Sophia Shao - Week #3 - Power through
Image is a $45 sticker from Boy Scouts?? Why is it so expensive. Here's the link if you want to buy it:
https://bsatroop794.org/product/lock-in/
I don't know if this is happening to you guys, but I feel like I'm hitting a wall. I'm becoming significantly less productive with my time, and it's not going so great. Every day after I go home from school, it takes me a lot of time to sit down and get work done. Are you guys going through this too? I'm genuinely curious. I think it might be because it's the toughest time of the school year.
August is pretty exciting because it's the start of something new, and that carries on to maybe September and part of October. And then there's the holiday season, which adds a bit of spice to our lives, and Thanksgiving and Winter Break are in sight. But was it really enough to have two weeks off? I don’t know; I feel like finals were pretty stressful. Personally, I came out of Winter Break questionably well-rested.
And then it’s January. I’d say it provides a fresh, clean slate, but after a while, that feeling wears off. Especially when that first round of tests hit. We go back to doing the same things over and over, the end feels far away, but the worst part probably is the fact that we have no big breaks. We have three Mondays off until Spring Break. In April. One Monday off every month until then. Other schools have Ski Week off during this week, probably to combat this feeling. I don’t know if our school should have it though–if we had Ski Week, we would need to end school in July instead of May. What do you guys think, should we have Ski Week? I want to go skiing. I’m not sure about the week though.
Nevertheless, we power through. Let’s go guys. It’s about drive, it’s about power, we stay hungry, we devour. Yeah. Lock in, we can do this.
Hi, Sophia! It was nice to read another one of your posts this week; you have such a uniquely humorous style of writing that always makes me smile! And your topic this week was unfortunately really relatable as well; as the months go on I definitely notice how much harder it is for me to be productive and try not to waste time. I think this feeling of burnout is definitely common around this time of year, which has a lot to do with its position in the school year, as well as the fact that we don’t have any immediate breaks to look forward to in the near future. It honestly just feels like a long stretch until the finish line, summer break, and it is difficult to remind myself that we still have a long way to go. It takes me so long to just convince myself to be productive that I can’t even remember a time when it was easy to immediately jump into school work afterschool or when I was proud of the amount of work I accomplished during FLEX. I am also trying to be okay with giving myself breaks, but it is difficult for me to find that middle ground between overworking myself and periods of doing absolutely nothing while simultaneously feeling guilty about that. I would definitely appreciate another break for “Ski Week,” because it helps to divide up the year into smaller, more manageable stretches. Even though this means a little bit of time cut from summer vacation, I honestly feel that breaks are more necessary when school is actually in session in order to rejuvenate and reset. I appreciated your reference at the end to your last post, and thanks for reminding me to lock in (the question about whether I take that advice is yet to be determined, but thanks for the push)! Also, I loved the randomness of your caption (but unfortunately I will have to pass on the sticker for now)!!
ReplyDeleteHi, Sophia. I completely agree with your sentiment on how each day seems like productivity is decreasing. I see that exact same trend in the way my own everyday life has been. I feel a sense of laziness that seems to be shadowing and thwarting my progression forward. It feels as though with each passing day I feel bored and not in the mood to do anything of actual value. It is as though my phone seems to be taking over each and every aspect of my life. I too think it is time for us to “lock in” and get into the flow of getting things done and building a more productive routine. I owe it to myself and everyone rooting for my success to do that. I can relate to the mid week urges you have as well as I too sometimes feel like leaving all my work and going to the gym and spending hours at the soccer field just playing for fun. But I know that I have to keep doing what I have to keep running the race called life.
ReplyDeleteHi Sophia, I love your writing style when it comes to blogging. It feels as though I am conversing with someone who has similar refreshing and open-minded ideas, creating an environment of comfort where anything can be shared. I relate to your feelings of despair and academic burnout just taking over, because I was considering doing independent study just so I can avoid school. The first semester of junior year is a time where everyone feels motivated to excel, fueled by the idea of getting straight As, but the energy we have just runs out by the time we reach second semester. I try to take breaks to rejuvenate myself, but I can never fully enjoy them as the guilt of doom scrolling and wasting time plagues over any thoughts of relaxation. There is so much to do this semester with finishing standardized tests and APs lurking in the corner, making it hard to find any balance between schoolwork, tests, extracurriculars, and rest. I hope either you or I find a solution to this cycle of guilt and motivation. I forgot about the existence of ski week, but reading this blog is now introducing thoughts of wanting to kill just so I can have a ski week, so thank you for reminding me that I can resemble thoughts of a murderer.
ReplyDeleteHi Sophia! I completely agree with your sentiment about feeling at an impasse. Perhaps it is burnout, or maybe you're just hitting early stage senioritis. Regardless, like you I would kill for some sort of break. Heck, less homework would also be fine with me. I will say that I prefer not to have a ski week purely because my family often takes advantage of the early release to go on vacation or to sign me up for classes, and, given that school ends so soon after AP testing season, it's likely that most of the teachers would not have anything to do. Still, like you said, we have to "lock in," and speaking of that, I have a POAS paper to do. Best of luck to you and us all (lol).
ReplyDeleteHi Sophia! I must say that your style of writing is really great. I love how it feels like I am having an actual conversation when I read your blogs because of the amount of emotion that is being used throughout. I also think the topic which you talk about in your blog is extremely relatable since I also feel my motivation to do work decreasing each day. I think the way you described how the school year goes is definitely accurate since it starts out with the most motivation at the beginning of the year, then that dies down by the time breaks come up so it makes it better, and then the new semester comes and we see it as a fresh start so we try to make the most out of it, and then the period which we are in now comes and there is nothing that really helps us stay motivated to do work. For me I enter every week just waiting for Friday to come around, that is all I have to look forward to. And I heard that this feeling only gets worse next year when we are seniors so I really have no idea what I am going to do then, but for now all we can do is continue to lock in and power through the work we have. Thank you for sharing.
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