It happens to every college student. During your last year of school, you get restless. You don't want to be in class. You don't want to do your homework. All you can think about are afternoons by the pool, reading books for pleasure and not for homework, leaving the house to go do fun stuff, not because you have to go to class, and all of a sudden you just become "blah." Yes, Senioritis is a serious disorder affecting college students around the World, and I am fully in its grasp. I caught it from my classmates.
I know they have it because every time our instructors pause in their lecture, one of them will say "Are we done? Can we go home now?" or try some other not so subtle device to get the teacher to dismiss us. Tonight the teacher LITERALLY had just walked in and one of my classmates said to her "You look tired. Maybe we should just go home."
My symptoms manifest more passively. Before class each night, I sit and attempt to rationalize ditching class to myself, especially now that there are only 6 weeks left. "You've only been absent once, you can afford to miss tonight, you get to miss 3 times per semester..."
When I go, which is still most of the time, I sit in class, disinterested, checking the time on my phone, texting, Facebooking, checking my email...I am physically present, but mentally, I have completely checked out. If this were a cartoon and you could see inside my head during these moments, you would see me resting in a hammock with Hawaiian music in the background and waves crashing in the distance.
I still manage to snap out of it for a few minutes at a time to feign participation in my classes. I pay just enough attention to be able to occasionally utter an answer aloud to a question.
"Spendthrift trust"
"McNaughten Rule"
"Binding primary authority"
"Unauthorized practice of law"
(If you were taking Wills, Trusts and Probate Law, Criminal Law, Legal Studies Senior Project or Legal Ethics, these phrases would make sense to you)
And, of course, to make things drag that much slower, there's always someone, also afflicted with Senioritis, who makes it a point to point out "Only this many more weeks til finals" which always prompts a collective groan from the rest of the afflicted. One of the symptoms of Senioritis is the sensation of weeks feeling like months.
Still, I press on, because the only way to recover from Senioritis is to graduate. Slacking off too much now may jeopardize my chances of this truly being my last semester of my undergraduate education. My reward will be a little over 2 months of uninterrupted "Holly Time" before starting law school in the Fall. During those 2 months, I have books I want to read, video games to play, movies I want to watch, friends to meet for lunch, a premium annual pass to Disneyland, a pool to swim in and, best of all (to borrow an episode title from one of my favorite old TV shows) "time enough at last" to enjoy them all.
Highlight of 2013
11 years ago
You forgot about a visit to Chicago! :) I'm proud of you, Holly! You're doing great!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Amy! And yes, a visit to Chicago to see my dear friend Amy :)
ReplyDelete