Senioritis

by Chris

Here I sit in 6th period European History on a faceless Wednesday. On the walls hang pictures of old things: Saint Peter’s Basilica, Michelangelo's David, Henry VIII. From above, columns of fluorescents rain cold light upon the class. Upon my desk is a worksheet and a mechanical pencil, same as yesterday. Outside, a late summer afternoon beckons me. It’s just beyond the double-paned windows, just two hours away. Around me students work feverishly to complete the day’s assignment on 16th century religious wars in France. Our disinterested teacher is at his desk, his gaze locked on his computer monitor. The only other sound is the scratching of pencils against paper, as is expected in a sophomore class. But I am senior, I am a senior, and I just felt the pangs of senioritis.

Years ago I, too, sat sophomorically working and studying. I breathed the rarified air of academia and pursued that most coveted of titles: highest grade in the class period. Back then, 99 percents were “okay;” the SAT was a dragon to be slain; academic rivals ( aka friends) were knights from a hostile kingdom just beyond the pastures. Back then, I’d be working just as feverishly to complete the work laid before me as these sophomores currently do. That was then.

Now, I find there is but little depth to the proceedings which surround me. I sense in these sophomores an oblivion, a perfect ignorance to the brevity of their high school experience. They busy themselves with empty work, but how can I answer questions about the Huguenots or Henry of Navarre when I feel my youth speeding toward its conclusion? One minute it seems you’re confronted with a mountain of worksheets and textbooks, the next a mountain of college applications and college brochures. And the time between? It was filled with Friday night football games, Algebra II quizzes, student council meetings, volunteering, partying, laughing, lying. Living. I have lived those years, and here on this faceless Wednesday, I just realized it.

It’s ironic that we should find our maturity in the presence of the immature. I have. Perhaps it is the last vestiges of youth still imbued within their countenances that I perceive: whatever it is, it fills me with a small quantity of sadness, for I feel in their presence the consequences of my own transformation. I am far more pensive, far more poised than I ever was while I danced in academia. I am also far more extroverted and compassionate. I have learned things not found between the covers of a textbook. I have learned the lessons of three years. This is what it means to be a senior.

The second hand is just beginning its final revolution. I sit here in this class of old things staring apathetically at a blank worksheet. It’s the same worksheet that has confronted me for three years. It’s a worksheet I refuse to invest myself in, a worksheet to be completed just to be completed. Beyond the confines of this dry world lies something warm and vibrant, something inviting. I want to escape into that world. I want to leave behind this asphyxiating school and venture into the vast and fascinating realm outside. These are the symptoms of true senioritis.