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I have always been a little lazy. My mom says I get it from my dad. It was never really a problem until it led me to almost not graduate from high school. The thing that was causing problems for me was my grade in English, which was dependent on me doing well on a major research paper known as the Senior Project. Every paper is unique because the students write about any topic that interests them. My essay was on the exploitative relationship between the government and the animal product companies. I was passionate about it, and I enjoyed learning information about it from my research. The problem was, I was not meeting the deadlines my teacher set for each part of the project. In the beginning, I was able to motivate myself to complete the assignments on time. They initially consisted of simply looking for facts about the topic, and writing them down on flashcards. But then the class had to fill out 100 flashcards on their topic, and so I mixed in empty flashcards with my completed ones to make it look like I met the requirement. This behavior then deteriorated into not turning in the first two drafts for the essay. The teacher did let us turn in late work, but I used it as an excuse to not submit anything until the final due date. My English teacher questioned me about my missing drafts, and I would lie to her about bringing them the next day. Since I wasn’t responding well to her approaches, the teacher sent an email to my parents about how I wasn’t turning in work for the Senior Project, and they were enraged. Even before the email, my parents were nagging me about doing the project because they knew it was very important to my grade. I avoided their questions by lying to them about the rules for turning in homework. They couldn’t say otherwise because they went through school in India. So when they got notifications from the school grading system showing all the zeroes in my English class, I would explain it away by telling them that the teacher put the assignments in as placeholders and so everyone else also had zeroes for that assignment. But once they realized through the email that I wasn’t being honest, they immediately set up a meeting with my teacher. I cried in the meeting from shame that I failed my parents’ and teacher’ expectations. I was also finally worrying about the consequences of getting a zero on the Senior Project. If I didn’t turn in the paper on time, I would fail the class. Since English is a required class for graduation, UCSC would repeal my conditional acceptance. I was eventually able to turn in the paper, but only because my parents asked her for an extension. So at the end of the messy situation, I completely tarnished my image of myself to my favorite teacher by taking advantage of her kindness. I’m here now at UCSC, but only because she cared enough about her students to let me. Ever since I’ve come to college though, it feels like I got a fresh start so I feel motivated enough to do homework.