I never enjoyed school. NEVER. Not inelementary school, not in m middle school, and defiantly not in highschool. I hated getting up early, getting on the bus, sitting inclass hour after hour after hour. It felt like pure torture. Eighthours a day, every single day except Saturday and Sunday. I alwayshated homework too. In all honesty, I never studied in school, and Irarely did my homework. I always knew I was smart but I just neverapplied myself. I cant really give you a reason why I didn’t applymyself. Maybe it was because I was bored with what we were learningor that I was distracted. I don’t even have a clear answer formyself.

All I knew is that my parents wanted meto do well in school, and they pushed me and they pushed me hard.They would yell at me, take my phone away, cuss at me, they triedeverything to get me to be the perfect “straight A student” thatthey wanted. It had always bugged me that they wanted me to do whatthey wanted, and not let me do my own thing. My parents both havevery well paying jobs and both have very high educations from top ofthe rank schools. My dad a graduate of Mercer with a degree inEnvironmental Engineering and my stepmother a medical schoolgraduate(I don’t know which school). My parents, both extremelysuccessful in school, wanted me to be successful also, like any otherparent. They wanted me to attend a top of the line school and have ahigh end job like them.

Well like any child if you push themtoo far they will rebel. Me being me and the personality that I haveobviously rebelled against them. Not ever doing my homework, notmaking straight A’s or bringing home A’s on my report card. Not tosay I was a bad student(B’s and C’s) but in the back of my head Iknew it was what my parents wanted and not me. And that bugged theliving shit out of me.. It bothered me that my parents didn’t seewhat I did well, and what I couldn’t do well. They pushed me andpushed me until I was finally fed up. I did nothing. No homework, nostudying. I took notes in class and took tests. But I never attemptedto push my self farther than that, because I knew they wanted me tomake the grades for them, not myself.

It was second semester senior year myparents finally gave up pushing me to do my work. They said if Iwanted it, I would have to do it on my own(this wasn’t the firsttime nor the last he would tell me this). Every class second semesterI made an A in, besides math. I finally was doing it for myself.

I thought the pushing from my parentswas gone, until first semester at JSU came around. They started backup with “this is what we want for you.” And it killed me. I madesome pretty stupid decisions last semester that left me unsure if Iwas coming back for a second semester. These decisions got me kickedout of the house, and left the relationship with my parentsnon-existent. My father told me he was tired of trying to instillwhat he wanted in me, and that he would no longer support me. It wasan hour later I decided for myself that I would come back to JSU fora second shot.

So, here I am. Sitting at my desk, inmy dorm, doing my homework, on my own time. With no one pushing me,or bugging me to get it done. Only me, myself, and I. I am doing thisfor myself. I have responsibility. There is a reason I enjoy thiscourse so much, and a reason why I believe I will be taking moreonline classes and hybrid classes in the future. I have to makemyself do it. In an online class you don’t have anyone there overyour shoulder trying to make sure you get your work done. And I likethat. I think I found the right type of class for me. To make myselfsuccessful.