Being in Cyber High - Kim Septien

There’s one word that comes to mind when I hear the words Cyber High. Slacker. Slacker. Slacker. That’s three, but you get the point. I never thought I would end up in a class where my teacher was a computer and all I had to do was stare at it for an hour. That was not my plan when I started high school. I’ve always liked school, more than liked actually. Something more like loved. I think it’s because it was something that always came naturally to me. When I was younger I was the star student, the teacher’s pet, the overachiever. I was never ashamed of it, I was proud of my status. I loved knowing every answer that the teacher posed to a group of baffled students sitting in confusion. It was like power I guess, the POWER of KNOWLEDGE! Yeah I am exaggerating. Anyway, all that “power” was really confidence. And that confidence was like a giant pillow, ready to catch my fall the minute I was ever to stumble.

How I ended up being the slacker I never hoped to be was I learned to fail. When you’re someone used to doing well in school and getting good grades, failing at anything is a huge disappointment, not only to yourself but to anyone else that had gotten used to the straight A’s on the refrigerator. This in return becomes an even bigger disappointment. This was my downfall. Failure was so new to me that I didn’t know what to do. I mean I got a D in my math class. Math was my most favorite subject. I lived math. When I received my grade….don’t laugh. I cried. And I really planned on improving it. The thing is that giant confidence pillow, it deflated on me and when I fell I hit hard. I wanted to do better but didn’t know how. I procrastinated on changing my class. And in a class where Test scores are everything and homework is the smallest part of your grade making up tests becomes impossible. Especially when there’s no such thing as retakes. And there wasn’t. I failed every test and did all my work for a semester. I failed it. I failed three semesters in a row. It wasn’t until last year that I finally decided to do more than sit around and fail. I switched to an easier class. Initially I didn’t want to do this because I felt it wasn’t a real solution to the problem, but what choice did I have? Anyway I changed into an easier class and I passed that semester. Now I’m a senior with only fifteen math credits. If all goes well ill get the ten credits I need with Cyber High, and ten more in my Probability and Stats class. If that happens, ill be able to graduate without a problem. That’s what I plan to achieve. I want to be able to receive the credits I need so I can graduate. Graduating shouldn’t have been any problem for me but I made it a problem. I became what I never hoped to be. A slacker.