Working towards Graduating

Every day I wake up I think about graduation. I started kindergarten with a small class, a bunch of unfamiliar faces, a supportive family, and determination. I continued through school, gaining friends, achieving high grades, completing goals to work towards the inevitable future: college. Through my childhood I wanted to be a vet, it changed vastly over the years with different experiences. My grades never changed, all high A's along with the multiple extra curricular activities I was involved in. When 7th grade hit and I got sick, I still pushed through. All the way until 10th grade I was doing school online at home, still getting straight As with no tutor and pure struggle. In 10th grade I was fairly healthy for the first semester, and I got straight A's, ranked #8 in my class, and participated in alpine ski racing and student council. It was a good semester, still reaching for high goals of college and seeing the light in the future. The next semester ended with me in a wheelchair, unable to do schoolwork, severely neurologically affected by Lyme possibly due to a relapse or reinfection. It took me close to a year before I finished the classes I had been enrolled in online and started getting work done, but ever since I have had few weeks of clarity and memory to be able to get work done. It has been a constant struggle, even with a tutor helping me the past 8 months. Today I finished a course, still leaving me with 8 credits to get before I can get a diploma and walk the aisle with the class I have been with since my first day of school. Needless to say, with a month left that dream is gone and dead. Other dreams will bloom, I'm positive, but after a meeting with the school this week I don't see graduating through my high school at all being possible in the next year as they require many more credits than most schools do. I have started looking into an alternative diploma program aimed for adults and structured like a college course, in the next town over. They only require 20 credits to graduate, and I would be able to get the diploma by the end of 2013 and either work towards starting my initial courses at a community college or working towards another direction. The classes are at nights, one night a week per credit, and I will be arranging a meeting with the woman who runs it soon to figure out what I must do to meet the criteria needed to be done with high school. I will not give up and settle for a GED, I'm almost there! I have my family, friends, and more pushing me to be the best I can be and not let such an illness get me down, and with a volunteer credit and online classes, tutors when needed, a 504 plan for special accommodation, and some high hopes I work towards just being done with school. I may not have the interest in going to college like I once did,but whatever I do I will do good, with stride and pride as I know I have worked twice as hard as many to get there. Dedication and street smart can get you farther than debt and book smart any day of the week.