Morgan Freret
Staff Writer

You know, last year I had a phase when I was really worried about college. Actually, I know a lot of kids who had that phase.

I swore to everyone that I’d be rejected from every college, that school wasn’t even worth it anymore because my grades just weren’t where they needed to be. Sophomore year was the year that people started thinking about college. Maybe it was that dreaded counseling appointment that forced me into action. The point is I actually had the energy to think that far into the future.

Junior year, my friends, is a whole other ball game.

That’s not to say I didn’t have fair warning. Since entering high school, I’ve been told again and again that junior year was going to kill me. They weren’t kidding, either. The Oregon Department of Health Statistics and Vital Records reports that the number of deaths from self-inflicted injuries increases with each year of high school.

I guess the biggest shock is the exhaustion. A friend of mine swears that more than seven hours of sleep is detrimental to one’s health. I’m of the mind that she’s a little crazy. And these shady statistics of hers may just be her way of rationalizing all the sleepless nights spent completing schoolwork.

If you’ve read my other columns, you should know that I am writing this column with help from my beloved caffeine.

Since fourth grade, my teachers have been assigning way too much homework. They began by claiming the homework was only to prepare us for sixth grade. In sixth grade, my teachers said we had to be ready for seventh grade. And the excuses have run all the way up to junior year and college.

It’s not homework I’m complaining about per se. It’s busy work. It’s the mindless hours that could be spent on something productive. During junior year, busy work is the difference between sleep and no sleep.

And now with finals upon us, a quiet panic has settled over the junior class. One day that stands out particularly well in my mind is in English last week when about six of my classmates were on the verge of tears and at least two actually broke down for a few moments.

But it’s all to prepare us for senior year and college, right?

Now, I’d hate for this column to sound like a whining continuation of my last one, so my official topic is Junior Year Is a Fiery Inferno of Essays and Tests.

I mentioned before that during sophomore year I had the energy to think about the future – oh, college let’s say. Junior year affords a day by day existence. Thinking about the week or month ahead, forget years ahead, is too exhausting.

You wonder where the time goes. Someone was telling me how there should be 48 hours in a day as opposed to those constricting 24. Think how much more you’d get done – you might even be able to sleep, I was told.

I guess all there is to do is reminisce about the good old days of summer (were they really that long ago?) and do our best to avoid thinking of the future at all costs. If you do, well, just think – second semester is still to come (I hear Calculus BC gets really hard) and, even better, college applications!