So, after repeatedly flunking out of and withdrawing from en elective course I decided I need to retake it, ace it, and finally get rid of the one thing weighing down my GPA. This happened, about six years ago? I maxed out the amount of times I could take it so I called the school to see what kind of appeal process is available for a student who does not receive financial aid.
I have to write a letter providing the following:
1) Why, unlike the last time, I will succeed in this class
2)that I understand that this will be my last chance to take the class
3) that I understand tutoring is available.
So, here it goes, an honest letter from a bad student.
Greetings and Salutations Ms./Mr. Register Person,
I'm writing to you today to request that you allow me to enroll in this course.
I will succeed in this course primarily because I am in a different place now than I was previously. At the time I did not know what I was going to do with my schooling and I felt the commitment weighted me to the bottom of a dark ocean. I had an existential crisis (see multimedia attachments) which you could not understand unless you've been through one yourself. So imagine for a moment that one day you looked around and saw yourself on a conveyor belt, moving in a direction you could not understand. Imagine that slowly you felt the creeping sense that your entire world was artificial and one dimensional. Imagine if you had been following the siren song to shore, and when you arrived you found that your beautiful singing maiden was a cardboard cut out that collapsed upon closer inspection. Imagine no longer knowing who you are and you want to be. Imagine deconstructing yourself after you lost faith, hope, and any conscious understanding of reality. What is reality as in, what exists because of the laws of physics, what exists because of nature, and what exists because it's man made -- a product of free will. Who are you and who made you what you are? Why do you do the things you do, accept what you accept, and why live the way you live? Are these conscious decisions or are you stuck on the same conveyor belt I was? I can tell you that it felt like the atmospheric pressure of the room was out of whack. I can tell you that I burned with questions that could not be answered and I realized no one ever really intended on answering them. School? What good was school to me when I realized I was asking the right questions of the wrong people. Would you, could you, stay and suffocate beneath your disillusion and disappointment?
Imagine that you began to worship someone or something, and suddenly you found the center of your idol hollow.
Imagine feeling complicit in a moral decay that threatened your liberalism (so pretend you are a liberal, even if you're not). Could you stay and face the hypocrisy? What if that empty call was replaced by the wails of the universe calling out to you, telling you that there is so much more to life than being on this conveyor belt!
Imagine that school brought you to utter despair. Imagine that you realized the more you learned the more your hunger grew. Imagine that you felt both unsatisfied with the feast and guilty over gobbling away like a vampire, easily discarding what no longer interested you.
What if your identity started to split into two, the court jester who entertains her friends and the serious woman seething with rage. How would you reconcile the two? Which one are you?
What if you wanted to deconstruct your identity and rebuild yourself, discarding everything you were because just-because, to finally emerge with a stronger sense of self. What if all the disappointment and cynicism was melted and formed into a sword that you could now wield, instead of having it wielded against you.
I do not expect you to understand, though it was similar to what I felt when I was in middle school and went from losing my faith to becoming a secure atheist (with much morbid introspection poetry in between). And to paraphrase someone I heard on NPR last week, "if you start a conversation trying to convince someone you're not crazy, you've already lost," so I know this may be taken in a way I do not intend.
. . . But the point is, I am in a different place. I have been unmade and remade and although that does not eliminate flaws or all insecurities, it does allow me to see how I am, what I want to be, and it gives me a determination that would have been impossible to have in the past.
Finally, I understand that this will be my last chance to take this course and I take full responsibility for the risk and the outcome. I understand that JCC advises against it, so, if you have any doubts about letting me in please allow me to demonstrate my commitment by offering you the following:
- I will do your laundry (and hand wash your delicates).
- I will buy you coffee.
- I will lick the bottom of your shoe, seriously, I've done it before, albeit for different reasons.
- I will let you use my back as a human coffee table at your next party or gathering!
- I will prank phone call your enemies.
- Because I hate golf (and polo shirts) more than you can ever know, I will wear one and carry your clubs around as many holes as you want.
- I will send you flowers at work to make your coworkers jealous.
- I will make you the best peanut butter chocolate cake you ever had!
Other services are negotiable, though you should know I'm not very good at cleaning.
Also, I'm committed because the amount of money that will be debited from my account for this class is going to hurt. Should my circumstances change you should know that I will live on ramen noodles, sleep on the street, and do homework at a computer in the public library next to a guy masturbating to porn, just to succeed in this class. If it comes to it I may even sell a kidney (if it's worth anything after all that ramen).
My grades since Spring semester of 2010, along with my current imploding relationship and unfortunate current celibacy, should give you some indication of how committed I am. I will not let anything stand in my way.
JCC, like Danny and Sandy, you and me are going to be summer loving all these summer nights!
I'll wear the leather, you wear the spandex pants.
Sincerely,
your future coffee table,
The College Dropout.
* * * * *
Luckily for all involved I have learned something about editing from my English courses, so the revised version will look something more like this:
Dear Records and Registrations,
Please allow me to enroll in this course. I know tutoring is available. I know that this is my last chance to succeed in this course and that I take full responsibility for the outcome. I will succeed in this class because I am determined to succeed and in a more stable and secure position to take this course than I was in the past.
If you have any questions please call (insert number here)
Thank you for your consideration.
Respectfully,
The College Dropout.
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