End of Summer Stress

With school less than a month away, many teenagers across the community are on edge.

We left our summer reading and school schedules to the last minute. It's especially tough because summer weather was late to come, and we'd rather be outside.

Actually, there's about 1,000 other things we'd rather be doing.

But I'm at school every day, sorting things out, and everyone is slammed. The start of school brings out stress in everyone, no matter his or her age.

Guidance counselors are drowning in students. It's next to impossible to get a meeting. Teachers are prepping for classes full of new pupils. It's crunch time for everybody.

I'm running the student newspaper, which is a time consuming gig. I'll also be working on my college applications and juggling it all with a seven-class schedule.

But first I must overcome my summer reading: Virgil's Aeneid, which is impossible on its own, parts of the Bible and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

The silver lining here is school's start means all my friends together in one place at the same time. I'm excited to see everyone and meet new people. The stress is a little less exciting, but adults keep telling me it's a valuable experience.

We'll see about that.