The Nightmare Week

*stares at the cover image*

Ahhhahahahahaa, suuuuuure. School students may be children but they don't have that luxury.

It was a Friday (I suppose) after a frantic week (or two? It's all a blur) in the 11th grade, when I wrote the poem posted below. Eleventh grade was a year of overload in general, but I think it's the week when I had to give a speech in English (by heart), prepare for a few tests, give two presentations, one of which was in biology, the other, Russian (which I failed to learn by heart and had to present next day), then go through the heap of handouts our English teacher had given us for the weekly home-reading class, plus I had to organize a vocabulary-learning activity for that class. Maybe it doesn't sound that much, but it really was A LOT. And I'm no crybaby, nor am I a sloth, so if I say it's a lot, then it really is a lot.

School is amazing (yes, mine really was), and if you don't see it as such, you should change your mindset. Education is necessary - and beautiful. The problem is that it takes over your everything. You may be a child but your whole life for twelve years is defined by the identity of being a pupil. That means school is your priority even over basic survival needs like sleep and movement, let's not even discuss the toll it may take on your mental health, depriving you of time for leisure activities and relationships.

Now that I think of it, isn't it so weird? Reminds me of some kind of graduate or die fantasy/dystopian novels. Oh wait, no shit, Sherlock. They're literally about school.

Mind you, I'm not complaining about having to learn things. I even took up my own self-study projects. I'm complaining about the (at times quite unnecessary) workload.

Now I'm a first-year med student, and I've had my frantic little weeks, but it's really chill compared to this:

Nightmarish days

And sleepless nights,

Hysterical evenings

And anxious morns.

Up late at night,

Awake still at four,

Thinking with fright

Of what's left of my might.

I savour each second

Of my two hours of sleep,

The mere thought of getting up

Makes me want to weep.

Schools couldn't care less

About our physical health,

They don't give a shit

About the sanity of our minds.

Heart disease, cancer,

Diabetes, depression,

There's no end to the list of maladies

Caused by sleep deprivation.

Endless hours wasted

Doing needless homework.

The night’s now just a nap-time,

The only rest from schoolwork.

You know, I used to wonder years ago -

How dare students sleep in class?

Now my mind is heavy and slow

My awakeness - fragile as glass.

It's with God’s help that I didn’t turn insane,

Helpless, hopeless and weak.

Let's say, I really hope to never see again

Another such a nightmarish week.

***

I hope teachers and the school system realizes that students need a life outside school, too. And, if we can't ask for that, then at least allow us some 8 hours of sleep, please? That's not even enough for a teenager.