Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Hello I am Justin Deroche. I am appealing to drop the course CLST 200 Greek History for the fall term.
Early Sunday morning on October 20th I received a call from my mother explaining how a man broke into our house. He came in through the back door around 1 a.m. while everyone was asleep. My dog was woken up which then woke up my brothers and parents. My other brother and father confronted the man while maintaining distance, unsure of his intentions and potential to harm them. Eventually he threw some stuff in the hallway over and turned for the basement. The police were called. They searched the perimeter and the entire house, finally finding the man hidden in my basement. Thankfully he did no damage or caused any physical harm to my family. However, this paired with 3 close family friends and family deaths in the span of a week and a half left us in shock. The next day I got a ride home with some friends to try and be with my family. Fast forward to Friday October 25th, my entire family is still shaken up by everything regarding the break in and the funerals we had to attend left us deeply saddened. Around 6 p.m. that day was when my dog (a 100 lb Cane Corso) was taking a nap. To give this context, my dog is very protective by nature and when the man broke in, he was left shaken up himself, completely on edge throughout the week. That Friday he was sleeping with my mom when I went to go check on him. I hugged him and kissed him like I normally would (very friendly dog) but I must have startled him and his first instinct was to wake up and open his mouth. He bit my face, essentially leaving my lip completely split, hanging from the side of my mouth and a deep cut just under my left eye and over the bridge of my nose. I instantly went to the Brampton Civic Hospital and got various stitches. Majority of the stitches reattached my lip so they were on the inside and outside of my mouth, the rest of the stitches were under my eye closing the gash there. There was immense swelling and I was unable to move most of my mouth. I could not eat as much and lost a lot of weight as a result of that. I feel weak and I am currently still recovering. They made a mandatory appointment with the Plastics/Fracture Clinic the following Monday to ensure no infection would occur. This meant I had to stay home.
The reason why I am requesting to drop this course is because last year was the worst academic year of my life. Part of that was due to coping with my personal problems and not seeking help when I needed it. The courses I was taking were not engaging and were detrimental to my own health considering they intensified my already negative feelings about everything from school to myself. Since then I switched my program to Philosophy from political studies, and spent a lot of time at home during the summer with my family. After everything that happened with the break in, the deaths and my injury, it really brought on a form of situational depression. I do not use that term lightly but it was devastating to both my family and I. I wanted to drop this course just before the first midterm (early October), but after talking with a friend they convinced me to stay in it and try to push through. These past few weeks I have been so overwhelmingly occupied I completely forgot about the November 1st deadline. On November 5th I could not even attend the second midterm because I was still home. This course is very similar to the courses I described from first year, but this time I plan to take action and not let it affect my other courses and personal life. I do not want to take these resources for granted. I want to do everything I can to succeed and be happy. I think dropping this course will really help me. I just got back to school on Thursday November 7th since my family and I thought it was best I stayed home and recovered almost completely until I went back to school.
Dropping this course would also allow for me to focus on my other courses. I have already been doing well in the other courses but I should be doing better. This course has just been dragging me down. I plan to help my situation by taking a few more days to rest, keep open lines of communication between my family and I, and focusing more time on myself whether it be in the form of simple reflection, hobbies like exercising or even therapeutic writing (journal). I need to refocus and dropping this course will greatly help my ability to do that. Over the next few weeks I have so many assignments, tests and work to just catch up on that it would be in my best interest to completely focus on those and not this course CLST 200. I have already talked to my professor (Professor Kavanagh) and he was fully understanding about me not being able to write the second midterm and reassured me about my decision to drop the course, which is something I greatly appreciate, granted I have never dropped a course before and it could be quite intimidating. I can not finish this course and it is not worth it for me to push through for a terrible mark especially at the expense of my own well being. I will look into picking up a different course during the summer or possibly an extra course next year to make up for this one. Thank you for your time and consideration.