Senioritis with Reitman
Hello fellow troglodytes of Hawken school… It’s that time of the year again at the AffNo, where they run out of quality content and have to employ bottom of the barrel lowlifes such as yours truly. Speaking of bottom of the barrel, for many of your beloved, and not so beloved, seniors, the second semester is a time for them to kick back, relax, and let the notes of concern roll in. At least, that’s what we wish would happen. At Hawken, however, what actually happens is the cream of the crop is separated from the crap of the crop. You see two types of kids, I’ll call them Type A and Type B. Type A kids, named after their report cards, seem to have been conditioned to get some sort of sadistic pleasure out of seeing the little checkboxes appear next to assignments they’ve submitted (or whatever happens, I wouldn’t know). These people (my AffNo superiors) make the rest of us look bad, and we do a good job of that ourselves; the help is not appreciated. Then there are Type B kids, your typical Jacob Reitmans of the world, who wish they could spend the next few months living without a care in the world. Most of these type As have already been accepted to one, if not multiple colleges, so the reason they enjoy wrecking the curve for the rest of us is unknown to me.
On the other hand, for many seniors who aren’t committed yet, it’s about time for college decisions to come out, and tensions are running high. Those seniors suck and I refused to write about them, but for those of us who have committed, even you, Type As, here’s to freedom.
I wrote that intro on Friday. It is now Sunday, and a couple of angry skype messages and a voicemail from Claudia later, I’m back at the keyboard again typing an article no one will read to fill a section no one cares about. Let me tell you, kids, I have always been a procrastinating slacker, but senioritis has somehow hit me anyway. I’ve gone from begrudgingly turning in work several days late at the behest of emails from teachers about missing work, to completely ignoring those emails and living in blissful ignorance of my interim grade. Even agreeing to write this article is just a distraction from the fact that I’m two weeks behind in my GOA class. Oh yeah, and in my Century of Film class, I’m missing three or four blog posts and have not yet finished the essay that was due the Thursday prior (and I only say “not finished” because I know Doc I runs the Affno (sorry Doc)).
Hawken School, I love ya, but I know I speak for many second semester seniors when I say that you just don’t do it for me anymore. After three and a half years of burning the candle at both ends, all that we have left is a bunch of melted wax in our hands and a single line of charred wick. There also seems to be some myth propagated by the shadow government that whispers of teachers going easy on the seniors. I can tell you, from my experience, this is untrue. When interim grades come out, I can show you how much of a lie this really is, but for now, I’m still getting late penalties and still failing all my quizzes.
The problem with senioritis is obvious. The student becomes unwilling to learn, but perhaps if the student was learning about things they were more interested in or something they found useful, they would have more incentive. Of course, the logistics of that make no sense with a limited amount of teaching resources. Also, there’s no way I have the discipline to self-study.
At the end of the day, though, senioritis is not something that’s going to go away any time soon. Students and teachers will both have to reconcile with it, albeit in very different ways. Maybe me writing this article is really just a roundabout and indirect apology to all of my teachers, not just in my senior year, but every grade, for my lack of attentiveness in class and general buffoonery. What I’m really trying to say is, I’m sorry Dr. I, but it’s 12:44 am, and I wasted the whole day playing Super Smash Bros.™ Ultimate; I don’t think you’ll be getting that paper on Monday.
P.S. My mom yelled at me, so now you’ll get it sometime before tomorrow morning.