Some Free Disease Knowledges

Can I quit now?

April 12, 2008 – 3:25 am

Right now I just want to quit school and go back to Hansard. And that’s saying something, because I hate Hansard. But at least at Hansard I know what I’m doing. I have no idea what I’m doing in accounting, and this is the introductory course. I have to take another accounting course after this one. If I can’t pass this one, I can’t take the other one. And right now, I’m thinking I may as well just drop out rather than fail. I actually started to cry in today’s class. However, I think that may have been partially related to blood sugar issues.

I also have no idea what I’m doing in “Modern Office Technologies.” Maybe the teacher explained things badly, but I had to ask her multiple times to explain my homework assignment, and I still don’t understand that one, either. Not to mention I had no clue how to answer the question I posted from last night’s homework. And to make things worse, a large portion of my grade is based on a group assignment. I hate group assignments. I could probably do the entire thing just fine by myself, but that is not an option.

I asked to be put in a group with Sarah, and Sarah asked to be put in a group with me. But instead, I was assigned to a team that is two-thirds of a clique, (Sarah got the other third) and they have already done an almost identical assignment for their medical office classes. That would be a good thing, except that they expect me to know everything they know, which I don’t, because we haven’t gone over it in this class yet, and I haven’t had the same classes they have.

They have ordered me to do my parts of the assignment tonight, when I already have homework from this class and homework from the accounting class, and I don’t yet know how to do the parts I am supposed to do. The group assignment isn’t due until the end of the month, while tonight’s homework is due tomorrow. I told them, “We haven’t gone over this stuff yet. I don’t know how to do it.” The response I got? “Do it anyway.” Sarah has been observing them and she says she has the impression from the student she is working with that these three are just about to graduate, and they’re just coasting along until graduation and trying to avoid working very hard.

I do have one thing going for me that might prevent me from dropping out of school entirely and going back to being an editor. Dave, who is the teacher I have for Accounting, came and found me after class today to go over the Accounting homework with me. (I had actually kind of expected that, and I had hoped to escape before he found me, because I was feeling horrendously embarrassed about crying in class.) I told him that I am feeling very pressured because I have a lot of homework for my “Modern Office Technologies” class as well as Accounting, and am having trouble keeping up.

I also told him the trouble I am having with the group project. I explained to him that the two girls I am working with are part of a clique, and that the teacher might have assigned me to work with them to try to get an “outside influence” on them or something. Dave thinks that I am not the best person for that kind of role (possibly because he read everything I wrote about Asperger’s Syndrome) and says that he is going to talk to the teacher about (a) the amount of homework she is assigning and (b) the group she put me in.

Dave has been transposing numbers since we started the class, and has freely admitted that he is really bad at math and, in fact, failed math in high school. I said to him today, “Dave, do you have dyscalculia?” He asked what that was, and I said, “It’s like dyslexia, but with numbers instead of letters.” He said yes, he does have dyscalculia, and that is probably why he failed math. He also says that this is proof that even someone who is lousy at math can do accounting.

Related articles:

1. Back To School Again
2. I am too old for cliques
3. In which rainbow does not make small talk
4. This just in: Office Depot sucks donkey balls
5. Dispatches from the Front Lines #346

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