Bay 12 Games Forum
Finally... => Life Advice => Topic started by: ShoesandHats on November 26, 2013, 12:20:41 am
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So, there are only two reasons I ever post on this board. Either I'm having computer issues, or some real shit's hitting the fan in my life. This is one of the latter times.
Here's the situation: I'm thirteen years old, in the eighth grade, and failing my social studies and language arts classes. This isn't due to a lack of skill or understanding on my part. I'm really, really bad at getting work done. I can't write by hand for shit, and I only finish about a quarter of all my essays. I don't know whether I'm just lazy, forgetful, or anything else, but I just have basically zero work ethic. My language arts teacher sucks, my math teacher is awesome, my social studies teacher is...meh, and my science teacher is okay.
I'm really concerned. I don't really care about my grades or what my teachers think of me, but I would feel more ashamed than I've ever felt if I didn't make it into highschool. I have three siblings, two of which have finished college proper, while the third is still in college. I know they wouldn't, but I feel like they would look down on me if I failed. Plus, I get one hundred percent of my social interaction with kids my age at school, so if I had to be homeschooled, the only real company I would have is my stressed-out mother.
All I want is an education and some amount of interaction with other people. I don't know what kind of advice you guys might provide, but any is better than none. If you need more information, just ask.
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zero work ethic.
This is a problem, and it has nothing to do with your teachers or how smart anyone else is. It has to do with you. You make your own luck, so if you want it to change then the only way to change it is it sit down and do it.
That's it.
Put another way, YOU are the reason you don't finish essays and can't get stuff done. If you want to finish essays and get your grades up, sit down and write them, and don't do anything else except eat and sleep until you are finished. If you have a dead line, treat it literally... a line you are dead if you cross unfinished. Don't faff about on other trivial stuff, just finish the work first and then you have free time.
Life is and will always be about balancing your workload, so start learning now that it's all on you to make your life work the way you want.
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zero work ethic.
This is a problem, and it has nothing to do with your teachers or how smart anyone else is. It has to do with you. You make your own luck, so if you want it to change then the only way to change it is it sit down and do it.
That's it.
Put another way, YOU are the reason you don't finish essays and can't get stuff done. If you want to finish essays and get your grades up, sit down and write them, and don't do anything else except eat and sleep until you are finished. If you have a dead line, treat it literally... a line you are dead if you cross unfinished. Don't faff about on other trivial stuff, just finish the work first and then you have free time.
Life is and will always be about balancing your workload, so start learning now that it's all on you to make your life work the way you want.
I feel like a lot of what I say in this thread is unintentionally going to come off as sarcastic, so let me just get this out of the way: If it seems like I'm being sarcastic, I'm not. So, here goes my reply:
I know this, I know I have to just sit my ass down and work, simple as that. The problem is that I'm really bad at that. If I have a distraction, it will distract me. Every significant piece of work I have to do is an essay, and I can't do it by hand. Therefore, I have to do it on the computer. I have a lot of distractions on my computer. I know I'm in control of my own life. I've told myself this over and over this semester, and I've wondered why I just don't get it over with and do whatever work I have to do. I honestly don't know what to say. Anything I do say is going to come off badly. I'm angry at myself for being such a lazy asshole. I'm angry that instead of actually taking responsibility and doing my work I sit around and think about how much of a lazy bastard I am. At this point, I'm just talking like I'm some other person I can't influence whatsoever. I'm just venting at this point, so maybe it'd best if I stopped.
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If talking it through is what you need to do to work out the problem, by all means do so. The point is, you haven't gone far enough. Start taking the games off of your computer. Look up any of the freeware tools that will shut off the internet and keep you from reading cracked or tvtropes for hours. When you're sitting there to write, you literally can't do anything else. You don't need a snack, a drink from the fridge, to find out what's on TV, to check Twitter, or anything else. You just need to write. If it helps, sit there are stare at a blank page and feel bad if you must, but don't let yourself do anything else but sit there and feel bad about the blank page OR ... write something on the page.
It becomes a habit that gets easier to maintain after a while, but the first step to getting there is just to do it. Your brain will find a million different way to say no. Just sit there until you run out and can't say anything but yes, then work. It will get easier.
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welp this bit might be counterproductive but why is not going into high school so horrible and shameful
i mean, it /could/ be different over there but being able to say that you want to go to a f.ex. trade school to become an xyz in spite of more or less the entire system pushing people everupwards (causing degree inflation, oversaturation in select fields and people in their thirties going back to learn how to operate machinery on paid courses) might get a few laughs from people your age and maybe a bit of confusion from others, but ultimately they will respect your decision
though if you went there without any work ethic you'd be even more fucked that high school, mileage may vary
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The problem here is
but I just have basically zero work ethic.
That will get you nowhere.
I don't know how one inspires a work ethic, some other posts above addressed that, but if you don't think you can handle high school then don't even bother thinking about a trade school/work. Just my 2c.
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Every significant piece of work I have to do is an essay, and I can't do it by hand. Therefore, I have to do it on the computer.
Unless you're a cripple with your hands mangled to nubs and you use speech to text software, that's a piss poor excuse.
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Get a typewriter instead.
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Every significant piece of work I have to do is an essay, and I can't do it by hand. Therefore, I have to do it on the computer.
Unless you're a cripple with your hands mangled to nubs and you use speech to text software, that's a piss poor excuse.
Thanks. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysgraphia)
Otherwise, I appreciate your advice. If anyone is having a hard time understanding why I might feel ashamed if I didn't get into highschool, it's just because pretty much everyone else will, and if they aren't, then that's because they already have. Again, all of my siblings have already finished/are in college, and even though I know they wouldn't, I still feel like they would look down on me if I didn't get in. Plus, I just don't want to put that much stress on my mom. Both of us know that I don't need to repeat the eighth grade, so the most likely scenario if I don't make it is that she'll have to homeschool me.
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If they still sell cheap typewriters I would second that notion. It removes any distraction that a word processor program brings! Downside being you have all the jamming & maintainence, ink stuff, plus no formatting. On the plus side it should be the exact same layout as your qwerty keyboard.
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Let's see....
There's the legal substances option; one of the effects of caffeine can be to promote a sort of single-minded focus for a good 5 hours or so. Doubly so if you believe that and the placebo effect kicks in.
There's general focus-enhancing exercises, like meditation; which, really, everyone should try a bit of.
And then there's just giving up on your self-limiting labels of being bad at focusing, and having your conscious mind monitor what it is you are doing, and actually become self-aware and self-correcting.
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Alright, let me lay it down for you.
I have technically passed high school, but if you ask most people, I'm a high school dropout. Why? Well, technically I didn't finish 9th grade and took my GED when I was 17. Granted, I mostly passed my GED with flying colors, only because I know how to used a calculator, and have been able read and write at a college level since I was about 12 years old. This does not stop people from discriminating against me based on my diploma. Jobs are less likely to hire me, and when I'm asked what my GPA was in high school, I have to explain that my grades were practically nonexistant, at which point I get an "oh" or a disapproving shake of the head.
My advice to you? If you can't pass this year, see if you can take a test to prove you're ready to graduate (like I did in middle school) and try high school for at least a year. Try to improve your work ethic and study habits, and if you can make it through the year with passing grades, just stick it out a couple more years. If high school doesn't work out, take your GED and then sign up for college classes ASAP. With any luck, you'll actually come out ahead.
one of the effects of caffeine can be to promote a sort of single-minded focus for a good 5 hours or so. Doubly so if you believe that and the placebo effect kicks in.
Caffeine is great if you're not like me and a handful of other people whose brains treat it like a sedative instead of a stimulant. You know how I can get to sleep real easy? Drink a big cup of coffee.
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I personally do not believe in taking substances to help further my work. And also, the case for me is that caffeine aggravates a disorder of mine along with anxiety and stress.
So, the best I can tell you is get that work ethic up. I mean, that's my main problem also, is zero work ethic. I CAN get things done but I don't really have the motivation to do so.
So set a time where you isolate yourself from the world and focus on your work. That's what I'm trying now anyways. And if that doesn't work, chide yourself or something. Remind yourself that the future of your life depends on it.
I'm a freshman and the first semester of mine sucked due to a disorder of mine and perhaps next to no work ethic. But I'm still writing a book with an absolutely complex plot and full of human emotion.
Don't let others expectations bring you down; rather, let it motivate you to keep pushing past what they want.
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I have the same problem, bro. I almost flunked junior high, and then I almost flunked out of high school because I didn't care enough to do the work, and I would find reasons to distract myself. Not too long ago, I got a solid piece of advice that would have helped me 20 years ago, and I aced almost everything in college (barring the semester I tanked because of my divorce.)
That advice, as dumb as it sounds? Fake it.
Fake being enthusiastic about your work in school. Get home, sit at a desk or table with no computer unless you have to, fake being happy about having stuff to do, and crank it out so you can do other things. Writing by hand sucks balls, but you have to get excited about it, even if it's only for a little bit. Fake it every day. It sucks at first, and it's really easy to want to give up, but keep faking it. You'll psyche yourself into actually wanting to do the work after about a week of this.
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You...might be dyslexic or dysortographic. I know my brother was and couldn't do anything without someone right by his side to get him to do his work.
You can't write by hand and thus you decide to not write at all.
That's...probably the problem.
You need to write by hand.
I know it sucks. I know it will suck.
But unless you do, you'll never fix it. And problems need to be fixed, rather than ignored.
My mother sat by my brother's side everyday until he finished his essays. Have someone do that for you and if you can't, then try to talk about whether you actually have 'zero work ethic' or if you're actually simply dyslexic or suffering from ADHD. (Mind you, any child will be at one point 'psychoanalized' into having ADHD, but that's not the point) Just because you don't think you have something doesn't mean you actually don't.
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Speaking from experience, your mother shouldn't have to be involved at all in homeschooling on the high-school level. At that point, you're independent enough to teach yourself. I did it for four years, as well as every home-school graduate I know(about 15 of them). As long as you can read, you'll be fine. But remember, homeschooling gets very intense toward the junior and senior year, more so than a typical high-school. But you'll appreciate it your freshman year in college, when you already know everything and you're making a good buck off of tutoring.
Or you can get your grades up. Work ethic might help. ;)