It’s a long Monday, and I’m counting down the minutes until school is out. It’s a long week, and I’m counting down the days until the weekend. Then I count the days until Christmas break and before I know it, it’s almost halfway through my senior year.

School can be stressful, and it’s easy to get so caught up in all of my school work that I forget to just enjoy my senior year. More often than not I find myself putting my head down and trying to get through all of the tests and projects that I might have on any given week. But when I spend my activity periods working in the library instead of talking to friends, I miss out on time with people I might not see very often after graduation. When I skip the STA vs Sion games to finish projects, I miss out on great moments of being a star.

Soon it will be second semester, and after that it will only be a little while before I leave not just STA, but my family and Kansas City as well. This year in particular I’ve been so focused, not just on school work but on my college applications, making it hard to live in the moment. With so much emphasis put on where we’ll be a year from now it’s hard to live in the present sometimes. I love my family, this city and this school. If I waste my last year here wishing the time away, that would be a huge mistake. Every once in a while it’s okay to put a little less pressure on yourself, because time moves faster than you think.

Next year my younger cousin will start at STA as freshman, and I’ll be at a college somewhere as a freshman too. Take some advice from a senior, next time you plan on spending another night locked in your room doing homework, remember to come downstairs for a least a few minutes and be with your family. Talk to your siblings, go to the grocery store with your Mom, and ask your Dad how his day went. Your GPA might seem like the end of the world sometimes but I’m almost positive that looking back in ten years, I’ll regret lost time with my family a lot more than a few bad grades.