This year has been incredibly stressful so far. Even though my class load is lighter and I have less homework, I’ve been spending a lot more time at my job. At the beginning of summer I switched departments, thinking maybe I’d get less hours and work would be less stressful, but that was not the case. Where I am now, I’m really the only one who does my job properly and excels at it, so I get most of the hours allotted to the department. It’s not that I don’t like my job, I actually enjoy it, just piled onto everything that goes along with my senior year, it’s a little overwhelming.

I haven’t gone and taken my senior pictures, I haven’t ordered my cap and gown, really the only thing I feel I have going for me is my capstone, and I even feel uneasy about that. I need my job, I need to pay bills, but going into my last year of high school, I feel like I should be paying better attention to my school activities and I just can’t.  I have this overwhelming feeling of guilt and fear about maybe somehow not enjoying this year or giving it enough time. Even though I’d have to royally screw up to not graduate, I have an uncomfortable feeling in my gut that maybe I won’t, that I’ll be a failure high school drop out for the rest of my life because I put paying my bills above school, which is ridiculous. I don’t believe school should come with this much stress or make you feel guilty for trying to balance anything else in your life.