Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Throughout the Fall semester of 2019, I suffered a series of extenuating circumstances that were beyond my control which had a direct impact on my abilities to study and focus in class. My parents had invested in 5 houses on top of her two businesses and was set to retire by loaning out properties to tenants. My mom's wealthy friends recently bought big houses and my mom wanted one too and bought one as well. Unfortunately, the real estate market stopped rising and the value of our house dropped right after we bought it. The economy worsened and both my parents restaurants business dropped. My mom was forced to sell all 5 of her houses and take out massive loans to meet the mortgage payments because we would suffer a massive loss if we sold the house. My parents are almost 60 years old now and instead of retiring early, they have to work long hours every day at a Chinese dim sum banquet hall and a Manchu Wok in a food court. On September 9th, 2019, my 5 year old Siberian Husky was euthanized due to kidney failure. After the initial appointment with the vet, she told me there is a chance we can save her if we admit her to the animal hospital right away and put her on IV fluids. At this point, we did not know what was wrong with her but she told me her Chinese speaking technician would call my mom to tell her what she told me. The technician told my mom that there is no way to save her and treatment would only prolong the inevitable. This translation error lead to confusion between my mom and I which lead to our decision to admit her to the hospital two days late. We just spent 800 for the initial appointment, x ray, and blood test and admiting her to the animal hospital would cost atleast 4000. Our mortgage house situation was putting pressure on us but I knew I would regret it forever if we didn't do everything we could to save her. I told my mom that I would get a part-time job at Queen's this semester to pay off the vet bills so we admitted her to the hospital. Unfortunately, at this point, her kidneys had worsened and there really was no way to save her anymore. I applied to jobs all over campus in September and in addition to my poor mental state, I neglected my studies. LAW201, PHAR100, and ENIN200 are all online courses with deliverables due every week despite being early in the semester. My emotional state due to my dog passing away rendered me unable to have the motivation to get up from bed, much less study. This affected me strongly throughout September and October and I met with a councelor at Goodes hall in addition to talk to my professors about it through email. Moreover, in ENIN 200, there was an incident with the midterm where a technical problem caused it to be postponed and the new date was released over thanksgiving weekend where many students did not check their email because it was the holidays and many students found out when arriving back at Queen's with resulted in only 3 days to prepare. This negatively affected my mark and many others, as demonstrated by the massive email complaint chain lead by a fellow ENIN student. Lastly, my dad was diagnosed with stage 3a lung cancer towards the end of November. This added to my emotional trauma as I wasn't even finished mourning my dog when I received this news. Throughout December, I travelled back and forth Kingston to translate for my dad at the hospital because he does not speak English. My feelings were very tense because we were not told for sure if it was cancer and if he would have a chance of surviving until December. 1 in 3 people survive this stage of lung cancer with the current types of treatment and I was in no mental state to be studying for final exams and completing assignments. My family's financial troubles are exascerbated by my dad's lung cancer because if his treatment is a failure, my mom will not be able to pay for the mortgage payments herself which has placed enormous pressure on me to find a job. My time was spent applying to internships and part time jobs in addition to trying to study and this has lead to poor marks throughout all 3 courses due to my mental state as a result of these extenuating circumstances.