This article is three days overdue. Full disclosure: most (read: all) of my columns are. This one is different, though––for once I’ve actually had the time to write it on time and just neglected to do so.

Instead, completely overcome by senioritis or burnout or probably both, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in the past 72 hours watching reruns of Last Week Tonight and Saturday Night Live, filling in Sudoku puzzles, and reading CNN. Obviously I’ve scraped together some homework assignments, too, but admittedly without the careful attention I would’ve paid three years or months––or even weeks––ago.

And so goes the story of many a high school senior. At once nostalgic, overwhelmed, anxious about the future, and incredibly sleep-deprived, much of our energy is directed toward rumination and Netflix, not Spanish or calculus.

To me, it’s a shame. I’ve spent all of high school looking forward to the academic freedom of senior year: being able to choose my classes and having time outside of school to pursue interests I can’t quite fit in my daily school schedule. Academically, this semester is, in my mind, supposed to be the most fulfilling one, the one most aligned with my true interests.

But now that I’m actually here, I can’t seem to find within myself the motivation to complete the work of the classes I’ve desired to take for the last three-and-a-half years, let alone explore academic-y subjects in my free time. I find it increasingly difficult to get through the waning days of my senior year. I feel as though I am dragging my feet to a finish line that I should instead be bounding across.

Leading up to the second semester of senior year, high school seemingly demands curiosity from students, genuine or not.  Parents love curiosity. Teachers love curiosity. Colleges looove curiosity. As students, we constantly receive the message that in order to be successful students, we are supposed to be curious. Obviously curiosity is a human instinct––though it manifests differently in everyone––but I would be hard-pressed to find a student who has never feigned interest in a subject to please someone else or just to incentivize themselves to get work done. 

I have to wonder what kind of toll this forced “curiosity” takes on our natural inquisitiveness. When all the pressure is suddenly removed, do we still engage with the world around us? Do we still seek knowledge? Are we still motivated to explore new frontiers?

Am I still curious? Yes. I find myself asking questions about what I see and hear and read and perceive on a daily basis. I start my mornings reading Google News while I wait for the coffee machine to heat. I enjoy using my brain to solve puzzles in the many books that adorn my shelves.

And I think the same is true of the majority of my classmates. We are curious about a wide variety of subjects, many of which are unfortunately deemed unworthy of a part in a high-school education, which is supposed to instill and enrich that very curiosity in us. But as high school comes to a close, I hope that I, along with my peers, can devote some time to recognizing what fuels our appetite for learning.