SUMMER SCHOOL

I had been told countless time that I needed to pull my grades up or summer school would be the only “party” I’d be attending this summer.I let those warnings if not more threats blow over my shoulder. “My Mom is just pulling my leg.” I would say to friends while chatting on facebook, when I could have actually been doing something more progressive in life, like maybe, homework, but with every mistake comes a chance to learn, to grow, and knowledge of what I had not known before. Yes, I regret completely not putting effort into my school work, but with it I think I realized something, everything counts, every little detail plays a small part in your life, like a chain reaction; every event I took followed on quickly from each other, each of which caused the next.

Receiving an F was never something that I had ever stressed over.Not because I was an exceptional student, it was quite the opposite. A’s were like somesort of endangered species on my report card slowing disappearing as the years went on. 8th grade was my down fall.

     In the 7^th grade I decided to attend AZVA, an online public school. I was thinking it would take away the stress of middle school, peer pressure, dealing with teachers, making friends: I just didn’t feel ready. The main idea of the school was that everyday you logged on to your school account and did your work as it was scheduled, but by the 8^th grade I had quickly realized that I did not “have” to do it; or so I thought. It had not really reached me that the teachers would know that I wasn’t trying in school when it came to taking tests and I was failing but getting 100% on the quizzes. From that point on I was pretty much screwed.

“Casandra Jasmine Fiehtner,you have lost all of my trust in you, you my dear are done fooling around!” Those were my mother's choice words she used when she found out. A week later I was enrolled in Esperero middle school.

     For a while my mother had pretty much given up talking to me , not that I blame her. Everyday I got on the bus, went to class, and came home. Days became blurred together, and it got to the point that it really didn’t matter to me anymore. I knew I was going to fail anyways so why try? When my AIMS scores arrived in the mail the feeling was just meaningless. Those scores were the only thing that would keep me out of summer school and they were lacking that grade I needed.

     Pima, Yes Pima community college. I couldn’t believe it but it was the only school that offered what I needed to get into St. Gregory. That is  the high school my mother and I had been planning on me attending since 6^th grade, the only thing standing between me and it was Pima. So be it if I had to spend all day there it was what had to be done. I said that  to myself every day although I don’t think I could really take myself very seriously.

     The first day was by far the worst. When I entered the class I was shocked to be surrounded by people who looked to be 3 times my age, and taking a math class I learned in the 8^th grade, although I was one to judge being that I was taking it over again. The work was rigorous, over 100 problems a night and before I knew it I was back to my old self, skipping homework to do “better things” that seemed more worthy of my time. But that soon backfired on the first test when I had no clue what to do only to pass it with a 70%. My mom was paying 50$ a class just for me to fail. It had almost seemed ludicrous that I even attended. But I then thought about my future and how I was not going to have much of one if I were to keep this up.

     “A good education is the next best thing to a pushy mother.” Charles Shultz