There has been much chaos in my life lately—luckily not involving cancer. Taking these master courses and managing my “normal” life has finally caught up to me. Aside from maintaining my grades and keeping up with coursework, I also have to manage my life off of QC grounds. I live with my grandparents who are both in their seventies. My grandmother is amazing. She carries herself as if she was twenty years younger than she is and she always makes me laugh. My grandfather on the other hand is not doing so well physically even though he too is a jokester. We also have a yorkiepoo named Bruiser who is one of my greatest joys in life. Unfortunately my dog is prone to seizures for unknown reasons. Yesterday was especially hard physically on both my grandfather and my dog. Yesterday was also one of my last classes before the end of this semester. You know what they say. When it rains, it pours. I had an inkling that yesterday was going to be an especially hard day and I found I had a choice to make—skip class and attend to my responsibilities as a granddaughter and caretaker or go to class and worry sick about the happenings at home. Guiltily I choose my responsibilities at home. As I was kicking myself in the rear about missing class, it dawned on me that the world was not going to end. I have attended the vast majority of classes (in fact I only missed one other due to a doctor appointment) and would not be penalized for missing one more class (my second). The professor was not going to bring down my grade from a happy A to a lackluster B because of one two and a half hour period. My work still stood on its own and my participation would not be tarnished because I missed two classes. I am not promoting skipping classes on a whim but I think it is important for college students to remember that some things are more important than one class. In fact I think it is important to have as near to perfect attendance as possible so that when there are unforeseen circumstances it is still possible to take a personal day. All is well now but it definitely would not have been had I attended that class. In this case, being present for my family (like they are always there for me) was worth the guilt of missing one class.