I think I actually like being a procrastinator. I work well under pressure, even though my grades don’t always reflect that idea. I mean, I even used my procrastination skills to delay the writing of this editorial.  

If I’m being honest, I am by no means a model of the perfect student. I am extremely hard-headed, and I’m an avid napper and especially talented responsibility-dodger. That’s just me. But senior year has highlighted a new side of the high school experience, one I have never seen before.

My schedule worked out almost perfectly. With my more difficult classes ending with the first semester, I figured that my new, easier classes would put me in the best position for a smooth ending to my senior year. I would have never expected the two very different versions of myself that would soon come out of that split. 

The year started with courses I knew were challenging but hoped I would enjoy in the long run. Turns out I didn’t really enjoy them. I found myself reverting to my anxious habits and struggling to get the work done alongside college applications.

I have a very strange way of trying to confront my procrastination, and it never actually breaks the cycle. Just like with any problem, the cold turkey method is no guaranteed solution. I would usually get a lot done early on in the week, but as the days would progress, I’d find myself falling into that “I’ll do it later I’m exhausted” frame of mind.

That’s the case with a lot of working high schoolers here and elsewhere. Seven hours in the classroom, five hours of part-time work, and finally passing out when you get home. That’s no excuse — it’s just reality. I envy some of my friends who don’t work a part-time job and fly through homework like it is nothing.

During the first semester, each week felt as though it had turned into just one long streak of tests, papers, and so on. I felt as though I was never relaxed— not even on the weekends. But strangely, now that I can see high school’s finish line getting closer, the weeks are still hard to get through.

This year’s semester change originally meant two things to me: time to do something other than writing papers and study labeled anatomical parts, and time to make a big switch in my frame of mind from one extreme to the next.

Completing my first-semester classes, I was ecstatic to have that second-semester senior year schedule I’d heard so much about and always wanted — one where I might have time to do things unrelated to school and prepare for college.  I was ready for a change — unfortunately, I got what I was looking for. I was sitting in class one day and looking at my digital sticky note where I keep my list of assignments, and what did I see? Nothing. 

Soon this discovery that I would have previously considered a good thing, a dream come true, turned into a feeling of uselessness in the classroom. Things got so easy that I lost the need to be here, to be a useful addition to the school.

Now, I almost yearn for things to procrastinate about or to stress over. I’ve allowed this second half of the year to fall stagnant, as many seniors do, and I don’t like it.

There is no profound conclusion to this article, no angle, or big takeaway — just some humble advice.  Juniors, keep yourselves busy and don’t overlook the importance of having a purpose here. And, to my fellow seniors, you are not alone.