Bored with school (update)

[Henke]

I'm so tired of school, I'm so lazy, I feel like just hanging around at home right now, don't go out at all, just take it easy. Unfortunately, that's also what I do very often. My presence in school is at an all time low, and now is the time where it really shouldn't. It's my senior year, I just have one semester left. I feel bad for not putting in an effort, but I can't help just feeling too lazy to walk out the door in the morning. I've said a hundred times that I'll improve, but so far it's just empty words.
I just want my grades and get out of there, there's so much other stuff going on in my head that I can't really focus on school work at the moment.
Hating my whole class doesn't help a whole lot eighter. I'm not beeing bullied or freezed out or anything, it's just that I find myself despising the whole lot. I'm a people person normally, but I just can't stand 90% of my classmates. There are a few I can hang out with, but I don't feel like I have any real friends there or anything. I had friends in this school, but most of them graduated last year. I'm a year behind, due to switching school and major once. The class I've been put in is full of lunatic drama students. It's about 70% drama students and 30% music students, and most of them feel like they have been put in the worst class in school, there's no sence of belonging, no bonds. I'm probably the bigest outsider though. But at the same time I feel like I don't need friends in school. School is just for grades, not hanging out with friends, I can hang out with the people I really like in my spare time. Is this a healthy or a bad standpoint?
In the end of the day it's just a matter of getting my ass there every day. Don't skip classes and stay home just because I feel like it's not too important that day. That leads to a vicious circle where more and more classes become less important. Right now I don't really know how to break out of that circle. Even the smallest little issue becomes an excuse for not going. I really need to get myself together and fix this. I still have a shot at good grades if I just work this last semester. I know how important it is, still it's hard to find the motivation day by day.
I don't know at all how to go about with this.

[missy]

several thoughts.........

Please don't take this wrong, but you may be clinically depressed, or suffering from SAD (seasonal affective disorder). You may want to talk to someone - your school clinic is probably a good start.

If it's not some type of imbalance...........

Talk with your teachers. They may have some ideas to help "get you through" - you aren't the first person to suffer this, and they may have ideas of what helped others.

If looking toward "the end" is too much of a goal right now, break it down into smaller, more managable pieces. Look to getting through to the end of a week. Getting a major part of a project completed. Whatever works.

As long as you think you'd go back and finish - there really isn't anything wrong with taking some time off, too.

Good luck - hope you can find some way to get through this.

[Tyler]

I'm probably the bigest outsider though...

Hey, look on the bright side; it's certainly better than being the smallest outsider! They're the ones that get picked on!


No really, though, if you feel like you're burning out, maybe it might be a good idea to take a semester and sort yourself out, or at least give yourself time to relax a bit. Hey, you've worked hard and you're on your last semester, right!? great! It's also an important semester too, so don't feel bad about taking a break and starting with a fresh outlook. I actually did it twice during my schooling; one break I gave myself was a semester, another was an entire year before my final semester. I just got to the point where I couldn't force myself to work any harder.
Granted, this type of attitude is definately not one to apply early on in one's schooling, but if you've worked hard and gone the distance and are just plain tired and need a break, there's no shame in that.
Good luck man!

[Doug_Tipple]

Good advice from both Missy and Tyler, IMO. Best wishes, Henke.

[djm]

Henke, you sound very much like me during my last months at school. I preferred the company of my friends to anyone at school, and I preferred hanging out, or getting absorbed in my music, than concentrating on school work.

What a mistake. At the end of school, everyone disappeared. Even if they weren't in my school, all my friends were gone. Everyone had already made plans to go to college or university or to work. I was left sitting with my thumb up my ass, wondering what had happened, and wondering what to do next. The result was that I never did finish highschool, never got a higher education, and never got a decent-paying job.

Sociologists make a big deal about how important friends are to teenagers, and having been there, I know that this is true. But let me point out that you will not be a teenager much longer, that you will soon enter a new phase in your life, and not having the educational credits needed to enter that next phase will hurt only you.

Bite the bullet. Tough it out. Get your school year in. Finish and finish well. It will not hurt you later.

djm

[jim stone]

Also the possibility that your feelings are realistic.
You don't like much most of the people you are
with at school, your mind is elsewhere, and so on.
Well, why not? Doesn't mean there's anything wrong
with you. Life can be pretty dreary, sometimes.

The point then is that what's left? A few months,
then you're through. So there's the option of
saying: OK, this isn't much fun, in fact it sucks,
but I'll go in and get good grades and get out
of here.' If you put some energy into studying
you're likely to feel a lot better--energy makes
things more interesting.

I'm often in situations where the thing I'm supposed to
do is the last thing I want to do. Again and again I do it
and, after a bit, I'm happy enough.

Another thing I've learned. In academic situations
(and in life in general) it generally doesn't matter
terribly how you feel; it matters what you do.
You can control what you do a lot more readily
than how you feel. If you do the work, you get the
result, no matter how you feel while you do it.

I had to write a dissertation, and I was in despair. There
was no way I could do such a thing, I didn't want to, I
knew I would fail, etc. Then I realized that if I did the
work, one day at a time, I would complete the dissertation.
I could do the work feeling wretched or feeling joyous,
but either way if I did the work I would complete the
dissertation. So I did.

If it were me, I would make up my mind to go in,
do the work, finish school, and then do something else
that I liked better..
Then I would do it. This won't be the last time you
will find yourself in disagreeable circumstances where
you need to keep working. Such is life, occasionally.

Yeah, if that doesn't work, or even coupled with it,
get counseling, as recommended above.

[dwinterfield]

Missy is right, check out the depression issue. Assuming it's not the problem, you might wonder about what comes next when school is done. Whatever happens you're coming to the end of school. If your highest ambition is spend the next 30 yrs hanging around the house and logging into C&F every day, I'd encourage you to put some effort into broadening your horizons. I was in that sort of spot for a while. I dropped out of school many times, did other stuff and finally got a degree 14 yrs later. Then another degree, repsonsible jobs etc. Maybe school isn't the right thing now, but you should be doing something.

On the other hand, if you know exactly what you're doing next and are ready for it, it may be that your heart and mind are moving on while your body has to put in another semester. If that's the case, welcome to one of life's depressing lessons. Sometimes we all have to put in some time, pay some dues, get our ticket punched etc. so we can get to the next, better place. Just do it. It's worth it and it will be over soon.

Good luck.

[SteveShaw]

You need to go in and talk to your teachers, preferably someone who has pastoral responsibility for you, or, failing that, someone you feel you can trust (not just the prettiest and least-experienced!). It's a bit like getting into trouble with the bank: the sooner you go in to discuss your financial problems to work out a way through, the less serious the consequences. You need to be able to say that you're wanting to work out a solution but you need help and advice. They'll want to see that you're being positive. The longer you do nothing, the more like a brick wall it will become.

Steve

[SteveShaw]

I was left sitting with my thumb up my ass
djm

Remind me to never ask you to lend me a whistle.

Steve

[chas]

School is just for grades, not hanging out with friends, I can hang out with the people I really like in my spare time. Is this a healthy or a bad standpoint?

School isn't for grades, it's for learning. Friends are always a benefit. I noticed you didn't mention anything about your classes. Is this because you're not enjoying them, or because you don't feel you're working toward a good goal? If so, maybe a big part of the problem is that you're not in the right field of study. Of course, remedying this at this point would be a pretty long-term thing, involving more years of school, which I'm sure doesn't seem a good prospect. . .

At one point in my education I felt the same way. A lot of my problem was that I was hung up on grades, and spending a lot of mental and emotional energy on classes that I was required to take outside of my majors (we have these things in the US called distribution requirements ). When I came to the realization that I wasn't in college to learn sociology, etc., and that I could get by in these classes with a minimal amount of effort, leaving more time to work on the stuff I enjoyed, I was much happier.

Keep us filled in on your progress, and hang in there, man.

[Jack]

For me it's the opposite. I want to go to class very badly, and I want to do well, but many days I'm too sick/tired to walk around. And if I do get there, I often find my mind cloudy and "floaty" due to medicines. It sucks, but I persist nonetheless. I wish I had good advice for you, but I really don't, other than to tell you to pray--that's really all that helps me with it, so I suggest it for you, too. Deep prayer can be a very good kind of therapy, I've found. I'll pray for you, too. Good luck!!

Look to getting through to the end of a week.

That is very good, very wise advice there. I also basically live for the weekend, a time when I can "recoup."

[fearfaoin]

we have these things in the US called distribution requirements

We do? Never heard of them.

[s1m0n]

As frustrating as it is to you now, I think you'll find that having this kind of expereice in the last term before graduation is common to a lot of people's experience with all kinds of school, from high school to grad school.\

Of course, knowing this doesn't make it any easier to cope with, but your expereince isn't unusual.

[Henke]

Thanks for the great advice and support everyone.

Missy, I'm pretty sure I don't have a depression of any kind. I'm enjoying life outside school very much. I have some great friends, I have my music, I have Taekwon-Do, and a bunch of other interests. I am in a strange position emotionally right now, but I wouldn't say that I'm unhappy.

As much as I would like to take some time off, I feel like it's better to just go through with this right now. It's just a few months, then I'm done. I know this, but still it's extremely hard to find energy and motivation to do school work instead of doing things I enjoy.

I do have a plan for what to do after this. I'm going to the police academy. That's my long-term goal. I'm going to apply in March next year, so I'll have lots of time to do anything I feel like doing. It's very unlikely that I'll get in first try, so I might take some other job or study some more until I get in.

I have all this, it would seem like I'm all set. But it's still very hard to get up in the morning and go to school. And if I go to school for something like three days in a row, it seems to justify that I stay home for the rest of the week. I don't know what it is. I'm not bored to death when I'm acctually in school. I think the real problem is that I have so much going on in my mind that I just can't focus on school at all. I need to get this sorted out quickly.

Thanks again for all the advice.

[djm]

Since you want to be a policeman, each morning picture a big tough cop yelling at you to get your lazy butt out of bed and out to school. Imagine him hitting you with his truncheon until you get moving.

djm