Emmett is me! My mom would sympathize, Hec.

Careless and indifferent and sliding by on innate smarts and charm.

The kid's either going to be content in a McDonald's somewhere or ridiculously happy and successful.

I was definitely and underachiever in grade school, high school and (to a lesser extent) college. I was thinking about this the other day - I was wondering if some people just have less motivation than others. Like, for everything.

I've been known to work hard at certain hobbies, but I've also been known to just suddenly lose interest and drop them.

Is laziness just a lack of motivation?

~ma for your grandmother and mother, Kristin.

Amber Benson appears to be making a movie about keeping cabana boys: [link]

I am intrigued.

Guess who went and confronted ExBoss for lack of response to her request for two months severance??

Oooh! How'd it go Aimee? And I'm really proud of you for doing it.

Thanks, DJ! It went well. He apologized for not getting back to me re: the email and fax and said he'd contact me later today.

Turns out, they never told Irene that they fired me. They just let her assume that I quit. They told her, when she asked what was going on, "Her grandmother died and she no longer works here."

WTF?

As is the case in many other instances, Emmett's behavior falls about midway between School Age Me and School Age EM. For the most part, Emmett has gotten a very healthy balance from the mix. He's much better academically than this Mom, and much more socially adept than I was.

But I really was a good student who simply loved to learn about things. I did like getting good grades, but was never unduly upset to get Bs. I slacked off on a fair amount of stuff, but could turn it up when I needed and bring a strong focus to my work. Emmett has better homework habits than I did, though.

Who is Irene? And good for you for going to see him!

I vascilated between doing just enough on certain subjects to get the necessary (as in what would keep my parents at bay) grades, and others I obsessed over. The former (mostly math and the math-ier sciences like physics) I had an innate ability for and got really good grades without trying (I used to do the homework for those while also watching TV). The latter (literature and writing) I didn't want to put the time to polish as I was big on the myth of inspiration. Given the era and some of the teachers I had, enthusiasm trumped correctness a LOT in terms of the grades I got, so I did well scholastically there too.

There was also a third area that I think of as language-y disciplines (foreign languages and the sciences like biology and chemistry that dealt in language-y terms) that I didn't enjoy or have a knack for. Those were my big problem areas, and also the only place I ever got less than Bs.

On the whole, I was satisfied with the B+s I mostly got, and really resented the idea that I should do more than what I needed to in order to get those.