Coming into the 10th grade, my 13th year at Graded,  I truly did not know what to expect. Like Alexia Garrison, fellow Talon writer,  mentioned in her article “Surviving the Sophomore Slump”  we ended 9th grade braced for everything to get harder, half-convinced the nightmare of the 40-question quizzes would follow us forever. That was not really the case. 10th grade really lived up to its name. I can say that after this entire year has passed, I truly felt the slump. But contrary to what many think, and after this whole year has passed, I can say I felt every bit of it, but the slump turned out to be the most necessary kind of empty space.

School kept going and the work kept coming, of course. But at the same time, during this year, infinite possibilities arose. The number of clubs, extracurriculars and random things I did this year go unmatched by any other moment in my life. I joined the Talon, became leader of several clubs, and maybe more importantly, I quit many activities that I noticed were not adding anything to my life and were only looking good on paper. That was the lesson 9th grade never had time to teach me: saying no to the wrong things is how you make room for the right ones. And in between all of that, I hung out with my friends. A lot. More than I probably should have, honestly, and I don’t regret one minute of it.

Here’s the strange part. Most of what I figured out this year, I figured out while doing nothing. During all the time I spent bored at home or procrastinating, my mind would wander somewhere it never got to go during freshman year, when every week was packed too tight to think. It was in those empty afternoons that I started noticing what I actually wanted to change about my life: which friendships were real, which habits were just routine, which version of myself I was drifting toward without meaning to. The boredom was the only thing quiet enough for me to hear myself in. 

So, even if the EOLs began piling up, somehow, they seemed so much easier than in the years before. Not because the work got smaller, but because I had stopped panicking at the sight of it. Maybe we noticed that this was one of the last times we were going to be able to truly be free to procrastinate, or that instead of being able to watch a new TV every month we would have to be looking at colleges. The pressure didn’t actually land on me until I realized that we were entering the IB in less than two months. I don’t know exactly when it hit, but once it did, the calm I had been living in cracked a little. Two years later, after countless moments of people older than me talking about the IB like a storm that was soon to come, it is now actually really close.  But I am extremely grateful that I was able to have fun and enjoy every single relaxed moment even if that meant turning in a couple of late assignments or getting a grade that I normally wouldn’t accept. 

Honestly, I can say that although freshman year was so full of excitement and new experiences, the sophomore slump is a moment where I could not only consolidate everything that happened in the previous year, but also mentally prepare myself for the year to come. I’m not saying that I feel prepared to begin the IB during the next semester, but socially and regarding CAS (creativity, activities, service), I feel confident that I will be able to succeed.

 So teachers, if you are reading this, I am not telling you that this year is a “free pass” because it isn’t. I’m telling you it is a moment that every student needs. A moment for them to be able to establish their learning habits on their own and most of all, explore the world and friendships around us before the storm actually arrives.