ASHTON TOWNSEND

To underclassmen:

     Whatever great tales you have heard of senior years were all lies! Senior year is overrated. In fact, I would go as far as to say it was my worst year of high school. I hate to crush your dreams but it’s true. Being a senior means growing up and taking on a lot of responsibilities. It’s the year that your parents decide that you are becoming “too lazy” and your social habits are “too expensive” so you need to “get a job.” Then, you end up spending all your free time at a job that you never wanted. There, you wait on and clean up after rude, ungrateful people and get paid minimum wage for your trouble while the government taxes your hard earned check. What’s so great about this again? As a sophomore, there were no senior projects, no AP exams hanging over my head and no stress over college and scholarships (I still get shivers walking by the guidance office). Oh, how I miss the good times when life was so easy! Back then it was no big deal if you made a B in physics, or if you took a class just for fun.

     Another warning to underclassmen: senioritis is very real and very dangerous. It can make something as simple as walking to your next class seem like a chore. As a junior you look forward to off periods. While I love my off periods and the free time that comes with them and would not have survived without them, they do come at a great price. The ticking of the clock becomes even more torturous with one less period. Ironically, I get even less school work done with my abundant free time. I always find myself at the movies, a restaurant or playing Pokemon Platinum. Procrastination will be the death of your GPA (especially if you take AP English 4! Slack on senior thesis or book group and you might as well kiss your GPA good-bye!). Keeping up with your work is the only way to survive because not doing it will eventually catch up with you (and at the worst possible time).

     All I can say is graduation cannot come soon enough.