¡¡¡S-T-R-E-S-S!!!

S-T-R-E-S-S. It’s a six letter word, where, in the word itself causes me to be even more stressed. With swimming, color guard, practicing for my All-State audition on flute, being active in my church, staying awake in my classes, and spending time with my boyfriend, I find myself using this word a lot. “I’m stressed,” I say when I just can’t seem to figure out what’s going on or I’m too tired to care. “This is too much for me to handle right now.”

My question is this: Why do I feel like high school teachers and coaches alike think that you have nothing other to do than their one class or their one sport? The truth is, we have six other classes than the one that your teacher just assigned you a big project for, due tomorrow, and I participate in two sports as well as my church. There’s no time in my schedule for ‘hanging out’ like normal teens my age.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the sports and the church activities and I don’t know what I’d do without them. But sometimes, I think teachers need to realize that I’m at school for a minimum of twelve hours and a maximum of sixteen, working my butt off for that whole time (not just sitting around doing nothing).

Yeah, I get everything done on time, but that doesn’t mean I’m not up at odd hours of the night trying to finish my paper for Chemistry, my project for AP US History, my flashcards for Spanish, writing my drill work for Color Guard into my dot book, my blog for AP Lang, or my 5 pages of book problems for Algebra II. Add to that my two two-and-a-half hour practices a day for swimming, my twice-a-week late night practices for color guard, as well as my duties as Youth Deacon at my church and trying to get enough sleep so I don’t get sick or so cranky that I get even more stressed.

If only there was a way to put more hours in my day – a way for me to do the same number of things for the same amount of hours, but then have five or so extra hours in a day in order to be a ‘normal’ teenager and hang out with my friends, as well as catch up on some much-needed sleep.