Comments on: A Wish and A Prayer

By: sheta

sheta — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 12:22:06 +0000

@Lily: That was really cool of them to do! I think community college is probably the best idea, yeah. She can take a few classes rather than a full course load.

By: sheta

sheta — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 12:21:17 +0000

@Lavanah: If you want to see the guy’s reply, I can forward that to you. I admit that stating Kara should be able to bypass the drudge work section of working after college is pretty arrogant, but I’m going by what Kara can handle.

There’s nothing wrong with learning Photoshop and Illustrator, of course, but I think a $50,000 a year college should be doing significantly more than that.

By: sheta

sheta — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 12:19:07 +0000

@Ren: Yeah, having a plan is hard — most people can’t plan for something they’ve never been through, because such a plan assumes the world will fall into place for your plan, in a sense.

By: sheta

sheta — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 12:03:36 +0000

@Soli: She did not finish high school. I took her out during her junior year due to extended illness, but the fact was that by the end of junior high they were just shuffling her into the next grade without her retaining enough information to excel. Her grades began to fall and kept falling. I fought with the school district at length, even asking for a math tutor, but they refused and kept stating that she was doing fine in class, she just didn’t do the homework. At home, she would get upset because she didn’t know how to do the homework. And so we went round and round for 4-5 years before I gave up and took her out. We transferred to “home school,” which in Texas is pretty much anything goes. But she didn’t learn much, and I don’t know higher math for shit. She needs to study and get her GED, and to move on from there. Community college is a good idea, and we have several in the area. She is just very difficult to motivate to even simple & quick tasks (like feeding the cats), and until she really wants to learn, I don’t know how I’m going to get her motivated. I’ve always been a hands-off disciplinarian, allowing her pretty much total freedom as long as she wasn’t doing anything illegal or just plain stupid. It’s worked well for everything except conscientiousness and self-starting.

I am lousy when it comes to maintaining routines. I can’t keep to one schedule — I’ve tried, and my health will do stupid things like give me diarrhea right when I’m laying down to sleep, and then keeping me up all night. (This happens a lot.) So I sleep at chaotic times, and waking hours differ based on what times I am awake, etc. She’s going to have to do a lot on her own, no matter how we move forward.

By: sheta

sheta — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:56:11 +0000

@aydira: I worry for her because I don’t want her to get blindsided by the harsher aspects of life. She’s content to sit on her computer all day and ignore everything else. It’s been three years of this, and she needs to do more. I won’t say it’s completely wasted time, but she’s really used little energy toward developing anything other than her drawing and roleplaying skills.

By: Lily

Lily — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 03:23:42 +0000

My son is going to Fort Lewis college for an undeclared major. He has interest in languages and history. He had a difficult first semester–was hospitalized for a week, and this put him behind on his work to the point where he couldn’t catch up. The head of the counseling center called him in and advised him to withdraw from his courses on the last day of classes to avoid academic probation and re-enroll in the same courses next semester. I was highly impressed by the fact that this school takes this kind of interest in their students’ success. My son is doing much better and will return next semester ready to succeed. I think a small liberal arts school such as this might be good for your daughter too. My son has really matured a lot since going there, even with his very difficult first semester.

By: Lavanah

Lavanah — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:23:13 +0000

You have done me an enormous good deed by posting this! The Art Institute is one of the schools my younger daughter is (or shall we say “was”) considering. I’ve been pushing for her to consider more traditional 4 year liberal arts schools, and this was the ammo I needed for my argument. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

And, I think that Soli had a really good idea. Would Kara consider getting some of her credits at a community college, first?

By: Ren

Ren — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 20:50:24 +0000

I spent 6 years to get a BS in Psychology. Currently, I’m a home health aide. Go figure. I’m not saying that uni isn’t worth it, b/c it is. However, you do need a plan for after uni, which I’m bad at. It happens.

By: Soli

Soli — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:38:54 +0000

Did K graduate high school? I’m more inclined to suggest people do college in general to get a more full education and also the experience of doing different kinds of classes. Even a good community college will be a big help, plus it might help her to mature.

By: aydira

aydira — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:52:01 +0000

I hope she finds something good. Don’t give up hope though, my sister didn’t really go to school until she was 24 or so and now she’s 29 and has all these degrees. I’ll hopefully do something like that that too. I think I’m a late bloomer.