An honest letter: Calming the quarter three chaos

Dear Fellow Peers and Classmates,

Let’s address the elephant in the room and admit that quarter three hits us all like a fast-paced freight train. From one test to the other and a plethora of assignments stacking up to grades flushing away all our hopes and dreams, the chaotic recipe for this time of year spells itself out. As if it couldn’t get any worse, our schedules are meddled with the lost hour from daylight savings time. Just as one gets into the groove of winter darkness, they welcome a new wave called sleep deprivation (as if they don’t have this already).

We see spring break just beyond the horizon, and suddenly the only “tan” we want to be partaking in does not involve our math textbooks. With the ramping up of the forecast and the urges to put away the snow boots, the fifteen assignments and essays due ASAP have reasonably fallen from number one priority behind our shopping cart full of warm-weather clothes. Just an ounce of sunshine on the skin mixed with a twinge of UV, and there goes all of our focus.

The struggle to stay afloat in both the social and academic department clashes like an atrocious ‘90s Zumba outfit. An invitation to a birthday party? Better luck next time, because you’ve got papers to complete, extracurricular events to attend, an SAT to study for, and a plan to cure world hunger! Want to sit and chat with friends at Lunch and Learn? Perhaps not, since you need to be in eight places at once, taking numerous tests, all while planning for the next six assessments you have tomorrow. Good thing the brain can’t talk out loud, because our suffering quarter three brains would be dangerously babbling a bunch of nonsense and absurdity.

If you experience the same rush and defeat that can unfortunately follow the course of the school year, then you would understand the frustration and temptation to throw in the towel easily. We see some seniors drift off with half-hearted assignments, ten-minute study preparation, and we simply look on with jealousy. However, they, too, have gone through the wringer of second-semester battles. But if we glance down the pitch-black tunnel to see the bright side, we can look back and reflect on how far we’ve come in a year’s time. Better yet, we can find comfort in knowing that superior days lie ahead, as it can only go up from here.