bullied and pressurised into so many things throughout my entire life that sometimes I sit back and wonder just how much of my life can actually be called my own?

Fuck them. I'm sick of playing it by their rules. From now on, I do things my way.