While some would describe the abrupt and highly anticipated end of the school year as bittersweet, to me it’s the biggest blessing I could possibly receive. When I was little and in sixth grade, every day was filled with adventure.  Endless hikes through differing ecosystems filled each month, and the woodlot of Goodwillie Environmental School was undoubtedly my home away from home. 

Yet as I graduated from that period in my life, school became my utmost enemy. Watching the sand drip down from the little glass bottle, then flipping it over once more in a continuous cycle repeatedly; it’s become a bore. For the past four years, my life has been a bore, and although pleading for this year to demolish the repetition, in simplistic terms it sucked.  

Breaking through the barrier of each prison wall into a world of extracurricular and exotic friendship has been my only flotation device in this unknown ocean. Friendships have provided me with loyal companions, and enticing adventures. Yet each morning at 5:50 am, my alarm aggressively chimes and the wonderland that is my evenings and weekends comes to a halt.

School has been nothing short of a race to the finish line of who does which teacher like more? That aggravating sentence “colleges won’t accept you with a B in chemistry.” Whose grades are higher? Not who is putting forth maximum effort in each aspect of their academic lives and, although I would like to be one to say I’ve tried this year, I haven’t. 

It always comes easy, learning, comprehension, and application. But as each month has droned on I have plummeted under the woven blanket of a C+ in math, suffocating under the weight of configuring how to raise my GPA. This year has taught me that few advisors sincerely care. For those who choose to devote time and effort to the next generation, we are all grateful,  yet still, others seem more infatuated with applying their tube of Loreal Telescopic Mascara than their supposed lesson plan.

However, the intention isn’t to induce the blame game. I just plead to retreat to simpler times when math consisted of calculating the gross profit of our egg business and configuring English into many works of phenology. Times when school was something I looked forward to, teachers were ecstatic to educate the youth, and the youth wanted to be educated. Where instead of being told to respect our teachers unconditionally, when respect is earned not given, was never the norm and we simply coexisted. When I was free to think, feel, and enjoy each day as a blessing. 

But here I am, sitting at my regular high school desk, staring at the regular four walls of my classroom, and the same unfunny posters plastered on the wall. And have come to the shocking conclusion that sophomore year has been nothing but a mere waste of precious time and energy.