Okay, so let’s set the scene: it’s the end of the first week of junior year, and I am already fifty years older. I don’t know who started the rumor that junior year is the “most important” year of high school, but they clearly hated children. Between college pressure, brutal AP classes, and still pretending I have hobbies, this year is not joking around.

Here’s the lineup of classes I willingly signed up for (and by willingly, I mean under the influence of caffeine and bad judgment):

• AP Calculus BC: Imagine trying to casually “review” limits, only to realize we’ve basically skipped the “casual” part and launched directly into rocket-science-level derivatives. Day one, the teacher was like, “This is just review,” and everyone in the room went silent. Review for who?? NASA engineers?
• AP Lang: The class where we all suddenly become literary critics. I’ve already been told to annotate everything, which means I now carry around highlighters like emotional support animals. On the plus side, it’s the one class where being sarcastic in an essay is kind of encouraged, so I think I’ll survive.
• APUSH: This class is basically memorizing 300 years of history while pretending you didn’t forget what the Stamp Act was five minutes ago. There’s always that one kid who knows way too much about the Federalist Papers (bless them), but the rest of us are just desperately hoping we can tell the difference between Jacksonian Democracy and Jeffersonian Democracy without crying.
• AP Chem: I knew what I was signing up for, but also… I didn’t. I opened my notebook to the first set of notes and genuinely thought I had been handed another language. The lab coat energy is strong, though, so at least I’ll look cool while I’m panicking.
• Health Science Practicum: My saving grace. After all the AP chaos, I get to actually do hands-on medical things that make me feel like maybe—just maybe—there’s a reason I’m putting myself through all of this. Also, nothing bonds a class like watching your classmates try to take a blood pressure cuff seriously.
• Tennis: We run. A lot. That’s it, that’s the description.

So yeah, week one has been… a ride. My brain already feels like it’s juggling flashcards, problem sets, and essays on top of actually trying to be a human being with friends. But here’s the thing: as exhausting as it is, I can kind of tell this year’s going to be a turning point. The classes are harder, but they also feel like the ones that actually matter. Like they’re building toward something real—college, medicine, the future.

Am I terrified? Absolutely. Am I also weirdly excited to see what happens when I survive this chaos? Also yes. Shoutout to my coffee, which is about to become the real MVP of junior year.