Petition Letter
I am writing this letter as justification for dropping 1 course (KNPE 355), either dropping or recieving agertat for 2 (PSYC 251 & GPHY 314) and gaining special dispensation to complete BIOL 350 which could include removal of final project and/or extenion or otherwise modification of exam. I have talked to my BIOL 350 prof and he has stated I could disregard a project and recieve extentions for the exam possibly. I include this because I don't want to miss anything and am also horribly behind in this class. These are all 2014 fall semester courses. I would like to salvage all I can from this semester but the events of the last 4 months which I will describe have left my family and I completly devastated.
The events I will discuss are still very raw so I will do my best. I will begin with the most recent event and then discuss what happened leading up to it. In doing so I will articulate how each have undermined my academic abilities. On November 3, 2014 at 5:56am I recieved a goodbye text from my dad. I read it at 7:40am that morning. Upon leaving my room for the kitchen I would discover 2 police officers in the living room - Mom and Sister huddled close on the couch. After an excruciating wait, we learned that between the hours of 6:00am and 10:30am my dad had taken his oun life. We burried him that same week. I have never been so destraught. It was the most horrible expierince I have ever had. Since then I have only once slept without medication and have been completely unable to study or be alone with my thoughts for any length of time without succombing to deep saddness. My life has become a string of distractions sandwhiched between therapy sessions and the odd lectue which I take in to search for some normality. My ability to do coursework is completly gone. All I can do is sit in a lecture hall for the sake of attendance. Nothing sinks in. And I never sit alone.
As for the events leading up to this November, my parents separated in late July of this year. I was told directly after summer session ended. My dad moved out that day. It got messy. I live at home and both parents remained in Kingston so this was hard. At a point, the locks on our doors were changed due to an emotional 4am tirade where my Dad came in and yelled angrily at my Mom and sister. I was not home that morning. My mom was so distraught that she required significant time off. To be clear though, I beleive she was off before this happened due to other separation related stressors. My dad sunk into depression and would quickly drop from a muscular 200lbs to an emaciated 160lbs. We feel he also sufferd from PTSD. Neither was eating or sleeping. My mom had to buy all new pants because they were all to big. Although my dad lived close he became distant for a time. He would later try to get us to plan stuff with him while never really giving us the ability to just casually drop by. We had busy schedules and were handcuffed. We saw how bad he was getting and we worried constantly but our courses demanded our attention. Even when I managed to see him he would be very critical and my attempts to help would fall flat. This situation placed so much stress on my sister and I that we droped courses. We couldn't handle to constant worry and the crying and anger that we lived in. We couldn't handle balancing courses with our Dad who needed us so badly but wouldn't let us help. We couldn't handle our Mom who would spontaneously burst into tears. I dropped neuroscience right before the academic deadline. At this point my performance in KNPE 355 was fairly poor as well. I could never focus in lab while we ran proceedures and the weekly readings were impossible to complete due to intense disraction. Although I enjoyed PSYC 251, I couldn't stay as caught up as I would have liked and recieved mediocre marks, constantly catching up on the work. For GPHY 314, I lagged behind consistantly but had been managing good makrks in the class. The subject material was well organized, intersting and testing was fair. I am very far behind now and have missed one of the two projects. There is also an exam for which I would be grossly unprepared.
In summary;
I would like to drop KNPE 355.
Recieve agartat in GPHY 314
Either recieve agartat, accomodation or drop PSYC 251
Recieve accomodation in BIOL 350
The events I will discuss are still very raw so I will do my best. I will begin with the most recent event and then discuss what happened leading up to it. In doing so I will articulate how each have undermined my academic abilities. On November 3, 2014 at 5:56am I recieved a goodbye text from my dad. I read it at 7:40am that morning. Upon leaving my room for the kitchen I would discover 2 police officers in the living room - Mom and Sister huddled close on the couch. After an excruciating wait, we learned that between the hours of 6:00am and 10:30am my dad had taken his oun life. We burried him that same week. I have never been so destraught. It was the most horrible expierince I have ever had. Since then I have only once slept without medication and have been completely unable to study or be alone with my thoughts for any length of time without succombing to deep saddness. My life has become a string of distractions sandwhiched between therapy sessions and the odd lectue which I take in to search for some normality. My ability to do coursework is completly gone. All I can do is sit in a lecture hall for the sake of attendance. Nothing sinks in. And I never sit alone.
As for the events leading up to this November, my parents separated in late July of this year. I was told directly after summer session ended. My dad moved out that day. It got messy. I live at home and both parents remained in Kingston so this was hard. At a point, the locks on our doors were changed due to an emotional 4am tirade where my Dad came in and yelled angrily at my Mom and sister. I was not home that morning. My mom was so distraught that she required significant time off. To be clear though, I beleive she was off before this happened due to other separation related stressors. My dad sunk into depression and would quickly drop from a muscular 200lbs to an emaciated 160lbs. We feel he also sufferd from PTSD. Neither was eating or sleeping. My mom had to buy all new pants because they were all to big. Although my dad lived close he became distant for a time. He would later try to get us to plan stuff with him while never really giving us the ability to just casually drop by. We had busy schedules and were handcuffed. We saw how bad he was getting and we worried constantly but our courses demanded our attention. Even when I managed to see him he would be very critical and my attempts to help would fall flat. This situation placed so much stress on my sister and I that we droped courses. We couldn't handle to constant worry and the crying and anger that we lived in. We couldn't handle balancing courses with our Dad who needed us so badly but wouldn't let us help. We couldn't handle our Mom who would spontaneously burst into tears. I dropped neuroscience right before the academic deadline. At this point my performance in KNPE 355 was fairly poor as well. I could never focus in lab while we ran proceedures and the weekly readings were impossible to complete due to intense disraction. Although I enjoyed PSYC 251, I couldn't stay as caught up as I would have liked and recieved mediocre marks, constantly catching up on the work. For GPHY 314, I lagged behind consistantly but had been managing good makrks in the class. The subject material was well organized, intersting and testing was fair. I am very far behind now and have missed one of the two projects. There is also an exam for which I would be grossly unprepared.
In summary;
I would like to drop KNPE 355.
Recieve agartat in GPHY 314
Either recieve agartat, accomodation or drop PSYC 251
Recieve accomodation in BIOL 350