# Is school attendance such a big deal?



## Darkbloom (Aug 11, 2013)

Thank God I'm not living in the USA:laughing:
I barely showed up to school and I managed to lie my way through it without parents finding out and anyone in school making a big deal out of it as long as I was nice and showed up now and then to write some exam.Worst thing that happened was one teacher getting angry and refusing to give me an A in the end,an A I'd barely deserve even if I attended classes and did everything on time lol


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## Impavida (Dec 29, 2011)

Whether or not attendance is a big deal, depends on the rules where you live. When I was in school, skipping classes meant a risk of being arrested for truancy, being suspended and/or expelled from school. Colleges/universities didn't care. All they were interested in was GPA.

That said, I was a chronic skipper in my last three years of high school. We didn't have study hall in my school. If we had met all of our required credits for the term, we could have free periods. There was no attendance or check-in required. We could do whatever we wanted for that time, but we were supposed to stay on school grounds. We also had a "double block" system at my high school, so whatever class we had immediately before lunch, we had a second hour of the same course immediately after lunch. The schedule rotated so it was a different class that had the double block each day. The days when I had a free period for double block, I just went home and didn't bother coming back for last period. Sitting around twiddling my thumbs for three hours didn't seem like a productive use of my time.

I was hauled in front of the principal a couple of times, but because I was an honours student I never got into any trouble. They tweaked my course schedule a couple of times to try and make things more interesting/challenging for me. In the end, I took a bunch of random courses just to fill time. What I should have done was apply to graduate early. I talked to my parents about it, but they wouldn't allow it. I don't think they realized quite how bored I was. Also, I was already the youngest person in my class. They were worried that starting college at 16 would have been damaging to me in some way. I still don't quite get that.

My experience after 10+ years in the professional work force is pretty much the same as it was at school. So long as you do good work and don't negatively impact on others, you can get away with almost anything. YMMV.


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## Mamoru (Mar 30, 2014)

Devin87 said:


> You're not "manipulating" the rule, you're breaking it. Manipulating would be doing what my SO did in high school where he found a loop hole that allowed him to get out of study hall while staying within school rules. The administration didn't like it, but he wasn't breaking any rules so they had to allow it. Manipulating requires knowing the rules better than those enforcing them and finding loopholes to cleverly get what you want while still playing within the system so that you can do it right out in the open and no one can stop you.
> 
> What you're doing is likely to end up having consequences. If you're skipping that much, you could end up suspended (which colleges most definitely look at) or worse-- you could end up in front of a judge for truancy. And, as someone else said, it's a bad habit to get into. If you were skipping to go to an after school job or something else worthwhile, that'd be one thing. But to go home and "do whatever" isn't the best excuse. Later in life when you get into the work force, the idea that anything you personally find stupid and pointless can be disregarded and skipped out on without consequences will not serve you well. "Is school attendance such a big deal?" easily turns into "Is it really that big a deal if I call out of half my shifts at work?"
> 
> If you find study hall stupid and your grades are proving that you don't need it, talk to your administration about taking up another class during that period or doing an internship or volunteer work-- something you're interested in and that will challenge you and serve you well in the future or just give you something fun to occupy time that would otherwise be wasted. I also hated study hall in high school and, when I couldn't just take another class during that time, I volunteered in the nurses office, tutored German, and assisted in a freshman class in my favorite subject. They were good experiences that taught me to be a responsible, hard worker, which has led to several promotions now that I'm in the workforce (now I get to fire the people who think it's ok to just skip out on the stuff they think isn't important).


The art of manipulating/breaking a rule is to make sure you can get away with it while still maintaining the facade that you're following them, which is what I'm doing. 

I should have said this more clearly in the OP, but I'm not "skipping" school in the sense that it's not excused as classified by my school. Whenever I want to miss school, I just tell my parents I want a day off and they allow it and write me a note (which my school requires a note in order to have it be excused). So I can't get suspended for what I'm doing. I just referred to it as skipping since I'm not really sick, lol. And in regards to skipping study hall, there IS a risk but it is very minimum. I've been doing it for 3 months now I think and I have yet to be caught (and I make sure I don't either). However as I said I'm prepared for the consequences if they are to come. And don't get me wrong here, I don't skip every time I don't want to go to school (if I did, I'd hardly ever go). I make good grades and take much effort into maintaining them, so I go to school a sufficient amount of days in order to do that - and that also means I don't miss days that have something important going on (i.e we recently had a TCAP test which is a large chunk of our grade, and there are other assignments such as Chemistry Lab and other various group assignments I push myself to go to school for). The same would apply to a job. I wouldn't miss an amount of days that affected my work, just like I'm not missing a significant amount that affects my grades, so it's really not a problem. One teacher of mine does the same as I and he's still awesome and gets his stuff done. My mom also takes a lot of off days and she's still as hard-working as ever. I don't see why I should attempt to go everyday when it's not necessary to do so. 



la_revolucion said:


> Of course it's important. Try taking off from work as an adult and telling your boss that you just "aren't feeling it today" and would rather be at home.
> 
> Besides, you live with your parents as their child. (You don't pay bills or rent, right?) It's extremely disrespectful to argue over something as trivial as being too defiant to attend such an easy class like study hall. It's just sheer laziness.
> 
> ...


I actually want a particular career where I won't have to directly answer to someone (i.e a boss directing my every move) so I don't count on that happening in my profession. 

And how is that disrespectful? Are you to tell me that because I live in there house I should be a vegetable and just obey their every command? And my dad is the one who actually sparked the argument and insisted on it, not me. My parents put a lot of emphasis on giving my sister and I a voice in the house since they were raised with the do-as-I-say/militant upbringing growing up, so it's not a big problem that I butt heads with my father. I often argue with him over stuff, and to me that's a good sign that I have my own mind. And no, it's not laziness. I put a hell of a lot of effort into my school work. Skipping study hall and a less than two weeks out of school doesn't invalidate that. 

And to answer your last paragraph: 
Do you respect him?: I guess
Do you have a good relationship with him?: It's much better than how it was before, which was near non-existent
Don't get me wrong here, I don't avoid my parents' advice. However I don't think it's right _all_ the time, so I don't necessarily follow their words of wisdom word-from-word. This study hall skipping in particular isn't breaking any rule they set in place. In fact my mother doesn't care much about it (I think I said in the OP that she's only "upset" because my father is) but my dad is the only one who's making a fuss over it.

I want to have faith in my father again but I feel like if I am to follow such frivolous rules such as this, it's leading to the path where I'll become a rule stickler like my father is. When I was younger I followed all of my father's advice, and to the dismay of my anxiety and other problems, and since then I've avoided following rules word from word, which that's all my father is about. There's no reason to follow them persay with him, you just have to do it because you're told to, and I despise that militant frame of mind. I don't care if he's my father or not, I need some more incentive behind it. 



infiniteli said:


> In my opinion, I think its because he doesn't want you to start a habit of skipping whenever you think unimportant or a waste of time.
> It has nothing to do with your grades since you claim that your grades are good enough. I've had that same argument with my parents before and when they were away in vacation while I was in high school, I almost skipped an entire week.
> But over the years, I got so use to it and it just became a habit that sprout from the behaviour I developed when I was younger.
> I don't think my parents present the right argument to me but they felt that it was a bad idea and the only way for them to convey it to me was to make up other excuses for it.
> Let's face it. When you get a real job, you can't suddenly decide that you're going to skip out on a meeting or call in sick and work from home because you feel like it.


Well if it _is_ unimportant, why should I go? I'm old enough to where I can distinguish what's vital and what's not, and I'm aware of decisions that I'm not keen of can impact me in the future, so I consider myself to be very wise in the field of what's important and what's not. 

See, I don't skip those kinds of things in school. If there's an important assignment such as a standardize test, a group lab or whatever, something that will surely impact me in the long-run, I will muster the courage to make it through the day. However missing study hall has 0 impact on me whatsoever, and it's basically daycare for kids who don't have a class. So what's the real purpose of staying?



infiniteli said:


> Also. Danggg....I didn't get let out of high school until 3pm.


My school starts at 7 though, which a lot of people find to be pretty early compared to other schools, so there's that.



Grandmaster Yoda said:


> If you miss a certain amount of days you're done, you have to start all over. I do not see the benefit to not going to school.


What do you mean? All my absences are excused and there's not a certain amount of absences you reach until you're "over".



AriesLilith said:


> It doesn't really matter what we think, rules are there and there will be consequences depending on what we do. We can learn to play with the rule holes, thought we can't simply expect them to change just coz we don't agree with them, no matter how stupid they can be.
> 
> Also, rules might be flawed but would it be ideal if there were no rules at all? Society and systems would not really be able to function with enough complexity if there is no structure. That's why even if rules are flawed, they still have value. They are also improved from time to time - it certainly is much better nowadays than decades ago.


That's similar to my dad's frame of thinking, and I hate the puppet-mentality he tries to impose on me and how I should follow a rule simply because it exists. Rules are necessary to a certain extent but following unnecessary ones to a T is ridiculous. 



sin said:


> I don't think you should do this to your dad. I may have argued the same way as you in the past, but after realizing that people are different and that certain things that matter to them can cause stress, it's "wrong" to keep trying to get your way at the expense of his mental state.
> 
> Your dad is worried about the situation. He can't help it. You are effectively torturing him in your attempt to be right. You are not going to change his stance on the matter - it won't happen, regardless of who's right. Try to be accommodating to your family to some extent. It will make life easier and will certainly lessen the strain on your relationship. You can still maintain your own personal values and have your own way of thinking about things, but sometimes insisting on being right isn't the best course of action. Plus, you are doing this and taking unnecessary risks for what reward? Getting home a half an hour early? Not really worth it imo.
> 
> ...


I'm not doing this in spite of my father. And to be honest I don't think it's causing him as much stress as he exaggerated in the argument. He often exclaims and exaggerates his points in order to get it across which, for me at least, doesn't work very often. I've done most of what he's asked to lately: make good grades. That's it. That's all he really asks of me, not to be some rule-abiding puppet, which I was unfortunately one in elementary school. I put a heaping amount of trust in my father during those times and, due to various events it lead to disarray which is still slightly impactful today. My father's frame of thinking is very inflexible and he tries to transform mine into his, which I'm not agreeing to. I've played by his book in the past, and as a result it make me a vegetable who couldn’t even think for himself. If I'm to cave into my father wanting me to abide by such frivolous rules I'm afraid I'll lose myself again. If I'm to follow a rule of this degree, he's going to keep pushing it to rules of even smaller degree. It's a never ending spiral when it comes to rule abiding with him.






Hotaru said:


> I sat out a large chunk of high school and college attendance both for personal reasons and personal preference, I'd rather learn independently and in an efficient way, something I can't do when their standard method is too flawed and my head is elsewhere. I prefer studying on my own too and create my own comfortable routine, I follow what worked the best for me without getting stuck into anarchy.
> 
> Where I live is not a big deal, though I got in serious trouble for it during highschool, much less so college as I was an adult and my grades were borderline perfect whenever I took any tests so it's not like I had to force myself into anything I didn't want to do. Some places are a lot stricter and in some cases I wanted to attend regularly but that was my decision, as long as I don't fall behind and prove my competency, I don't see why it'd even be a problem.
> 
> I used to pick and choose my classes and run late often but it worked for me.


I do consider going to classes to be beneficial, and I often learn more inside than I do outside. But there are some days when it's just...why? Why bother going? Especially when you know nothing is going on the next day. 
In my school it's kind of a big deal and it's kinda not. If you're caught skipping unexcused, which basically means you're flat out skipping class, including attendance, chronically, then you're in big trouble. However the days I miss are excused by the school and I stay in study hall until attendance, so I stay for that to avoid trouble. Even if they do catch me skipping study hall the most they'll do is flag me lol which isn't a big offense at all. 



ninjahitsawall said:


> I used to push myself too hard in high school and either got sick probably more often than average or took what my mom called "mental health days." She always wrote notes for me so I was able to get away with it. Don't know if I missed that many days, but in the middle of my junior year I refused to go to school and missed an entire semester (still graduated on time.) I've carried this attitude with me since high school of "well I can do ___, but I'm just doing it as a favor to you, it's meaningless to me." I'm really trying to get over it at this point b/c I'm looking for jobs and it's self-destructive. lol.
> 
> I say if full-time employees get about 2 weeks a year in sick days, students should get at least as much because the amount of hand-holding and rule following students have to go through is counterproductive (IMO.) But it definitely starts to have an effect on you if you're falling behind other students. In college I hated even missing a day b/c that can throw you off more than you'd think, esp. in science or math classes. In high school I'd guess it's going to be more about what's on paper. If something actually indicates bad attendance it could be a red flag.


My mom does the same thing. In regards to school all they really care about is grades, which I'm meeting their expectations with. But I never miss enough days to where it affects my school work. I'm rarely ever behind and if I am, it's something I can get caught up with the following day. College is more flexible with their classes, and you don't have to stay cooped up in a building for 7-8 hours for 5 days a week, so if I ever do miss it'll be a damn good reason then because I'd have more free time. 



Vayne said:


> Sadly, it seems to be a big deal, in reality, it doesn't matter.
> What matter is your grade after all.
> While grade can be used as a parameter for students, school attendance is pretty much "dilligence" only. Doesn't matter.


I think attendance matters to a certain extent. I don't miss any amount to where it makes me fall behind. I attend all of my necessary classes, which is basically every class BUT study hall, so I don't see the big problem in it either.



Matvey said:


> Lots of preaching in this thread...
> 
> Study hall was the most worthless class period I had in high school, too. Luckily, my school had the option for taking off-campus periods in place of electives/study hall if I had enough credits, so I only had study hall for one semester. We did have required attendance for pep rallies, though, which is the stupidest concept ever. I skipped them every time because there isn't a point to it. Following rules has its place and all but there should be acceptable limits for how much shit has to be taken. If you're done with homework then study hall has no purpose. Pep rallies have no purpose to begin with. If you think you have something better to do, then do it. I don't understand why high school strives so hard to waste students' time :\ High school feels more like a daycare for older kids than it does an educational institution ((at least in my experience)). It's not the same as work/jobs because at least when you have a job, you're doing something so you can be paid for it, and if you're paid to do something for a fair price, it isn't really a waste of time and a motivation to be there still exists. Sitting around at a study hall or idiotic pep rally don't give any benefit, so skipping those aren't the same as skipping a job. People do things when they can get something out of it. If you aren't getting anything out of it, then you shouldn't be doing it and everyone's time is getting wasted. Schools put study hall in their schedules merely as a way fill space in the schedule and pointlessly extend a school day so the school can be paid for each student who attends a full day without having to set up real classes or set up other arrangements to fill it with instead. Study hall is the most inexpensive way to hold a student on campus for a full period so that's why it exists.


The funny thing about my being in study hall was that originally my last period was supposed to be Psychology, which I marked on my course sheet and was one of the first to turn mine in. Ironically enough, I didn't get it, and when they put me in another class I didn't want to take and I tried to swap it out with another class, they said it was too late (it was only the first two weeks of school) and I had to stick with the class or go to study hall. So that's how I ended up in study hall. 

I skipped a pep rally for the first time the last time my school hosted one, don't know why I haven't done it before. School demands a lot of impositions and expectations out of a student, and for me especially it's tiresome. I have nearly all A's except for one B, and I don't even push myself to do make more past that, and it already hogs up 3-4+ hours of my 6-7 "free" time after school. It always amazes me how school systems expect you to maintain your physical and mental health when you're locked in a cage weekly for 7-8 hours with the expectation of being a model student with straight A grades despite the curriculum being made for cram-teaching to the test, to be active in school and participate in clubs and etc. - all of this is like having a job really. By the time you get home and you're done with all your work the day's almost over and you have little to no time to yourself. It's hard keeping up with all this crap man



bigstupidgrin said:


> My attempt at a nuanced "take" here:
> 
> 1. Yes, study hall is BS. My wife works in a middle school with an "advisory period" which is also BS. It's nice for her because it's almost like a prep period. It's also nice for interacting with students, and building relationships, but most students don't need it. Your GPA indicates you don't need study hall to succeed.
> 
> ...


2. This is the only real point I see from my dad but, skipping 40 minutes of a useless period doesn't seem to be affecting my work ethic. And neither do the days I miss.

3. I already do stuff similar to that during the summer. I volunteer at my local hospital. I don't see a need of doing it while I'm in school, especially with so much wok

4. Trust me buddy, I don't want to see any lick of homework if I don't have to. I stay in study hall if I have homework to work on since I'm more focused there. But if I don't have any homework I just jet. The study hall teach doesn't give a damn what you do as long as you're out his sight. And don't you think those activities are more comforting to do at home?



Impavidus said:


> Whether or not attendance is a big deal, depends on the rules where you live. When I was in school, skipping classes meant a risk of being arrested for truancy, being suspended and/or expelled from school. Colleges/universities didn't care. All they were interested in was GPA.
> 
> That said, I was a chronic skipper in my last three years of high school. We didn't have study hall in my school. If we had met all of our required credits for the term, we could have free periods. There was no attendance or check-in required. We could do whatever we wanted for that time, but we were supposed to stay on school grounds. We also had a "double block" system at my high school, so whatever class we had immediately before lunch, we had a second hour of the same course immediately after lunch. The schedule rotated so it was a different class that had the double block each day. The days when I had a free period for double block, I just went home and didn't bother coming back for last period. Sitting around twiddling my thumbs for three hours didn't seem like a productive use of my time.
> 
> ...


All of my absences are excused, so there's no worry of truancy or reports. And for the most part it's that I'd rather be home than be at school. I'm already lacking sleep due to the amount of hours I have to spend on school, I don't see how leaving 40 minutes early affects my future in the work force or any morality issue. 

If anything negative was to come out of this experience, it'd be solely on myself. My skipping affects no one around me, which is one of the benefits to it.


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

Mamoru said:


> The art of manipulating/breaking a rule is to make sure you can get away with it while still maintaining the facade that you're following them, which is what I'm doing.
> 
> I should have said this more clearly in the OP, but I'm not "skipping" school in the sense that it's not excused as classified by my school. Whenever I want to miss school, I just tell my parents I want a day off and they allow it and write me a note (which my school requires a note in order to have it be excused). So I can't get suspended for what I'm doing. I just referred to it as skipping since I'm not really sick, lol. And in regards to skipping study hall, there IS a risk but it is very minimum. I've been doing it for 3 months now I think and I have yet to be caught (and I make sure I don't either). However as I said I'm prepared for the consequences if they are to come. And don't get me wrong here, I don't skip every time I don't want to go to school (if I did, I'd hardly ever go). I make good grades and take much effort into maintaining them, so I go to school a sufficient amount of days in order to do that - and that also means I don't miss days that have something important going on (i.e we recently had a TCAP test which is a large chunk of our grade, and there are other assignments such as Chemistry Lab and other various group assignments I push myself to go to school for). The same would apply to a job. I wouldn't miss an amount of days that affected my work, just like I'm not missing a significant amount that affects my grades, so it's really not a problem. One teacher of mine does the same as I and he's still awesome and gets his stuff done. My mom also takes a lot of off days and she's still as hard-working as ever. I don't see why I should attempt to go everyday when it's not necessary to do so.
> 
> ...


In my society there is a higher limit to excused absences than unexcused absences. Neither is unlimited.


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## Dao (Sep 13, 2013)

Learn to cultivate patience and diligence now or you will regret it. Outside high school, there are mandatory wastes of time that we all have to put up with whether it's a work meeting or a discussion day in a college course or filing paperwork. Practice skipping now and it will become a nasty habit later. Practice being an adult now and you'll be happy you have that trait to rely on when it really counts.


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## AriesLilith (Jan 6, 2013)

Mamoru said:


> That's similar to my dad's frame of thinking, and I hate the puppet-mentality he tries to impose on me and how I should follow a rule simply because it exists. Rules are necessary to a certain extent but following unnecessary ones to a T is ridiculous.


When I was in high school and university, I've skipped as much classes as I could get away with.  You see, many people either think like "oh no you are a bad egg for breaking the rules" or "wow you have a puppet mentality", but they can't think a bit out of the box and see that there is more to that than such a simple view.


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## la_revolucion (May 16, 2013)

I think you have already made up your mind on this one. That's fine. 

So this:


Mamoru said:


> I actually want a particular career where I won't have to directly answer to someone (i.e a boss directing my every move) so I don't count on that happening in my profession.


Just curious what career you are thinking of. I currently work from home as a salaried data analyst. So I am always doing my own, and largely independent, projects. No one knows what I am doing throughout my day or where I am at. Which is why I often can do things in the middle of work hours. I just finish my projects on time and always remain available via my phone if I am out during official business hours. 

Though I honestly feel I got pretty lucky with this set up. Most of my other tech friends are slaves to their desk in big corporations. (SUCKERS! But they get paid more... bummer! But I have freedom! But I could earn more $$. Dilemma!) But I am not the CEO, and I have bosses who sometimes call me with trivial and mundane issues that are OMG FIX IT RIGHT NOW OMG! It happens. 

So I totally understand how you feel. I also have no problem standing up to my parents and disagreeing with them either. Though high school is so short and it will end soon. Which is why I would probably just do what my parents asked if that's why they wanted. It's just what... a few more months until the end of the school year? Also, I wasn't advocating that you be brain dead as long as you are their dependent. More of like.... pick your battles. (I personally picked some bad battles to fight with my own as a teen. Wasn't worth it the fights.) But you feel strongly on this and picked it as your battle. Hey, your choice. Run with it. lol.

(FYI, I personally interpreted your OP as some snarky high school kid's attitude problem. So that's why I was kind of patronizing. lol! I will try to be more open minded to your reasoning. Haha.)


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## Mamoru (Mar 30, 2014)

AriesLilith said:


> When I was in high school and university, I've skipped as much classes as I could get away with.  You see, many people either think like "oh no you are a bad egg for breaking the rules" or "wow you have a puppet mentality", but they can't think a bit out of the box and see that there is more to that than such a simple view.


I understand the importance of rules as a principle for institutions to maintain order, but not as a guideline to live by. There are dozens of rules I think are total shit, but I understand why they were set in place and why they should be followed. In this specific case though I don't. 



la_revolucion said:


> I think you have already made up your mind on this one. That's fine.
> 
> So this:
> 
> ...


I want to be an independent CRNA. I'll have to work under someone for some years in order to get experience, but in the long-run I want to be an independent contractor. I hate the idea of having to work _under_ someone. It drives me nuts

I, like both my parents, do not enjoy highschool and I can only muster up the energy to go to make good grades. There's nothing else I do in school aside from schoolwork that makes it worthwhile for me, so my skipping study hall doesn't necessarily disrupt my highschool life, so it's not problematic for myself or them in actuality. My mother says I'm being defiant against order for no reason which I don't agree with. I think that if I'm to follow such insignificant rules to a T, it will open up opportunities in the future to do the same with ones of smaller degrees, which in turn will make me out like my father, which is one of my biggest fears. 

Haha I'm actually a very good kid, especially in school. This disagreement with my parents isn't necessarily "disobeying" their orders since they put a lot of emphasis on me making decisions on my own. They raised me a bit different from my sister to where instead of making cut-dry demands, they give me guidelines and tips to live by since I never responded very well to their dogmatic upbringing methods in the past .


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## AriesLilith (Jan 6, 2013)

Mamoru said:


> I understand the importance of rules as a principle for institutions to maintain order, but not as a guideline to live by. There are dozens of rules I think are total shit, but I understand why they were set in place and why they should be followed. In this specific case though I don't.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Even if in your case those rules might not be needed, and even if these rules seems useless, how would one convince the school to change the rules or allow one exception? Perhaps they believed that a student missing too many times can allow possobility for even the best student to end up deviating or start caring less and less, so how would one convince them that he is trustworthy to be mature enough, so that they'd forget this rule they perceive as important?

Also, perhaps instead of focusing on why your parents are disagreeing with you strongly, you can try to think of why the communication is not working out. Sure, they can be stubborn and worried, but perhaps how you express your points is giving off a less desirable impression and not effective in this case?
Sometimes, how we can change things really depends on how much we can actually come up with, how much out of the boxes we can see.

And then sometimes while you can get a compromise from both sides, you can't get it the way you see as right. Sometimes life has limited options even if we can't agree it nor have te power to change it. That doesn't mean you are a sheep, we don't have power to change everything.
Also, even thought right now you might have to compromise with something you don't totally agree with, doesn't mean you are going to become agreedable sheep in the future. As you become an adult and earn your own living, you become more and more independent which also translates to more self responsibility. If it goes well, you will also be more and more aware of what options and things you can actually go for.


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## General Lee Awesome (Sep 28, 2014)

Stay in school for highschool so you can get into university, and not deal with tons of shit, and skip as much school as you can get a way with in university because no one cares.


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## niss (Apr 25, 2010)

Half the battle is showing up and being prepared. Those that fail to understand this will work for bosses that do understand it.

Your grades are ok, but what would they be if you applied yourself more diligently? What would your family be able to do with the extra funds if you earned a free ride to a university? Or even grad school? 

You will always have a boss, or bosses. You will also always be in some type of competition with your peers. That's life.

Listen to your dad. He has your best interests at heart. Don't do stuff that will cause him stress if you get busted.


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