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The Flu’s Got Nothing On…

Written on January 18, 2010 by theboneshavespoken

Category: Advice, School Life, Solving a Problem

Okay, so maybe the flu has some downsides, too: fever, aches, sneezing, coughing, even nausea depending on the severity of your bug…but I digress. The truth is, unless you were really unlucky and got H1N1, your symptoms probably didn’t last longer than a week or so, right? Well, there’s another flu out there – a mental one, and this one can last for weeks, even months. The symptoms for this flu are often mind-boggling obvious, but since people rarely tend to watch for them, they can wreak astronomical damage on a person. Those symptoms include: lack of interest (in school), procrastination, spontaneous napping, elevated count of SparkNotes visits, diminished grade count, and an interest in the internet, games, TV, or any fun activity that borders addiction.

This flu is Senioritis.

Now that I’ve got the obligatory dramatic spiel out of the way, let’s look at some things about Senioritis that you probably don’t know.

1. Senioritis is found in every grade, not just seniors. However, Senioritis is deadly in seniors – at least, the ones that care about graduating with their class.
2. Senioritis is contagious. When one person in a group of six is infected, it’s likely that of those five uninfected, at least three will be infected.
3. Senioritis is a tough, tricky S.O.B. (What? S.O.B.? I was talking about Son of a Brutus! Go back to English 10, geez!) It’s going to be hard to overcome.

But most importantly, Senioritis is all in you. It’s not your parents’ fault, it’s not your teachers’ fault, it’s not your friends’ fault. But, to be fair, it’s not your fault either. I mean, you didn’t ask to have a constant, near-uncontrollable desire to do nothing, right? But since it’s all in you, only you can be the one to overcome it.

So now I get to the reason you’re reading this to begin with: how do you cure yourself of Senioritis?

Truth is, you can’t. There’s no magic pill you can take to get rid of your Senioritis. (There isn’t even a regular old pill, though you might try Aleve for the headache I’m giving you.)

But, (yes, the infamous “but”) you can keep it from ruining your life. Here are some suggestions for controlling Senioritis, so the Senioritis doesn’t control you:

1. Get as much work done at school as you can. Senioritis will strike you at school as well as at home, but let’s face it, you’re more likely to work at school where there isn’t video games or TV to distract you.
2. Remind yourself that your parents will ground you if your grades are bad.
3. Don’t stress yourself. The more stressed you are, the less you’ll do, which in turn causes more stress because you’re behind (it’s a vicious cycle). Calm down and step back.
4. If there are tutor sessions offered at school, go to them, even if you don’t need help. This will be an excellent environment to study or get something done, because the other kids aren’t going to want to gossip or chatter since they’re trying to get some help.
5. Since you’re going to have to do some amount of work at home, and you absolutely cannot seem to tear yourself from whatever it is you’d rather be doing, there are ways to remove temptation. If it’s a computer or internet issue, set up parental controls for yourself; you can block the usage of the entire computer, or if you need the computer to do work, you can block the internet sites that you just keep shifting to without any will of your own. If there’s this great episode of your favorite show playing, TiVo it with the promise of watching it later – after you do your homework.
6. Schedule your after-school life, hour-by-hour. It’ll probably be a lot easier to do your homework at four o’clock if you know you’ll get to watch the new episode of Bones at eight o’clock (a show I highly recommend…but again, I digress).
7. You don’t have to stop socializing, but you should socialize smartly. If there’s a schedule conflict, say, your friends are going to the movies on the same night you were planning to do some major studying for the next day’s test – don’t go. (Remember how I said Senioritis is contagious? This is what I meant. Isn’t it tempting to toss aside the books in this scenario?) If you know you need to study (be honest with yourself) tell them you’re sorry, but you can’t go. If they’re your friends, they’ll understand. And the next weekend, when you don’t have a major test to study for, you can call them up and invite them to join you for a movie night, since you missed theirs.

And now, I have to say that I find this last piece of advice is probably going to be the most important thing I say in this entire article: moderation. If you’ve completely reversed your Senioritis and are now working too much, then that’s just as bad as not getting anything done at all. Work too hard and you’ll burn out. Everyone needs a break (and I’m not talking about that Kit Kat bar). If you need a break, take it – you’re not going to be proactive if you’re sick to your stomach of school and everything that goes with it.

So, if your grades are bad, your teachers are naggy, and your parents are half an inch from grounding you ‘til summer – stand up, turn around, and say, “Senioritis – stick a sock in it.”