Photo by Maddy Brown

Rebekah Rosenstein, 10, talks about her experience at a Bernie Sanders Rally.

Slacker. Lazy. Procrastinator. All of these words have been hurled from the mouths of various friends, family, acquaintances, teachers, substitutes, the mailman and anybody who has ever met me. My study habits can be, and have been on multiple occasions, described as unseemly, inconsistent and just practically non-existent. My organizational “skills”, if they can even be awarded the term, arise to the level of my 9 year old niece’s, but at least she can keep track of her crossword puzzle homework pages.

However, for all my lack of turned-in homework, forgotten tests to make up and all-around low level of effort, my grades surprisingly could be worse. Now, I’m not saying I’m going to be valedictorian any time soon, but considering my work habits (or lack thereof), the results theoretically should be dismal instead of just mediocre. Against all odds, I usually maintain around a B average, with one or two Cs here and there. I know, as do my teachers, that I could get them up if only I put in just a little more effort and a little more studying time, but for people in the same situation I am, the thought of trying just a little harder seems nearly impossible.

For all my fellow peers who also suffer from what I like to call Extreme Slacker Syndrome, don’t feel alone. I know first hand just how hard it can be to overcome the indifferent monster known as Apathy. Our rooms stay messy, but we just refer to it as organized chaos. Our backpacks may look like a recycling bin, with the forgotten homework of yesterday littering the bottom and- oh hey, I finally found the pen I was looking for. You probably hear the words, “If you only put your full effort into it,” or “You can do better,” at least twice a day. You don’t lack care for everything, you just sometimes experience difficulty in finding the motivation for daily tasks.

I think the biggest misconception about academically lazy people can be that we don’t care about anything at all. In reality, the majority of us have plenty of subjects, hobbies and talents we put our full effort and attention into. I, for example, love to write. I also play the clarinet in band and I love to talk social justice issues and politics. I love to learn, but that statement can definitely seem doubtful, especially if you have me in one of your classes. You’ve probably seen my eyes widen when I realized we have a test today (that I totally forgot about) more than once, or seen me scrambling to find the homework I could’ve SWORN I had completed. (Spoiler alert: I never find it and resign myself to turning it in the next day for the late grade.)

So don’t get us wrong; we don’t dislike learning, our teachers or even school itself. We simply have grown so accustomed to getting by on the bare minimum that when it comes time for us to step it up it genuinely feels like uncharted waters. Extra credit remains foreign to us, as does independently forming study groups, getting projects done early and pretty much anything else that requires us to go the extra mile. Don’t think of us as bad students, just good people with bad habits.