Existential Generalizations, Issue 9

In Defense of Second Semester Senior Slacking

Last year I encountered something that seemed strange and foreign: the second semester senior. While I was waiting for two of my other co-captains to come to a Model UN meeting, I realized they were probably not going to show up. They were both good people and clearly did not intend to flake out of a commitment, but as second semester seniors, they couldn’t really be expected to wake up and come to school early to help plan some small details related to a Model UN trip.

Nonetheless, I was frustrated with them. As a junior, I was dying of physics problems and Nash quizzes yet still expected to do stuff, a lot of stuff. They, presumably, were in easier classes, with college stress behind them, yet the expectations for them were low–not high, as one would expect.

But now the tables have turned: I try to show up to Model UN meetings, but sometimes I don’t; I spend way too much time (relative to my homework, which already is fairly sparse) thinking about the future, music, and random math problems; I am quite surprised I managed to turn in a draft of this article on-time.

Yet while I know Parker as a school could ground me and seniors like me more firmly in my schoolwork and my obligations, I am quite happy that it doesn’t.

One might imagine my affection for second semester senior serenity might stem from its being easy, but for me, fondness of not being stressed stems from the exact opposite: figuring out what to do without stress is hard.

Since middle school, all of my actions, to an extent, have been driven by some underlying pressure––to get positions in various inter-school organizations, to get good grades, to get into college, to make friends.  And all under the auspices of somehow being successful in high school.  But that’s now removed. That’s not to say pressure has been the sole driver of what I’ve done––I certainly hope that’s not the case––but it’s always been latent somewhere in my mind.  A nudge somewhere inside of me, pushing me in certain directions, keeping me focused.

Now that nudge is gone, given that my high school career is now numbered by a few fleeting months, and my future has little to do with what I do now. While in some ways it is quite fun being freer, on another dimension, it is quite scary–I do not really know what to do with myself.

So I try a bunch of stuff: reading everything from Zora Neale Hurston to Wikipedia articles about fishing, listening to German alternative music, just walking, starting random philosophical discussions, sleeping more.

In the process, I may not be actively generating much. I may be learning less academically than last semester or the one before it. But I am learning more about what it is I really want to do with my time, what it is exactly I want to be remembered for, what exactly can make me and others happy, without some latent stress always messing things up.  

Next year, I will enter college, and stress will likely return, as I worry about making new friends, getting good grades, preparing myself well for what comes next.  But this awkward couple of months of rest will have given me some new insights as to what I want to do with my life. It will have given me more clarity to be happier and more impactful. That’s to say, second semester senior slacking is worth it, even if it annoys some juniors in the process.