Life of a Second Semester Senior

Once again, I’m writing this article an hour before it’s due. Somehow, it’s my last semester and I still have horrible time management (by the way, to all the underclassmen reading this, you’re never gonna stop procrastinating). But it’s fine! Now that I’m a second-semester senior, I can finally stop pretending to lock in and adopt the unproductive lifestyle I always wanted to live:

Waking Up (eventually)

Every day at 6:00 a.m., my alarm clock goes off as usual. I can’t hear it, though; I threw it out my window after last semester ended. For the past three years, my alarm had dragged my rightfully reluctant bum out of bed every morning, and frankly, I had a lot of pent-up frustration. What motivated me to yeet my alarm into oblivion was not anger or annoyance, however, but sheer laziness. I just couldn’t be bothered to smack it until I found the off button, so I did what any irrational second-semester senior would do and tossed it out the window. Interestingly, that solves a lot of sleep-related problems. That project you’re not finishing before 11:59 p.m.? Just toss it out the window and go to sleep. That test you’ll probably fail anyway? Just toss your study material out the window and go to sleep. That teacher who’s calling you out in class for actively listening with your eyes closed? Just toss them out the window and keep being a good student. Ever since I got rid of my alarm, I’ve been getting a healthy 10 hours of sleep every day from 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and the school can’t do anything about it. If Stuy calls my home, I’ll be the one who picks up the phone and tosses it out the window. Sleep deprivation is cured!

Attending Classes… what are those?

Don’t go. Just skip. The things I do in school are the same things I do in bed, so I might as well save two hours of commute time and stay at home. I’m not interested in hearing any of my teachers yap about…actually, I don’t even know what classes I’m in this semester. I haven’t opened Talos since 2024, and honestly, it probably hasn’t even been updated yet. I couldn’t find my classrooms even if I wanted to. But whenever I feel generous enough to grace the school with my presence, I just pop into a random class and pretend like I belong there. The teacher won’t recognize me, but that’s fine since they can’t recognize my classmates either. If they decide to take attendance, I can just say “here” when they call for any of my friends since none of them go to class. Usually, though, I don’t stick around waiting for everyone’s names to be called. If I did, the period would be over. Now that I have the freedom to wander around the school, I can actually enjoy my time at Stuy by visiting my favorite teachers, interrupting the creation of the Class of 2043 in the Hudson staircase, and asking the deans if they want to see something cool in the Hudson staircase.

Maintaining Grades (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA no)

Grades don’t matter. That foreign language test I have tomorrow? I can just write my answers in Pig Latin. The 30-page English essay I was assigned two months ago? I’ll just mark it as done on Google Classroom. Now that I’m basically in college (BMCC won’t reject me, right?), I don’t need to care about my grades anymore. I’m free from all the unnecessary stress that comes with arbitrary numbers my teachers assign to me. Instead, I can focus on what actually matters, like scrolling YouTube Shorts for five hours (why did I delete TikTok…) and doing my Duolingo lessons. Besides, I already know I’ll see six figures on my report card. They’ll all be zero, but that’s not important. My grade is just a number, and like many other numbers, it’s meaningless. Half of it is determined by how many times I can raise my hand every day, and the other half is determined by how well I can recall useless information. Like, did I really need to know that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell? The only thing I needed to learn from AP Bio was that I could sell one of my kidneys to pay for my college tuition and still survive. Seriously, if your grades are already in shambles, stop worrying about them so much because 1) they don’t matter and 2) you’re not making that academic comeback. If you’re actually doing well, like top-three-in-your-class well, you have my congratulations and condolences. You’re never going to be recognized for having the third-highest GPA in your grade, but hopefully you can take pride in being a bigger nerd than everyone else besides the valedictorian and salutatorian!

You now have a good idea of my life as a second-semester senior. As such, you know I’m too lazy to end this article with a proper conclusion. I’ve already written 836 words, and I’m tired. Good night, and keep procrastinating, kids.