By LEXI WOODCOCK
Sheridan High School Student
Editor’s Note: The Sheridan Student Column is brought to readers by Sheridan High School’s 10th grade English class, taught by Abby Williams.
Before I begin, I should probably introduce myself. My name is Lexi Woodcock, and I am a sophomore at Sheridan High School. This article that you are about to read is going to give you a little look into my world and a feeling of what it is like to be a teenager in today’s day and age. To save myself the typing, and to save you all the time of reading WAY too many pages about my life, I am just going to give you a schedule of probably my busiest day, Monday.
Monday morning, I am up, dressed, and ready for the day by 6 a.m. I leave for cheer, or I attempt to leave for cheer, no later than 6:05. By the time I leave, I have all I need for cheer, school, lunch and work, so I have been up since about 5:20.
Then I have cheerleading in my school’s gymnasium till 7:30 (but more like till 7:40). I then get ready for school in the girls’ locker room, and head to my first period, AP World History. I suffer through almost an hour of AP (sorry, Mr. Hewitt), which is then followed by an hour of chemistry (which takes place in the COLDEST classroom I have ever been in my ENTIRE life. Seriously, Mr. Olsan, please, please, PLEASE get your AC fixed), 3rd period Spanish, SRT (which is NOT student resource time when I have a club meeting almost EVERY DARN DAY), 4th period Algebra II, and then finally, lunch.
By now I have made it through all of my really hard or really boring classes, which is a relief. Lunch is normally pretty good; sometimes I do my homework in it, but not too often. After that is 5th period choir, and then God above blesses me with Study Hall. I’m an office helper, which is fun, but sort of sucks when there is a lot of homework because then I don’t get all of my extremely overwhelming amount of homework done. That brings me to 7th period Accelerated Language Arts, and then, boom. School’s over. Here’s when it gets messy.
If I am lucky, I don’t have any sort of practice after school. Assuming I don’t have any practices (a MIRACLE), I get home around 3:45-ish, and I immediately start on my homework. Fast forward to 5:45, and I’m heading out the door to babysit from 6 to 9. Then I get home around 9:30 p.m., and my pile of homework still awaits me.
I manage to have most of it done, except for one key class: AP World History. No hate to my teacher because he’s really funny and nice, but I HATE history with all of my heart. Like yeah, yeah, we need to learn from our mistakes, but it is SO boring. I sit down and attempt to read my 10 to 20 pages of readings, and I scribble down what I am going to call “notes.” Then I watch a bunch of crash course videos, go through PowerPoints, and keep going until I can’t see the words clearly anymore. I’d like to say I am asleep before 12 each night, but that’d be a lie.
I’d also like to say that this is my ONLY day like this, but that would also be a lie. Each and every day, my schedule is filled from the start of the day until the end of the day. And many other kids’ schedules are just as busy as mine! I guess the point I am trying to get across is to be patient with us! If you have a teenager or teach a teenager, please recognize that we are trying our best! The truth is, many of us are so busy with our sports or jobs that sometimes we forget to do last night’s homework!
A quote from NeaToday.org states, “In February, a Pew survey found that 70 percent of teens say anxiety and depression is a ‘major problem’ among their peers, and an additional 26 percent say it’s a minor problem.”
So many of us are beyond stressed out whether it is over school, sports, clubs, or all of the above, and it really can take a toll. God bless my wonderful mother, and all she has done for me, because I know lately I’ve not been the nicest, and a major reason for that is because of my stress!
So please, for all of you reading this, understand this: Understand all of the stress we deal with. Of course, no student should constantly turn in assignments late or forget to even do them, but try to be understanding. High school is hard. Life is hard. So, let’s all try and be a little more understanding, but especially to us teenagers.