Posted on 03/29/2016 6:35:00 AM PDT by detective
We just want you to have a good senior year!"
I hardly heard the words leave my guidance counselor's mouth as I stumbled out of her office. I could barely walk back to my classroom without collapsing. I tried to process what just happened and to make sense of the fear inside me. No such luck. I was a mess of emotions, held together haphazardly by black coffee and teenage angst.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
I was on a jury a few years back (circa 2004) with a physics professor from UC Irvine. Over the course of the trial we ate lunch together and he expressed his irritated dismay at the widespread amount (and sophistication) of the cheating he observed going on.
He said the cheaters casually rationalized their behavior - "everybody does it", "that's what you have to do to survive".
Evidently that's how Generation XBox "competes".
Maybe "competitive" colleges should require at least 5 immutable character references, and a verifiable history thereof, instead...?
From what I've observed directly elsewhere, there was certainly no shortage of AP course work among the predators who helped manufacture the 700+ trillion dollars worth of derivative a$$paper presently circling the vortex of the global economic sewage pond.
M.B.A. =
M.ore
B.S.
A.bove
Hos 12:7-8
7 The merchant uses dishonest scales;
he loves to defraud.
8 Ephraim boasts,
"I am very rich; I have become wealthy.
With all my wealth they will not find in me
any iniquity or sin."
NIV
Same Ol' "competetive" Ba'alshyte, different municipal toilet.
Yes Really.
They have performed well, exceeded all their goals and my son's team had the second best performance in the entire company. One got recognized from the stage by name by the president of his company at a company wide meeting as “amazing”.
They work hard, are very responsible and very moral people.
Please excuse a dad who might be a little proud of his kids.
Post of the year.
They are twins and almost died of RSV when they were 6 weeks old.
We know for sure one has brain damage from that (dehydrated and other problems).
The neurologist says the other ones problems aren’t related to her illness, but I’m not convinced. She was on a ventilator for a month! She was on tons of medications. I don’t think they really know how that affects a person.
Neurological problems do not run in our family.
A country run by sissies cannot survive. It’s coming.
Well, little snowflake, I got to work full time instead of going to highschool.
Up at 4 am for coffee and a biscuit.
4:30, milk the families two milk cows then feed the rest of the cattle.
Check the hog feeder and water supply.
5:30 or so breakfast for myself with the family.
From about 6:15 am to 5 pm lots of hard farm work.
Sometimes lunch was taken as a sit down meal at the house. Sometimes it was a couple of biscuits with ham or something wrapped in newspaper and carried with me to the field.
Around 5 pm milk and feed the cows and check the hogs again.
About 6 pm was supper with the family.
If we had tobacco in the barn it meant staying up to tend the fires in the curing barn.
Once the tobacco was cured evenings and nights were spent sorting and tying the tobacco.
8 or 9 pm bath and bedtime.
Rinse and repeat 6 days a week every single week.
No vacations, no field trips, no holidays.
This doesn’t include fixing the equipment as it broke down or the other 101 things that farmers contend with that seek to delay the work.
Oh, and when I had the odd day that I could have taken off, I hired myself out to whoever needed an extra set of hands.
Suck it up snowflake, I would loved to have had your “problems”.
My kids went to a conservative Christian school in Silicon Valley.
The school just reinforced that you were a loser if you were not top of your class or an superstar athlete or an excellent performing artist.
The amount of messed up kids at that school is amazing. I bought into everything with my oldest son, and in college he has struggled with depression and anxiety. I wish he would have gone to community college instead. My husband had cancer when my son was in high school, and his sisters had neurological problems. I thought he was handling everything well, but he’s really struggled in college. It didn’t help that his roommate last year attempted suicide while my son was watching. My son graduates in August, and I’ll be hapoy.
Besides depression, there are lots of kids who cut themselves. Then there are lots of girls with eating disorders. Not to mention drug and alcohol abuse.
My son never talked about all the messed up kids, but my daughter told me everything.
I think it is also very stressful to be around so many messed up kids. My daughter was really worried that several friends would kill themselves.
I thought I was doing the right thing putting my kids in a private Christian school, but now I wonder if I should have homeschooled them.
In 1900, only 2% of the population had college degrees. Today, 45% do.
The writing is overwrought, but I have some sympathy. A lot of upper-middle class teens have a terrible time in high school, between the pressure to be a super-high achiever in everything and the toxic social environment.
He could make other choices for himself, starting by asking whether being a drone at the State Department is really his life’s dream.
Because you aren't of color. Or an international student. Or simply because you are white.
My daughter did very well on her exams, top ten in her graduating class, NHS, clubs, community service out the wazoo--the kid never had a B in her life.
She didn't get into the colleges of her choice. I kept telling her to put Asian on her applications as she is 25% Asian. She wouldn't do it. She kept checking the box for white.
We will see what happens for my son. At this point he is valedictorian. That could change but he'll certainly be in the top 3 barring any sort of calamity. He'll definitely check the Asian box. My guess? He fares better.
Snowflake could use a couple more things on his plate.
First, Snowflake should do a sport. Any sport. He probably can’t run, throw, or block, but there must be something. Put Snowflake in a community recreational doubles tennis league for all I care, but get him into a sport. Give Snowflake something where (1) he uses his body and challenges himself physically, and (2) he has to cooperate with at least one other person in a physical environment.
Second, take Snowflake to church at least twice a week, any church that follows the Bible, synagogue that follows the Torah, or anywhere else that follows a real religion. Give Snowflake a chance to learn that there is something much bigger than his career plans or even his parents’ plans in this world. Give Snowflake a chance to hand his problems over to a higher power, and also turn to that higher power for guidance. A guidance counselor who gives cookie-cutter advice to the students (as Snowflake’s counselor obviously does) is the wrong place to turn for meaning in life.
As busy as Snowflake is, adding these two big things to his life (ten hours of sports plus four hours of church a week) will leave his mind and spirit better prepared to handle the workload even with less time.
All of my kids took more AP/IB classes than Snowflake did by their junior year, and they all did three-season varsity sports too, plus church. They never even showed stress over it. They pushed the pace, and I was more likely to suggest that they back off than that they do more - their decision, and they normally ignored me on that.
Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.
Yes, Conan.
Things have kind of changed since then.
My nephew did too, at a prestigious private school on Detroit's east side. He would stay up till 2:00 a.m. doing homework and if not done, he'd get up at 5:00 a.m. and finish it before school. He was motivated to be the best in his class and he ended up valedictorian.
With the AP classes he took, he could have entered college as a Junior but he didn't want to. Because of his education and prowess as a hockey player, he was recruited by all the major ivy league universities but turned them down. Instead, he went to a small private college in Boston called Williams College, and played hockey for them the full 4 years and got a great education.
After graduation, he wanted to enroll at the University of Michigan med school but they rejected him because their class was already filled up, mostly with students that already has masters degrees who had switched to medicine and students on foreign visas. They did promise him that they would accept him the following year.
So that first year he went off to Europe and played semi-pro hockey and toured all the countries with his European hockey teammates. He had so much fun over there that he almost turned down returning home and attending the Univ. of Mich. Fortunately for him, he decided to come home (his parents would have killed him had he not), graduated from U of M Med., went on to the Univ. of Pittsburgh for surgery, eventually received a fellowship to Harvard's Thorasic surgery program, and is currently thorasic surgeon here in the Detroit area...........
Never once did he complain of stress.......
I'm so proud of him!
I’m familiar with the Silicon Valley area, which has similar dynamics. Lots of kids throwing themselves on the tracks in front of the train. I don’t blame this kid, he’s a product of his environment and his environment is one in which nothing matters except academic success. It’s not healthy, but it’s also the truth that to get to where these kids’ parents have gotten to, that’s what it requires. So there they are . . .
Sound like anyone we know?
Oh, I see now, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think about twins. God bless you and your daughters.
Methinks the wee lad is angling for a scholarship to Snowflake U.
The AP grade is weighted differently and allows for that.
See my post #39
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