Senioritis

Always having been much more of a right-brained person, it didn’t come as that much of a surprise when I did poorly on an algebra and a biology quiz on the same day. I felt as though I couldn’t keep up with my grades, and even after I was repeatedly convinced by my friends that I am “literally doing fine,” (a phrase uttered to me with rolled eyes from at least four different people) I still had a nagging feeling at the back of my brain; I felt as though my un-up-to-par grades had something to do with an alarming sense of complacency, and being the worrywart I am, I went and found my advisor to talk about it.

We had a brief chat about what could possibly be going wrong - and after some discussion, we concluded that I was simply making careless mistakes in my assessments, and that I wasn’t subconsciously slacking (as I had fearfully self-diagnosed earlier). I was succumbing to senioritis, which, as my dictionary tells me, is an affliction amongst students characterized by a decline in motivation or performance. My first solution: I simply have to pay more attention to the material I’m learning in class, and I have to be more proactive about the way I study for quizzes and tests.

My advisor - shoutout to you, Mr. Kimball - agreed with the opinions of everyone else in my life (my parents included) in that I was pushing myself too hard, especially in the last term at Fay. This wasn’t news, but I had become so accustomed to working hard that I realized that I wasn’t giving myself a break. Ironically, it was easier to fall into that scholastic coma than it was to wake up from it. And now, as we approach early May, I kind of regret not being able to make that recovery earlier.

Mr. Kimball was right - I needed to have had given myself a break. Perhaps I should have stopped grousing about my effort grades and started listening to to his words of wisdom earlier. Now that I see it, for all the choices I’ve made this year, I always seemed to have put education before life. And although my former Ancient teacher Mr. Blanchard might have agreed with me in that I did not "give in to my appetite,” I’m only now realizing that I shouldn’t have stressed myself out over school to points of exhaustion.

Not that school isn’t important - as my lifestyle (if not I myself) can tell you, school plays a pretty significant role in the life a student. I promise you that I’ll continue trying my hardest in every single class and commitment I am devoted to. This essay is not an excuse for me to slack off, not at all.

I am still me, an obsessive learner and a bookworm even more so, but as my days at the Fay School come to a close, I’ll be out in the lounge, or in the quad, or on some trip, enjoying the time left I have with my friends. I love school, and learning, I really do - but if there’s one lesson I’ve taken away this time, it’s that there’s so much more to life than fretting about a careless mistake I made on a bio test.

Derek ‘17