Around here, you've got your "sheep" who love the program and think all those beautiful tools, and workshops, and experiences changed their lives and saved them from a miserable existence. Then you've got your people who despise CEDU and everything it stands for, and think it was nothing but a corrupt, mind fucking, brainwashing experience.
Well I'm here to tell you that you both went about it all wrong. Should've taken the third path: simply not giving a fuck. I really don't think CEDU was that big of a deal. Brainwashing? At a cushy place like CEDU, you can only LET yourself get brainwashed. Maybe you guys are just using that word out of its correct context or something, but I certainly didn't feel like I was at risk to get brainwashed at any point while I was there.
What was the worst they could do to you??? Yea, I agree, they tried to shove their program down your throat, and were sneaky and manipulative with your parents, and that all those schools just sucked in general. But I went to normal high school for a year and a half, and I remember thinking how much THAT sucked too.
But honestly, if you told them to shove their ridiculous "program" up their asses, what could they really do to you. Work assignments?? I loved work assignments. I would've rather done work assignments any day than those bullshit finger painting activities that were the alternative. Good for the heart! Restrictions? Sit me at a table or stick me in a room all night. I could care less. We were all stuck in that stupid little bubble of a campus anyways. Oh man, a jumpsuit? God forbid I can't wear my wranglers or whatever commissary clothes I "earned" after moving up to Quest. I'll take a jumpsuit any day.
Oh ok, they'll send you to Ascent. I loved Ascent. They sent me there twice, making three times in total, and I loved it every time. The food always tasted good there, course was such a nice break from all that Boulder Creek bullshit, so on and so forth. When the escorts came to campus and told me I was going camping, they didn't even have to ask me twice to get in that van. I did it with a smile.
So I spent 13 of my 28 months as a voyager. Who cares? I certainly wasn't going to turn into some fake little look-good just so I could earn my caffeine privilege. Or my "wearing black" privilege. And once I did actually move up (after my I Want to Live to be exact), they were so happy I finally did it, and I really didn't even want to in the first place, that they started sending me on all those sweet trips like CAT Ski Trip and Salmon River, etc.
Workshops? How can you guys really complain that those mind fucked you. They were such a joke. How about that Imagine? Where they sat there and tried to fuck with your head and deprive you of sleep for hours upon hours. Busting out popcorn and saying they were watching you play your roles. What a joke. The I & Me? Ha! How about that shit where they made you run in place until you would go sit by the wall and yell at the floor. "WAAAAAH! I TELL MYSELF I'M A DIRTY SLUT!!" I must've run a damn marathon in place. I remember being the only one still running, and laughing my ass off at all those chumps sitting on the side telling the floor all about how they smoke too much crack. Eventually they started making me do push ups, and then back to the running, before I just passed out from dehydration.
I did 19 restrictions, 11 of which were full-times, 3 of which were jumpsuits. I was safe-housed 4 times, went to Ascent twice (and once more before even arriving at Boulder Creek). I was having more than enough sex, had a steady weed hook up, and probably did more work assignments than half the people on these forums combined. And in the end? I can't remember a single "tool", "rap direction", "writing assignment", or any of that shit they tried to force on me. I had a blast at Boulder Creek. Y'all should've tried to do the same.
