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The School Survival Forums are permanently retired. If you need help with quitting school, unsupportive parents or anything else, there is a list of resources on the Help Page.

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To everyone who joined these forums at some point, and got discouraged by the negativity and left after a while (or even got literally scared off): I'm sorry.

I wasn't good enough at encouraging people to be kinder, and removing people who refuse to be kind. Encouraging people is hard, and removing people creates conflict, and I hate conflict... so that's why I wasn't better at it.

I was a very, very sensitive teen. The atmosphere of this forum as it is now, if it had existed in 1996, would probably have upset me far more than it would have helped.

I can handle quite a lot of negativity and even abuse now, but that isn't the point. I want to help people. I want to help the people who need it the most, and I want to help people like the 1996 version of me.

I'm still figuring out the best way to do that, but as it is now, these forums are doing more harm than good, and I can't keep running them.

Thank you to the few people who have tried to understand my point of view so far. I really, really appreciate you guys. You are beautiful people.

Everyone else: If after everything I've said so far, you still don't understand my motivations, I think it's unlikely that you will. We're just too different. Maybe someday in the future it might make sense, but until then, there's no point in arguing about it. I don't have the time or the energy for arguing anymore. I will focus my time and energy on people who support me, and those who need help.

-SoulRiser

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What I'm doing now
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tyciol Offline
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What I'm doing now

I didn't really like school much, so I was pressured to basically quit by my vice-principal. He never really liked me much. He's an ex-cop, and because a group of guys picked a fight with me and one guy among them got injured (not even by me) and the worst I got was milk in my hair, he always suspected I was some sort of troublemaker. He caught me at a bad time I guess, because I got transferred to an 'adult community learning centre'. He told me stuff like it was more mature, but actually it was just full of deviants. While there were some people there who were sincere and probably like me, as well as some adults who came to learn stuff, it was the minority, and not a very good environment. Not only that, but you had to buy your own books (overpriced, the sellers came in and were probably friends of the staff) and you had to pay all these outlandish registration fees. The second you walked outside it was a giant parking lot and cigarette smoke wafted in through your nostrils.

I was pissed with that so I left and just started working in the supermarket, but obviously we want more so I tried getting back into my old highschool but they wouldn't let me. Another thing: gifted programs are a bunch of BS. They don't intend anything for you, it's basically a thing they do to get extra funding for the school which they splurge on athletics or something. The only legitimate ones are probably the elementary school programs. High school ones just phase into normal programs (unless you have AP ones, which anyone can join and are more workload based than learning based) which anyone can take so it's almost pointless.

So, right now I found two options which don't require going to these places. One is a correspondance centre which you receive through the mail and either mail back your work, or some courses are getting higher tech where you can submit it as text documents through their mail server. Another one is higher tech and hosted by volunteering teachers (though they get paid) of a local high school and surrounding area, where it's all online and you get emailed big PDFs of the textbooks for nothing beyond the cost of the course fee. The only thing you need to obtain is books for english but for open-source stuff like shakespeare they give you a free PDF and usually the books being read there are half a dozen copies at the local library anyway. It's pretty good, the only thing I'm sore about is they haven't implemented the 12 chemistry course yet, but I figure they will by the time I finish the other ones they do offer that I'm interested in. I'm still thinking of doing the first one because they offer an Earth and Space Science course which the computer one doesn't (I've never even heard of it before, must be new).

One thing I had considered along the way was a GED, I thought about getting that first and then finishing high school but it's very expensive and honestly feels kind of mind-numbing. When I asked about what would happen if I had a diploma AND a GED the lady said it would basicly not count for anything extra, so I'd rather skip it since I only need 1-2 more credits to get the diploma anyway. Still, it's a very good idea for people who dropped out of highschool earlier, and I think I'm going to try and get my aunt and grandmother to do it. They both dropped out of high school, and are both basically retired now so it would give them something to do, some pride, and something to keep the mind sharp. Apparently my grandma was gifted or something but basically got pregnant so she had to drop out, which was really sad to think about that sort of sacrifice.

Right now I'm only doing school part time because I need to help with rent and also save up so hopefully I can get university tuition some day. I've never really had any hopes that I could get scholarships to defray the cost though I suppose it's possible. It's a good idea to go for it, even if the time needed to improve grades is longer than the time needed to work to earn the costs of whatever such grades would defer, the idea is that it would also prepare more so I'm less likely to flunk first year Razz
03-06-2007 11:23 PM
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Re: What I'm doing now

tyciol Wrote:Another thing: gifted programs are a bunch of BS.
I would agree. I was going to join the International Baccalaureate program but then I went to a forum of IB students and most of the posts were complaints of how high the workload is and they didn't even get the promised benefits, such as better status with universities.
03-07-2007 06:17 AM
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Rebelnerd Offline
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i second that. they always offered me the "honor" of AP and extra-curricular gifted shit and whenever i took it it make life miserable. when you struggle valiently through tons of work and finally make it, the reward shouldn't be more work.

I think Buenaventura Durruti is a pretty cool guy. eh kills fascists and doesnt afraid of ruins.
The quickest way to kill a revolution is to wait for it.
03-07-2007 06:33 AM
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