Sunday, February 24, 2013

High School Is Awful

Let me tell you my typical schedule during crew season.

5:30-5:45:  I wake up.
6:15: My bus comes to the nearby elementary school to pick me up.
7:10: I arrive at school.
7:25: School starts.
3:00: School is over.  I go to the crew bus, which takes the team to the Anacostia River for practice.
3:30: I arrive at the Anacostia River.
7:00: Practice is over.  I get on the bus again, which takes the team back to Blair.
7:30: I arrive at Blair.  One of my parents drives me home.
7:45: I arrive home.  I was away from home for 13.5 hours straight (which usually includes all hours of daylight that day), and have been awake for 14.  I eat dinner and start my homework.  My sisters already walked the dog while I was at practice, so I don't have to worry about that today.

8:30-8:45: The time I would need to go to sleep in order to get the recommended 9 hours of sleep.

That would leave me with 1 hour per night for homework.  I have 8 classes, 5 per day (2 are every day), and only two consistently don't give homework.  I can do about one class worth of homework at every lunch period, leaving (on average) 3 classes' worth of homework per night, plus eating dinner, in one hour.  That also means that I would have to do nothing but homework - no Facebook, no email, no television, no family time, no going out to dinner, no hanging out with friends, no extra anything.  My free time is crew.

Needless to say, this doesn't happen.  I rarely if ever go to sleep before midnight, let alone before 9.  That means that I rarely if ever get 6 hours of sleep.


I have a lot of feelings about how unfair this is.  To express them, have some reaction gifs.









(This may or may not be an excuse to show off part of my collection of reaction gifs.  Thanks Tumblr.  The gifs are from, in order: Avatar: the Last Airbender x2, Doctor Who, The Legend of Korra, Lilo & Stitch, The Big Bang Theory, BBC Sherlock, and Top Gear.)

Anyway, I basically have no time ever, I'm constantly tired, I often don't do all of my homework, and I rarely ever see my friends outside of school.  When I do, I don't know what to talk about because school is boring, they don't care about crew, and I don't really do a whole lot else.

In light of the whole thing about school starting times, I have this much to say: it doesn't matter.  Whether we push it forward an hour or back an hour, it will still be the same amount of time.  We still won't have enough hours in the day.  What we need is less homework or fewer hours a day in school.

The fact is, athletes can't be good students and get enough sleep.  Between exercise, good grades, and enough sleep, high school students have to pick two - and that's not even considering a social life.

TL;DR: It is pretty much impossible to be healthy and a good student.

No comments:

Post a Comment