Most young people who drop out of school never go back. One teenager, however, has decided to give the ninth grade a third try. On her own at 13, unable to keep any job for too long before getting fired for being underage, she finally decided it was less stressful to be in school than to be out there, uneducated, in the real world. PNS commentator Denishia Thomas, 15, is a reporter for YO! (Youth Outlook), a newspaper by and about young people published by Pacific News Service. This is the second of two parts on education.

Five days a week, six hours a day I sit, suffering stigmas and stereotypes, making and remaking friends, unchallenged intellectually and slightly irritated at the audacity the "adult" in front of me seems to think his job allots him. Yet I am a willing participant -- slightly begrudging but actively allowing myself to be subjected to this painful horror called high school.

Almost sixteen, I am once again trying to get through the ninth grade. Why, when I have the option of dropping out and never coming back, would I want to be in a place that takes up most of my time but doesn't really teach much? Sometimes it's a mystery to me, but most often the reason is clear: I want to get ahead in life.

I used to be the type of adolescent who found school a highly entertaining place to be. Back then, I had friends largely outnumbering foes, and high school was where I sold what I needed to survive. All my customers were either classmates or the parents of classmates. The money I got from that kept me fitted in the latest fashions; kept most of my true friends and me seriously high; and covered bus fare to and from school.

I wasn't that bad a student, either. The teachers didn't know what I was up to (or if they did they didn't say anything), and I got most of my work in on time and kept a C+ average. Seemed like I had it going on -- until my mom left for Oklahoma without me. I had no resources and no place to live. I quickly fell behind in school, plus I had to support myself, so school for me ceased to be a place for study and became strictly a place for business. I never thought of dropping out of school -- hell, I was a big dealer on campus.

I didn't have a place to sleep and I couldn't just live off others with nothing to offer, so I sold more dope, bought more dope, did more dope, and got more people on dope, mostly through school connections.

The people I stayed with were scattered. My teachers began scolding me, and I always had Saturday school, but I never went. Eventually, I was suspended. Things were over for me then. At 13, I became a ninth grade drop out.

I got odd jobs here and there, but I always heard the same question: "Do you have a diploma?" Yes, I was very intelligent, but I didn't have a little piece of paper to prove it. So I got jobs that paid about five dollars an hour -- not enough to live on. Besides, I could never keep a job. Eventually, someone would find out how old I was and I'd get fired. I still sold dope now and then, but I wasn't making much money, and once I stopped using, it became too tempting to have it around, so I got out of the game.

Gradually I began to realize there was an option I was overlooking, or maybe didn't want to see. School. By the time I reached 15, I saw it clearly. The minute I opened my mouth and said I wanted to go back, people came out of the woodwork to help me. I suddenly found a place to stay that was a little more stable, and a job where there were people willing to help me and support me.

I went down and enrolled at my old high school. But it was hard to handle being back. I was in the ninth grade again and the kids in my class were immature and barely tolerable. My living situation turned out to be less stable than I thought. The teachers all seemed tense, some seemed racist, and a lot acted like it was the students' fault they weren't getting paid enough. I gave up and dropped out again.

It's two semesters later now and I'm back in school again, determined to get my diploma, to start working toward my goals. I'm full of aspirations -- to go to boarding school where I'd know I always had a room to go to at night; to go to a good university and study microbiology or psychology.

I've had to struggle so much to go to school -- to convince myself it's necessary and to get the resources to do it. The one thing I've learned is that it's a lot less stressful in school than it is thrust out uneducated into the real world.