The Opposite of Senioritis

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I have the opposite of senioritis. Really. Many of my peers, now that we have reached the final year of our free public education, have been overcome with this virus. In a way, I am jealous. But mostly I’m not.

Instead of feeling little to no desire to do schoolwork, I’m revved up with an excitement like never before. It’s definitely a bit strange for me. I’m used to feeling fairly, you know, average about schoolwork. But this year, I’m so excited to beat deadlines, hand in high quality work, and do general good student things.
I suppose this is a good thing. After all, it seems that senioritis is generally detrimental. But I wonder if somehow not having senioritis is missing out a little bit on the senior year experience.

I wonder a lot about “the high school experience.” I have sacrificed some things that most people consider rites of passage in favor of studying and pursuing solo activities. I wouldn’t have done anything different; I did what I liked and it worked out for me. But I do get wistful when I think about how some of the experiences I chose to forgo were collective experiences. I imagine it must have been a wonderful thing to be part of something and be on the same page as other people. I imagine cliques, sports teams, spirit competitions and the like have these sort of qualities

But anyway, back to senioritis. I’m sure the causes and whatnot behind senioritis have been analyzed before. But someone who has the opposite of senioritis, have they ever been compared to their afflicted peers?

I would like to say that the reason I don’t have senioritis is that the end of high school is the start of something wonderful for me. I will (probably) be committed to one of the universities of my choice in less than six months. I have much to look forward to. There isn’t anything about high school I will particularly miss, besides some people I have been lucky enough to meet.

Maybe those who get senioritis know that the end of high school is the end of an era for them. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, I really don’t. Regardless of your academic and collegiate standing, it is possible to have had some truly wonderful experiences over the past three years. None of mine were particularly tied to the institution of high school, but I’m sure some people’s are. 

Whatever the reasons for catching it, I’m quite glad I don’t have senioritis. It would absolutely interfere with my perfectionist leanings, which would maybe ruin my best times in high school: Learning as much as I can about everything, and then making fun of myself for it.



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I Want to be Awesome When I Grow Up

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When we’re kids, we often talk about what we want to be when we are adults. Doctors, fashion designers, astronauts, they’re all part of what we’ll be when we reach that far away “adult land.” Where we are grown up and responsible, and living out our childhood dreams. There were no shortage of  children’s movies that showed a young hero overcoming all the odds to become a baseball player or another sort of fantasy career.

Then we grow up. We become adults (legally, if not mentally) and many of us realize that we probably won’t be famous actresses or discover the cure for cancer. And I’m okay with that. I personally always wanted to be a popstar or a chef. I can neither sing nor cook.

I think that growing up does have its disappointments. But I decided to rebel against the idea that you grow up, and then you are there. You’re still alive, you’re still a person. There’s no reason to act as if you have nothing to aspire to, as if the present is all the potential you’ve got for this lifetime. I find that incredibly depressing.

I thought about what I would want to be in some far off fantasyland, perhaps “real adulthood.” I struggled with this a little bit, and then realized: I just want to be awesome. All kinds of awesome. I wanted to travel, I wanted to read, I wanted to quote Woody Allen movies, I wanted to make friends and rollerskate. All those things that I’ve always wanted to do? That’s my version of awesome. The best part about it is perhaps, just maybe, it will take a lifetime to get there. That sounds much better than “growing up.”

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