Junior year… where do I start? To make a long story short, it was literally trash, but kind of great at the same time. This has been a year full of studying, stressing, and mental breakdowns. Have you ever cried due to math? This year, I sure did. For some reason, it’s kinda sorta funny comparing how awful this year has been with other juniors. “OMG I am running off of three hours of sleep today,” you will hear from fellow juniors in the most positive voice ever often followed by “Same! Also, just took a big fat L on my physics test.”

Junior year includes two trimesters of English, two trimesters of history, two trimesters of physics, and the worst part, three whole trimesters of suffering in the most challenging math course I have ever been through.

English

Socratic circles, also known as a shy person’s biggest nightmare, took the place of our English finals. Basically you had to talk for a super long time about a surprise subject. I have literally no clue what was more painful, hearing these awkward and dry conversations among students while they try their hardest to outshine the other members of their group, or nervously talking among a group of strangers on a topic about which we know very little. Let’s be honest juniors, we all winged most of our classes this year, English being one of them (sorry teachers).

History

History was a roller coaster of stress. Most of the class was spent watching bad quality movies, taking notes, and freaking out the day of an EQ test because we forgot to study. Let me tell you, the book work assigned to my class was hard. It was basically the hardest game of hide-and-go-seek; you searched for SINGLE words to fill in blanks of a worksheet.

Math

Personally, the class I struggled with the most was math. Math took me and destroyed me. I legit have a fear of triangles now. Remember when math was just math and not art, science, and English all in one? I would do anything to go back to the easy days. I never thought I would call Algebra easy, but it sure was a piece of cake compared to everything else we have done in our math class this year. Although this math course has been a complete headache, there were some good times. One thing I will never forget is seeing our teacher give us a performance about pi. Sometimes I get flashbacks of this math teacher singing and dancing on my desk; don’t ask if it’s good or bad because I truly don’t know.

Physics

Physics was probably my favorite of all of the evils, not sure if that’s because of the class or the people that were in it. While in physics, I was constantly asking myself “What even is going on,” but let me tell you, when I finally found out what they were talking about, I felt great. Physics is really cool… when you understand it. This class was full of labs… followed by 15 page lab reports.

Lotus Leaf

Although junior year made me want to rip my hair out just about every day, I made some awesome memories. I made so many new close friends this year, mainly due to Lotus Leaf. Lotus Leaf has brought so much joy to my life. I feel like I finally found my “thing,” which is writing. Honestly, even though my classes were stressful, confusing, hard, and the worst, I almost enjoyed the struggle. Yeah, you spent four weeks writing about electricity in a battery? Me too. Stayed up all night crying while studying for a math final that would drastically change your grade? Yup. I feel as if we juniors bonded over our hatred of this year. Now, as we enter our senior year, let’s go out with a bang!