It’s officially the third week of the second semester and anyone who says they aren’t in a dragging lull isn’t being completely honest with themselves. Let’s be serious – the first few months of the new year are some of the toughest to get through. With the holidays, then recovery from all those strenuous exams, then snow days and random days off the school calendar, it sure feels like we spend more time lounging at home than at our other home, PB.

For seniors especially, this is nothing new – our case of senioritis has hit stage five, for it is now too far along to treat anymore. It’s “too real” and with the transition from winter into spring, it is only bound to get worse. As a very wise teacher said on the first day of second semester, “when the birds start chirping and the flowers start blooming, seniors go bonkers.”

Right now, it feels like the perfect time to relax, right? To blow off the small chapter of reading you had for English last night or only half-attempt your math worksheet. And Spanish homework? Bio too…? Nah, better save it for the weekend – maybe, that is, if it doesn’t conflict with any of your far superior plans for further relaxation.

Everyone is feeling the temptation to blow off the things that matter most in favor of the things we want to do most, but right now isn’t the time. Although half of the year is behind us, we still have several months before it’s truly all over. Seniors – this may feel like the time to ditch class because you already got into college or know you will and what can you really learn in QL anyway? While that mindset has about a million and one things wrong with it, you have to also remember that this is your last semester at Paint Branch.

Some of you have been dying to leave ever since homeroom freshman year, but whether or not you want to admit it, PB is and will forever be ingrained in you. Right now isn’t the time when you should be severing all your ties in prep for this September; this is the time to go to a sporting event you’ve never been to, to grab lunch once a week with the friend of yours going halfway across the country for college or to buy a country CD because all your friends listen to it and what do you have to lose?

This time of year is the perfect moment to fulfill all the “I wish I had’s” or the “remember when we said we would’s”. You only get one high school experience and if something is missing, now is the time to complete the puzzle, for the end is only getting closer.