In the first semester of your senior year, you’re actually quite busy. Last-minute SAT and ACT testing, regular schoolwork, college apps and extracurricular activities leave no time to waste.

In short, the first half of your senior year is junior year at Hockaday times 100. With that being said, I thought that there was no way that I could ever get the ever-so-mythical senioritis that I had heard about from previous seniors. There was just simply no time to acquire it.

So when I got senioritis during the first two quarters of my senior year, it was a little strange. ‘It’s a bit too early for senioritis,’ I thought, ‘but I’ll just roll with it.’ (You probably know the end to this – it’s a really bad idea. Trust me.)

Anyway, my typical day would go like this:

4 a.m.: Wake up, start homework. Fall asleep periodically/most of the time whilst trying to complete homework.

8 a.m.: Start driving to 11600 Welch Road.

8:20 a.m.-5:30 p.m.: Attend classes, engage in various academic and extracurricular activities

5:55 p.m.: Arrive home

6:15 p.m.: Fall asleep

As you could see, my days were (not so) productive, and I spent most of my weekdays sleeping or napping. On weekends, I would go to bed at 8 p.m. Clearly, with such little time to devote to homework, I was forced to play catch-up in classes, unable to synthesize the learned material outside of the classroom.

And as for college applications: ironically enough, I wrote an entire college supplement devoted to the fact that I couldn’t. Stop. Sleeping. Who knew that senioritis could take such a toll on my quality of life?

After a few months of this, I decided that enough was enough. At the start of Thanksgiving break, I ended up going to doctor to get my senioritis confirmed.

And at the end of it all, I can only say this: check your health, kiddos– because you may just have had mononucleosis like me.

I had always tossed around mono as a potential diagnosis, but one that was more or less as a joke, so I hadn’t really considered it as an ACTUAL explanation. But when I was officially diagnosed with it, I was greatly relieved – I was lucky that it wasn’t more serious, and it confirmed all of the symptoms that I had – something that I should have checked out MONTHS before.

I realize that it’s totally a Hockaday thing to internalize your illnesses and come to school sick – hey, I’m guilty of it too. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t know if that’s going to end sometime soon.

But seriously, if you’re sick, especially for a longer duration of time, PLEASE go to a doctor. Take it from me– it’ll only help you.

Sunila Steephen – Business Manager –

Photo Graphic by Jenny Zhu//The Fourcast