I’m going crazy.  I’m not talking the funky, catchy kind of Gnarls Barkley-Crazy.  I’m not even talking the creepy Jack Nicholson-in-The Shining-crazy. No, it’s something much more serious: I’m talking flat out bat-guano senioritis crazy.  

As the past 4 years have gone by, I’ve witnessed senior class after senior class come down with this condition, and subsequently lose their minds.  I wasn’t sure if it was just an exaggeration, or if it was just a clever way to rationalize shirking off classes and homework for the last semester before graduation.  Whatever the case was, never in my darkest calculations did I figure that I would ever be a senior, and consequently have to endure such a deplorable condition.  It never really concerned me too much, to be quite honest.  How wrong I was.

Earlier I mentioned The Shining.  While not quite serious enough to truly describe my current condition, it’s not that far off the mark. The Shining is kind of how I would describe this last semester of my senior year:  trapped in a snowed-in, haunted mansion with a psychopathic killer.  That is to say, I’m feeling rather antsy.  It truly is hard to concentrate on schoolwork, or anything else for that matter, when you’re busy envisioning life after graduation.  I’ve been confined inside this brick building for the past 4 years of my life, and the only thing I can think of is my imminent escape.  Thank gosh I’m not hallucinating quite yet.  I’m having enough trouble concentrating as it is.

But it’s not just the distraction of my upcoming liberation that is affecting my academic performance, as well as my fellow students’.  Another key culprit is the fact that for the most part, all college-bound seniors have already been accepted to the universities of their choice.  While almost all colleges request a final high school transcript after the admission decision has been made, the general consensus is that you can send in anything short of a McDonalds menu, and your university isn’t going to revoke your admission.  You’d have to screw up pretty bad during your senior year for a college to seriously change their mind about you.  It’s a motivation thing.  If you don’t have any motivation to break your back every day up until graduation, then why would you?

All these things considered, senioritis has become a serious reality for me.  Distraction, on top of lack of motivation, is probably the main culprit.  Or then again, perhaps I'm just losing my mind.