Senioritis puts a damper
By Cherilyn Yee
on that final yearWhen this school year began, I was understandably excited. After years of overnight cram sessions, sporadic lunches and lugging 50 pounds of books up three flights of stairs every stinking day, I was a senior.
More importantly, I had A Car. Not just a car, but A Car. My wonderfully generous parents had splurged and I found myself in possession of the sweetest Honda Prelude that ever met asphalt.
I said a joyous farewell to the yellow Twinkie bus that had ferried me home from high school for three long years, and waited for the fun to start.
I'm still waiting.
Being a senior isn't all that it's cracked up to be. In fact, for many, it comes with expanded responsibility. And that means work. If I had a quarter for every time somebody told me that I should be enjoying my senior year, I wouldn't have to worry about paying for college.
For those of you planning your senior year class schedules, I'd like to share some of what I have learned my first semester.
It seems that students are often tempted to two extremes: killing themselves with a deluge of work, or expending all of their energy in an attempt to avoid it.
Students suffering from the former comprise the Walking Ulcer Brigade. Members take the hardest classes, sleep the least, stress much and find themselves having mid-life crises in their teens. It is not pretty.
Students from the latter clique, the Slackers, have a lot of fun -- until they realize that they have their whole futures ahead of them. Some are quicker to come to this realization than others. Many find themselves hustling at the last minute to rack up enough credits to graduate and move on.
IF you are wise, avoid the extremes. Have fun, live large, study hard, but -- and this is very important -- don't kill yourself for things that you can't change.
The seniors' dwindling enthusiasm for high school can be attributed to the Senioritis pathosis syndrome, commonly called Senioritis.
This degenerative disease is characterized by general lethargy, intense exhaustion and the mentality that -- dang it! -- we should be getting on with our lives already. There is no cure but graduation.
In conclusion, I would like to state that the fountainhead of my ranting and my chief peeve, is that some juvenile delinquent stole the emblems off my Car.
Of all the things that could go wrong this year, I never imagined this would happen.
To the thief, thanks a lot. Somewhere, there is a voodoo doll with your name on it.
Cherilyn Yee is a senior at Kaiser High School. Rant & Rave is a Tuesday Star-Bulletin feature
allowing those 12 to 22 to serve up fresh perspectives.
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