Yep

My name is Rina

[nerdvousbreakdowns-blog]

SENIOR YEAR.

Greetings, incoming fourth year student! Let me be the first one to extend my congratulations, you’ve finally made it to the pointy tip of the student hierarchy. You are far, far away from the likes of the clueless freshmen, or the happy-go-lucky-absolutely-nothing-to-worry-about sophomores, or the culture shocked juniors. You are now a bearer of the blue patch, and are therefore entitled to the inexplicable swagger that comes with it. You are now in the final stretch of your high school years. You are now a senior.

You are among the eldest, the wisest and the most experienced members of the student community. You’re a few months away from freedom. That’s right, take it all in: that sense of accomplishment, knowing that you’ve gone through enough to deserve to be where you are now. You’ve made it. Seems a bit overwhelming, no...?

Okay, now stop. This is the part where reality hits you, really hard, like a fat brick to your nose.

Being a senior is like being a tightrope walker. Well, no, more like a tightrope unicyclist, a hundred feet from the ground, with a really itchy back, balancing a fishbowl on her head while playing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on the violin... and the only thing keeping you from falling to the deadly spikes below is a shaky, unreliable string. And in order to get to the next stable platform (aka sweet, sweet graduation), you’re going to have to endure ten months of hard, rarely appreciated work, tears, and occasional happiness. I’m not exaggerating. For the most part, senior year is like a living nightmare, where the work never seems to end, and you never get enough sleep, and your work is seldom given due credit, and you could complain all you want, but you’d only be wasting time because it won’t make anything better. It’s as if there was a circle in the Inferno that was carved out especially for fourth year students.

This is the real deal. Welcome to senior year.

Sleep, social life, good academics: you can only have two, so decide wisely. Believe me when I say that you will not have enough time for everything you need to do, more so the things you want to do. Sleeping on a school night before midnight becomes a thing of the past; hardly getting any shuteye is the new “in” thing! Oh, and forget the eyebags? They’re there to stay. They become more like manifestations of persistence and hard work rather than mere blemishes, though. And don’t worry, nobody’s going to care how you look every morning. Everyone else in the classroom would probably be too busy procrastinating or catching up on sleep (i.e. sleeping with their mouths open on their desks), anyway. Either that, or they’re too spaced out and stressed out to give even half a damn.

SENIOR 1: “Three hours lang tulog ko kagabi!”

SENIOR 2: “Bwisit! E ‘di ikaw na nakatulog!”

If anyone asks you how stressed you are, just try your best to smile despite the exhaustion, and let the dark circles under your eyes and the unkempt hair and the cranky disposition speak for themselves. If you must vent, do it with a batchmate. The undergrads cannot and will not understand your pain. NEVER. EVER.

If the sleep deprivation doesn’t drain the very soul out of you, the stress definitely will (although those two usually work as a deadly pair). Eventually, your cutesy, colourful quiz chart can double as a bingo card. The kind that’s about to hit blackout, if you know what I mean. And at some point, most probably during one of the (many, many) hell weeks, you’re going to want to hurl that darned quiz chart out the window. Or beat the lights out of it using a banduria, then rip the thing into shreds, then set the shreds on fire using a Bunsen burner, then toss the ashes into your class garbage can and then hurl the garbage can out the window. Don’t be stupid, though, doing that won’t get you anywhere. You’re a senior. Don’t do anything stupid.

Adding to the stress are those higher-ups who keep setting those unbelievably high standards, and keep nagging you and telling you to “be at your best behaviour because you need to set a good example to the younger ones, and because you need to graduate and bring honour to our alma mater,” and so on and so forth until your ears bleed. Eventually, you’re going to master the art of keeping a straight face despite a voice in your head screaming (sans all forms of profanity) “JUST SHUT UP I NEED A BREAK I’M JUST A SIXTEEN-YEAR OLD GIRL I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE SHUT UP!!!!” If you let that voice take over you, then prepare for a trip to the YP Office. Defiance of authority, among many other things, will get you in some really big trouble, and big trouble can hold you back from marching and graduating. You don’t want that. Again, an important rule during senior year: don’t do anything extremely stupid.

You will also have to face these monsters called college entrance exams. Take these seriously. These tests are not the ones you decide to wing and do better at next time; there is no next time. It is through the entire process of applying, test-taking, and surviving the nerve-wracking wait for the results that you will realize that the future, which once seemed so distant, really is in the sweaty palms of your hands. Thinking about what the future has in store for you actually has the power to keep you wide awake at night, if the seemingly endless droves of requirements don’t. The key is to work hard, and to pray just as hard as you work. Have faith in yourself, and have faith in God. The tests won’t be easy, but conquering them is not impossible.

Senior year is not only physically and mentally exhausting... it’s also an emotional rollercoaster: dizzying, ridiculously fast-paced, full of twists and turns and ups and downs. You will experience a vast spectrum of emotions throughout the school year. You’re all megalomaniacs at first, all set to take over the school and make the best out of your last year. Then, as the days pass and as the work piles up, you realize it’s actually not that easy (and not that important) and you gradually morph into a stressed out mess. And then there are just those days when no matter what you do, it just seems like it’s never enough (frequent disappointment), or those nights when your mind just won’t shut up about the choices you’ve made so far and how they can affect your future (somewhere between apprehension and full-blown paranoia).

Then you realize that you’ve given too much of your time for work, and you barely get to spend time with your friends, and you want to change that, but you can’t (helplessness). Nobody even speaks at the lunch table anymore; everyone’s just too busy working to do anything else. Unless you get homework-free weekends and breaks, the only times you’ll actually bond with your classmates and friends are during retreats, the Dance Pro, the Family Day, OutBound KASAMAHAN sessions, Intrams, the Bandfest, the like. Loads and loads of fun, but then you remember... it’s your last retreat, last Dance Pro, last OutBound, last Family Day and Bandfest as a high school student, last Intrams, last few KASAMAHAN sessions. And then the depression sets in...

Then, as the school year crawls to a close, you’re going to experience the ultimate motivation killer: senioritis. If it could talk, it’d probably be saying, “Oh who even gives a damn anymore, I’ve been working hard the whole damn year and I’m this close to graduating; I’m sick and tired of working my ass off so screw this!” Yes, it’s very rude and annoying, but you’ll grow used to it.

A little after that, you’re going to get the “senior senti” vibes. Suddenly, despite the traumatizing stress, you’re going to want to stay a little longer. You can’t accept the fact that you won’t be in the school next year... yes, denial. And up to the last moment of the graduation ceremony, you’re still in denial. Then, sometime during the “summer after high school”, it’s going to hit you: everything is going to change, and you’ll never have those days again. You’ll never wear that funny blouse with the buttons on the back again (unless of course, that’s your taste in fashion). All you’ll have are memories, and you’re going to miss everything, and you’re going to grow extra attached to your friends, and hope that they’ll miss you as much as you miss them.

“I made it... what now?”

Despite everything I’ve said, being a senior is not all about bad hair days and piles of work and nervous breakdowns. Senior year is the ultimate test of character: how long you can last under pressure, how well you know your priorities and how well you can balance the things you need with the things you want, how ready you are to make sacrifices for what you know is best. You’re going to know who your real friends are, and who are worth sticking around for. You’re going to have a newfound appreciation for every little thing that happens, because you know you won’t have them for very long. You’re going to discover loads more about yourself and your capabilities. You’re going to find out the things that truly matter; you’re going to make a lot of choices. You’re going to grow. It’s going to be one hell of a crazy ride. Work hard, but don’t lose yourself. Enjoy every moment; it’ll be over before you know it. You’ll get out a much better person than you were when you got in. Don’t just survive the year... make the most out of it.

It won’t be easy. But, I assure you, it’s going to be worth it.