I have been a good student all my life, I did my homework and went to class. Up until two years, that is. I don’t, and never have, talked much to other and I am really afraid of doing presentations in front of the class. If I am put on the spot my face turns bright red and I start to sweat. Anyway, at the end of grade 9 we had to present the book reports that we had been working on in English. I really didn’t want to present it and went as far as to skip my English classes for a few days. In the end I ended up doing the presentation and it went just fine. Last year I did not want to do any homework at all. I would go home at the end of the day and my work would stay in my bag most of the time. I would put it off as long as I could and many times would just not hand it in at all. I would also skip classes because I was scared of what the teacher would do or say. At the end of the semester (half way through the school year) we had to hand in the final drafts of all of our writing for English class but I had not done a lot of them. I was dreading the day that I would get my report card because I thought that I would fail the course and I couldn’t imagine explaining it to my parents or being in a class with people a year younger than me. I think that was the first time that I thought about running away from home, but more on that later. Fast forward to this September. I started out grade 11 fine, and told myself that I would hand my work in again this year. But it seemed like I couldn’t. When I tried to do homework at home I would just zone out or get distracted by the internet or something. Sometimes I would even just sit there clicking my pen in and out. Again, I ended up skipping school but this time it was entire days because I didn’t want my friends to ask why I was skipping. I missed 7 days in the first month of school and missed a lot of work and tests. Another thing is I just find school really boring. Some days I would skip because there was an assignment due that I didn’t do and I didn’t want the teacher questioning me. Other days I would just not go because I didn’t feel like it. Your parents are supposed to call the school and send a note if you are going to be away but I never told my parents so now I have 7 unexcused absences. My friends said that my teachers were very surprised when they took attendance and I wasn’t there so many times. A few days ago I had to meet with the counselor. He said that I had to get my parents to email the school to explain why I was away. I told him that I was sick for all 7 days. He said that he believed it was a legitimate reason (not going to smoke pot or something). I’m getting tired and now I’m just rambling so I guess I should finish this up. Last Friday my English teacher said that I needed to hand in my overdue assignments on Tuesday. I didn’t take my work out of my bag at all over the weekend so it didn’t get done. I have seriously been thinking about running away from home to go camp in the woods, at least for a few weeks, to just get some time by myself. I have a list of a few things I need to buy and I was hoping to leave in a few days. I know that I would be able to look after myself but there would be consequences when I got back. I can’t think straight right now. I just don’t know what to do!