THE ECHO

by Jackson Zeunik

In a generation of laziness, I can be known to take it to the extreme. Late homework, missing assignments, and learning just how many days it takes a teacher to grade so I can avoid doing work is something that is all too common to a carefree connoisseur such as myself. Alas, at the request of my newspaper adviser for this very assignment, I was required to care are about my grade for a week — and it did have some positive results.

I sat down with my teachers and decided the critical things I needed to be successful such as binders, actually bringing my laptop to school, and finally locking in on those big assignments. I decided for this week I’d limit myself to half an hour of free time a night and spend the rest of the time working non-stop; no breaks just doing what a high school student should have been doing the whole time.

The first three nights were my most productive, bringing my grade up in AP Lang over 20%. God bless Ms. Elmore and her late-work policy. Also, during these three nights I finished my four-page critical thinking paper for VU American that I accidentally turned into six pages because I love history just a little too much; sometimes though that doesn’t mean I do any extra work in that class, because if I know it, why I should have to review?

Now, the rest of the nights were far less productive, though I finished four MI papers that were severely overdue. I drew those out significantly longer than I had to over the two days, but that’s more than I’d usually do, so overall I’d call that a win. Now, I will say, to my credit, I studied for my math test that was the Friday of this week, which might sound absolutely amazing to those who know me because, again, why study if I know it? I know it, but that didn’t help me as much as I had hoped — I ended up with D on the test.

Even with that sad end to the week, my grades looked far better than usual, and that was just one week. So what did I learn? Well, I see why people do this “work” thing. I have to say, I’ve learned some interesting things about myself such as the fact that “Saturday Sun” by Vance Joy played on loop puts me into a work trance, and I become far more effective. Another more problematic thing I learned is that I can run on an hour of sleep for 18 hours straight, but I functionally become a zombie. All in all, it was a fun experience to not be lazy for once, and I think I might try doing this for a year next time.