Senioritis

[Morpheus]

It's finally time. I will be graduating from high school in may, and it will without a doubt be the most bittersweet moment of my life so far. I'll lose so much and yet gain so much more. I'll experience new things, move out of my parents house, and finally move on with my life.

But that's beside the point. I still have around four months of actual classes left, and I don't care. Not one bit. I've always thought of high school as being an impedance to actually getting on with my life, but now I really don't care. I thought I had senioritis in the first semester, but it's nothing like that that I feel now. Everything I do has little meaning after this year and I could fail all of my classes except for my required English class and not care in the least. Having taken a Psychology class last semester, I am only more intrigued by the phenomenon.

So, to get the ball rolling:

What are your experiences with senioritis? Di it hit you all at once or gradually like it did me?

[Raiha]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]Once I got out of my junior year, every bit of laziness I ever felt was attributed to 'senioritis.' EVERYTHING.

Although on the other hand I'm a massively organized and competent student, and I always had stuff done before it was due. And now I'm a junior in college and I'm STILL like that. I finished my math homework and it isn't due until next week. I finished my chemistry lab report and that's not due until next Monday. So I don't really have it, but it's a convenient fallback if you forgot a report or something, or left it at home.

Not that it's really that great.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[Darren]

It hasn't hit me...

Mostly because I have a strong-willed mother who will totally beat the ******* out of me if I even make a B...

Plus, I've alwasy really hated school, so I'm anxious to leave. I can't have a bad transcript or class ranking effecting my chances of moving far far FAR away from this black hole of a state. IT SUCKS! So really, I can't be lazy or else my dreams will be crushed (Doubly crushed, actually. And anyone who has over-bearing parents who are really good at guilt trips will understand what I mean)

[Jeebs]

[COLOR="Navy"]You mean there's a name for that?!

I definitely had senioritis. I only needed two credits (English and one other). The only class I really wanted to take was Java programming. The rest of the classes were mainly to fill up space, so there wasn't much incentive to excel in them.

Of the five, only Pre-Calc and Physics were remotely difficult. Latin 4 was easy because there wasn't too much new material and the teacher didn't give a lot of work. Computer Applications and Concepts was mainly just stuff I already knew. Computer Aided Drafting and Design was the easiest class I have [b]ever[/b] taken. There were seriously times where I finished the work in the first half of class, and that was basically it for the week. No joke. Most of the time I was just playing computer games and talking to my friend.

The problem came in the last few months when I realized that I still hadn't completed my portfolio or my student service learning project (which I was supposed to do in 9th grade :animeswea). Somehow I managed to get that done though.[/COLOR]

[eleanor]

[font="trebuchet ms"] Senioritis has either affected me very little, or it's just that my senior year couse is relatively easy compared to what I've taken before. At our school we take the hardest APs during junior year (calc, physics, etc.) and the only "serious" APs that seniors usually take is US government/comparative politics and lit, both of which are like sitting at the beach compared to our insane physics and calc courses. All of my senior AP courses are humanities and except for one math, which is statistics, which is a huge joke at our school. lol (And personal fitness, where we sit on the bleachers and talk. I have no idea why it's a required course to graduate.)

So, it's not really a problem for me to keep good grades in my classes. If I had been taking the standard "junior year APs" senior year, things may have turned out differently.[/font]

[Persona]

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][COLOR="SeaGreen"][B] Senioritis[/B], a word once heard in the auditorium by my principal and other higher-ups. I remember when they warned my year about it and how we shouldn't succumb to its bad influence. But hell, once third quarter came to an end. The majority of us [I]seniors[/I] came down with the "illness" and little by little dissapeared from school grounds. The ones that had very high scores, took a vacation (If they miss the quarter or half of it, their average would be a B-.). Some with good scores, stayed in school to just hang. The others who didn't give a poop (Whether good or bad grades), just did a mixture of the two listed earlier. I was in the second category and really didn't stress all that much. My grades where in the A's and B's (If not my mom would send me to the hospital.), so I relaxed and made memories of my last year there. I kind of miss my last year and wish I could go back and do it over again (Just once though). Overall, it's the last year of high school life. A lot of students tend to act that way, because they want to get the hell out already and start doing things their own way.[/COLOR][/FONT]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Does it count to have junioritis? I feel exactly like you do right now, and I'm ready to leave school already. I almost felt that way last year, but like you, I got to that point where I just stopped doing anything. It's partly from looking back and partly from looking forward. My whole life, school was a pain, from trying to kill myself in 3rd grade over grades and being bullied, further being bullied through middle school, etc. However, the first major axe in my ability to care was at the last quarter of ninth grade after I moved away from the inner-city school i'd been attending for 6 months. It turned out that all of my grades had pretty much been meaningless, since my final grades only reflected what I'd done since coming to the new school. Mind you, my grades weren't different enough for me to complain, but when I looked back on 6 months of absolute HELL and realized that it'd had no meaning at all, I began to care less about my work. However, this year, it basically happened at the end of November.

Having dropped the only class that took any real effort to pass (due to the stupidly immense amount of effort required), AP English, I decided to completely and utterly stop caring. In the past 2 weeks in my math class I have not done [i]anything[/i]. Well, except write anime reviews XD. I didn't even hand in the quiz we took. I don't do any homework, and copy others' where possible. I'm not failing all my classes (I'd say half, probably. Passing English now, have Ds in 3 other of my 6 classes, at least I think so). I know that it's going to bite me in the *** when my parents (who have alway been srtict about grades and recently highly disapponted in my development) see my report card, but really, I cannot even remotely care. And I'm happy that way, because I know it's what's right for me.[/COLOR]

[pooperson]

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Oh boy... senioritis... I've got a bad case of that right now... my classes are as follows:

1. AP Government
2. WWI/II History
3. Speech
4. AP Microeconomics
5. Band
6. Teaching 6th Grade Band

Yeah. Real classes. I hate it. I'm doing everything possible just to stay AWAKE. I always fall asleep in 2nd & 4th period, & then I feel awful because I have the same teacher for both those classes...
Anyway, yeah. I'm starting to get the worst of senioritis, especially after the easiest sememster of my LIFE. Grr. College can't come soon enough.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[Vicky]

[SIZE=1]Doesn't count for me because there aren't any 'seniors' in England haha.

Errm... but yeah. Definitely yeah. I have five GCSEs already; I can quit now and go to college. Either way, I hate high school. The majority there annoy me, the lack of freedom, the importance my school places on 'uniform' above the fact that someone hit me in the back of a head with a brick... yada yada.

I see it as you spend two years learning crap, then two weeks revising for an exam and in another two weeks you forget all you revised. You spend two years in GCSEs at high school learning for an exam - there's nothing I'm going to remember for later life. Added to that, it isn't interesting. I go home and learn my own sciences rather than the science my school teaches because it's something that appeals to me and my personality as an individual. What I learn at home will stick with me for life, and that's more important than an exam.

Also, they teach you 'the basics', which you need to forget if you take the subject in college. Someone's under the impression that you have to be an 'adult' to learn harder topics - how come I can learn A Level Sociology and understand it, then?

The ciriculum over here was written by men in suits, in offices, who can't even remember their school lives. They have [i]no[/i] idea.

I think when we got back off holiday this year I stopped caring for definite. I don't revise for exams anymore; if I do not know the answer it's likely I'll never remember the answer two years later if I revise so it has no propose for me in later life. I'm trying to work on stuff to help me in my life, and as far as my career and life choices go, a piece of people with a number on it will not help me. Exams don't determine intelligence. I'll pass if I'm good enough, not stressing over exams.[/SIZE]

[John]

I literally can't afford to have senioritis, lol. I need whatever scholarships I can get to pay for college, so I really can't slack off. In fact, I'm doing better with my work this year than I ever have.

[Rachmaninoff]

Does it count if it was the final semester of getting your Masters? XP If so, even though I worked hard and got good grades, I still had times when I was ready to walk out the door just so I could spend weeks being lazy and doing absolutely nothing. But I couldn't since I didn't want to screw up getting my degree nor miss something important that could mess up getting accepted into the Doctorate program. But still, at that point... I was feeling like I've been in school forever and on some level, even though that's finished, I still do.

Fortunately, my three weeks off back around Christmas helped me to unstress and feel more up to diving back into being busy again with this semester. Though I'm sure in a while I'll be back to feeling that way again. Not that it will stop me from getting good grades though. I've come too far to do that and what I want to do requires a Ph.D. Which of course will mean another three years of school, at least.

[OMNOMNOMALY]

[quote name='John']I literally can't afford to have senioritis, lol. I need whatever scholarships I can get to pay for college, so I really can't slack off. In fact, I'm doing better with my work this year than I ever have.[/QUOTE]

[FONT="Georgia"]That describes my situation pretty accurately, yeah.

I'm honestly teetering on the line between "who cares" and "so incredibly stressed I'll snap on the next person who looks at me the wrong way." My courses this year are as hard as ever, being that I'm taking partial IB (advanced, university level courses) for English and Social. With those, unfortunately, come World Lit (actually really enjoyable), Theory Of Knowledge (Basic Philosophy which is neat) and Western World History (ew ew ew ew ew). The only one I'm really bummed about is WWH, but all those little weird classes fill up my schedule and take away the spares I really could have used to study. It's really hard to study because a) I don't actually know how, and b) everything just seems so incredibly boring! I'm taking Biology 30 by correspondance, and I've not even finished one booklet.. I have one semester to finish and take the diploma. That's probably the only course I'm actually worried about, but if I don't study I know I won't do as well as I could and I'll be losing out on scholarships. My marks are great now, but there's always the danger...

....and damnit guys, I'm supposed to be studying for Social Studies [B]AND[/B] Math right now!
D:

[/FONT]

[eleanor]

[quote name='Anomaly'][FONT="Georgia"]That describes my situation pretty accurately, yeah.

I'm honestly teetering on the line between "who cares" and "so incredibly stressed I'll snap on the next person who looks at me the wrong way." My courses this year are as hard as ever, being that I'm taking partial IB (advanced, university level courses) for English and Social. With those, unfortunately, come World Lit (actually really enjoyable), Theory Of Knowledge (Basic Philosophy which is neat) and Western World History (ew ew ew ew ew). The only one I'm really bummed about is WWH, but all those little weird classes fill up my schedule and take away the spares I really could have used to study. It's really hard to study because a) I don't actually know how, and b) everything just seems so incredibly boring! I'm taking Biology 30 by correspondance, and I've not even finished one booklet.. I have one semester to finish and take the diploma. That's probably the only course I'm actually worried about, but if I don't study I know I won't do as well as I could and I'll be losing out on scholarships. My marks are great now, but there's always the danger...

....and damnit guys, I'm supposed to be studying for Social Studies [B]AND[/B] Math right now!
D:

[/FONT][/QUOTE]

[font="trebuchet ms"] How to study: unplug your computer and remove it from your room. It works...[/font]

[OMNOMNOMALY]

[quote name='Lunox'][font="trebuchet ms"] How to study: unplug your computer and remove it from your room. It works...[/font][/QUOTE]

[FONT="Georgia"]it's not even in my room.. haha. And when I go upstairs to study I get distracted by doodling in my sketchbooks or what have you.[/FONT]

[eleanor]

[quote name='Anomaly'][FONT="Georgia"]it's not even in my room.. haha. And when I go upstairs to study I get distracted by doodling in my sketchbooks or what have you.[/FONT][/QUOTE]

[font="trebuchet ms"] Hahaha, mine's not in my room either. Sort of sad, really. lol I know how you feel, though. Learning good study habits was the biggest pain in the *** during junior year, although I've promptly let go of those habits as soon as senior year started.[/font]

[Allamorph]

[FONT=Arial]Didn't get it. I was quite occupied with AP Calculus, AP Statistics, and AP English Lit. (which was an utter joke, aside from [I][U]Heart of Darkness[/U][/I]). Really, I spent just enough time keeping up with the work to stay with the material, but there was a lot of material total, so I didn't end up lazy.

Got it last semester, though, especially towards the end. I couldn't break out of it, either, which ticked me off. I intend to make it better this semester; I've started keeping lists of the things I need to get accomplished each day, which up until now I'd kept in my head.

I dislike performing poorly. It makes me feel stupid.[/FONT]

[eleanor]

[quote name='Allamorph'][FONT=Arial]Didn't get it. I was quite occupied with AP Calculus, AP Statistics, and AP English Lit. (which was an utter joke, aside from [I][U]Heart of Darkness[/U][/I]).
[/FONT][/QUOTE]

[font="trebuchet ms"] I would just like to say, [u]Heart of Darkness[/u] sucks and I don't understand why teachers are still obsessed with it. Personally I couldn't get over the rampant racism.[/font]

[Allamorph]

[quote name='Lunox][font="trebuchet ms"] I would just like to say, [u]Heart of Darkness[/u'] sucks and I don't understand why teachers are still obsessed with it. Personally I couldn't get over the rampant racism.[/font][/quote]
[FONT=Arial]The racism was solidly hammered into the English culture at the time. In fact, there was even a supposed hierarchy of race, which consisted of four "classifications" and presumed (stress [I]presumed[/I]) to place the Caucasian at the pinnacle. White Englishmen really viewed the Negro race as barbaric and almost sub-human?which of course completely rationalized the Trans-Atlantic slave trade for them. Conrad wrote from this viewpoint.

I find nothing offensive about his book in that regard. It is a window to the minds of racists, really; if I were to write a book based in colonial South Carolina, it would have to be rife with more of the same. I do not agree with such a view?in fact, nothing incenses me quite as much as open racism, on either side of the skin spectrum?but I do not hate Conrad for writing it. (If he had been [I]advocating[/I] racism, that would be another matter entirely.)

On a completely unrelated note, Conrad also taught me how to use dashes. :p[/FONT]

[eleanor]

[quote name='Allamorph'][FONT=Arial]The racism was solidly hammered into the English culture at the time. In fact, there was even a supposed hierarchy of race, which consisted of four "classifications" and presumed (stress [I]presumed[/I]) to place the Caucasian at the pinnacle. White Englishmen really viewed the Negro race as barbaric and almost sub-human—which of course completely rationalized the Trans-Atlantic slave trade for them. Conrad wrote from this viewpoint.

I find nothing offensive about his book in that regard. It is a window to the minds of racists, really; if I were to write a book based in colonial South Carolina, it would have to be rife with more of the same. I do not agree with such a view—in fact, nothing incenses me quite as much as open racism, on either side of the skin spectrum—but I do not hate Conrad for writing it. (If he had been [I]advocating[/I] racism, that would be another matter entirely.)

On a completely unrelated note, Conrad also taught me how to use dashes. :p[/FONT][/QUOTE]

[font="trebuchet ms"] ... I'd have to disagree completely, lol. From what I've gathered, Conrad was a man of his times and never fully escaped that. Seeing as how the novel was written from his own experiences, and in the end the most significant reason for his being "anti-imperialist" was because if whites went to Africa they would all go crazy and become animals just like the Africans (despite Marlow's limited sympathy for the tortured slaves and disdain for the "pilgrims"...in the end, it was largely racist to me). Same thing happened to Carl Jung when he visited Africa (hence the 'shadow', I think), which just makes Conrad's racism more believable.

Though I sort of respect Conrad for overcoming a lot of his prejudice, I'm an Achebe-supporter all the way. But to each his own... neither of our viewpoints can be really "proved", since none of us really know the guy, lol. :) [spoiler]Some of my personal dislike for the novel could be because we had to write a 10 page research paper on it...[/spoiler] [/font]

[Allamorph]

[QUOTE=Lunox][font="trebuchet ms"] ... I'd have to disagree completely, lol. From what I've gathered, Conrad was a man of his times and never fully escaped that. Seeing as how the novel was written from his own experiences, and in the end the most significant reason for his being "anti-imperialist" was because if whites went to Africa they would all go crazy and become animals just like the Africans (despite Marlow's limited sympathy for the tortured slaves and disdain for the "pilgrims"...in the end, it was largely racist to me). Same thing happened to Carl Jung when he visited Africa (hence the 'shadow', I think), which just makes Conrad's racism more believable.

Though I sort of respect Conrad for overcoming a lot of his prejudice, I'm an Achebe-supporter all the way. But to each his own... neither of our viewpoints can be really "proved", since none of us really know the guy, lol. :) [spoiler]Some of my personal dislike for the novel could be because we had to write a 10 page research paper on it...[/spoiler] [/font][/QUOTE]
[FONT=Arial][spoiler]That could be a part of it. (^_^)[/spoiler]

Incidentally, though I have known of both Conrad and Achebe for quite some time, I was not aware that the two were at odds until just recently. Also read [I][U]Things Fall Apart[/U][/I], and found it to be too easy to skim/skip while reading it. I liked the general story, but I think it was Achebe's presentation or style that distanced me.

Anyway, you said that Conrad was a man of his times. I said that he wrote from that mentality. From where I stand, those statements are not incompatible. :p And again, I saw the racism present, but I also saw the attitude regarding it as just "another fact of life". I suppose that that's why I was able to see past it so easily: the characters (and mayhap even the author) were so indoctrinated with that idea that they acted on it naturally. They didn't believe it was wrong?no one did that had a voice at the time?and so they were considerably more open about it. [spoiler]Besides the fact that they were British, of course. :P[/spoiler]

Anyway, I'm not attempting to rationalize the attitude. I'm just presenting what I see through their eyes.[/FONT]

[eleanor]

[quote name='Allamorph'][FONT=Arial]
That could be a part of it. (^_^)
[/FONT][/QUOTE]

[font="trebuchet ms"] Yes, seeing as how whenever I think of [u]Heart of Darkness[/u] I immediately think of writing the paper... school really sucks the love out of books sometimes. lol[/font]

[Ravenstorture]

[color=darkgreen][font=garamond]Year 12 hit me in the face like a brick wall, it had been a breeze up till then. I decided early on that I had to choose between my grades and my sanity - and chose my sanity. So I went down the coast every weekend and got messed up, and kind of drifted through the rest of year 12. My friend kate was the same, but she just stayed in bed and ate chocolate all year. We both did exceptionally well for what happened, but probably could have done so much better if we'd applied ourselves.

For those of you who care to decipher this bit - we both got OP3's.

That was three years ago. Now I'm starting my science degree, I'm wondering if any of the lethargy remains. We'll see how it goes.

Oh wait, I forgot - We didn't do Heart Of Darkness, we did Wuthering Heights. Which I still feel like was an extremely painful waste of time. [/font][/color]

[Allamorph]

[quote name='Ravenstorture][color=darkgreen][font=garamond]Oh wait, I forgot - We didn't do Heart Of Darkness, we did Wuthering Heights. Which I still feel like was an extremely painful waste of time. [/font'][/color][/quote]
[FONT=Arial]Did that one, too. Same class, matter of fact. :p

Eh, same thing as with Achebe there, I think. Interesting story, but far, [I]far[/I] too Victorian for my tastes. I loathed every minute I spent in Dickens (yes, I know he's a different author), simply because he used [I]too many damn words.[/I] Hooray for having a vocabulary; there's no need to flaunt it.

[spoiler]I wonder if Mitch would've like Dickens if they'd met....[/spoiler][/FONT]