As the tension begins to mount, the competition for the better grade rises, there comes the constant checking of grades, from within school between periods and at home. Students seem to check grades as if their life depends on it. It’s an addiction, a drug that is approved and supported by parents, teachers, administration and the school system itself.

A good student is one that listens in class, studies at home and performs well on tests. Checking grades constantly at untimely hours of the day is by no means what is required or what is healthy for the average student. Students will even go so far as to check grades in class, followed by the frequent pleading and begging of the student to the teacher to raise their grade.

Quite frankly, a student should be satisfied in doing the best he or she can or at least the equivalent of the amount of work they put into it. Checking grades occasionally is acceptable if one wants to make sure the teacher inputted information correctly or for one’s motivation to do better, but when it becomes a source of addiction things have gone overboard.

Our school system, as well as the sculture we live in has become warped over the years. Generations ago, the mad rush for a perfect report card, or fury over the perfect grade point average did not exist to the level it does today. We live in a time where school is not solely for learning but rather to grant students a bigger step towards college, and later a successful career.

What students need to understand is that school is a place to learn, not to receive perfect grades. The human mind works on a trial and error basis, making mistakes is a part of learning. However, when it comes to school, the margin for making mistakes is slim to none. Students fret over the possibility of not getting the A they supposedly need. They worry over the possibility that their quiz grade won’t be put in AERIES immediately or that their project won’t get the perfect score they think they deserve.

Somehow, these students have the audacity to believe that these few points, shepherded closely by hovering parents or the students themselves, will grant them access to some sort of elite educational status that ensures a very bright future.

That bright future, at least bright by some people’s standards, is rooted in superficiality. While society portrays those obsessed with appearance superficial, the dogged pursuit of a perfect report card at all costs is also superficial.

The part that is humorous is that according to the Higher Education Research Institute at University of California, Los Angeles, out of 220,000 college freshmen who attend 1,555 four-year colleges and universities, 79 percent of them were accepted to their number one college. It would seem that higher education doesn’t especially have a addiction to grade greedy “perfect” students. What those students need to understand is that worrying and constant grade checking isn’t going to help anything. Instead of spending time fretting over grades, students who attend our school have the chance to include themselves in other more time-worthy extracurricular activities that will benefit in the long run.

Therefore, the pathetic steady guard of one’s grades not only harms the student who partakes, but also sheds a negative light on the American educational system that has somehow instilled into the minds of its students that perfection at all costs is a value to be sought. Perfection is unattainable, what is considered good and what is considered bad only depends on the one who is judging it. While one student may have perfect grades, another “less perfect” student may be actually helping the school’s environment by participating in sports programs, clubs and other extracurricular activities.

From this one can note that the feverish pursuit of perfection in academics is misfounded, although taught by the school system. Students are taught to get that perfect report card, as the letter A, the first letter in our alphabet, the sign of perfection, is given to students who excel above the regular level. However, excelling above the “regular” level isn’t what should be sought after for students. Students need to learn; that’s why they’re in school. They do not need perfect grades, a margin of error should be allowed, even accepted without consequence.

However, learning has fallen to second place in school. In its place is a drive for perfection no matter what the cost.

Since my applications were submitted in the beginning of January I’ve acquired a new obsession with checking my email and mail. I feel my phone vibrate with an email and I have to read it immediately because it could possibly be from one of the twelve schools I applied to. If a college title appears in the list my breath lightly catches in my throat.

Part of the anticipation I feel about acceptance letters lies in my fear that my applications are incomplete. Since applications are submitted partly online and partly from the school I fear that all my papers won’t appear in the college file marked with my last name. My fear of this has only been increased by the fact that I had the pleasure of receiving four incomplete application notifications already. Naviance hadn’t sent any of my transcripts or recommendations because it wasn’t linked to my common application username correctly. I remember opening the letter marked with the bold letters of academic superiority with pounding heart and the sinking of my stomach when the letter revealed my application incomplete. Though I was able to remedy the situation, it gave me a small glance into the fear of breaking the seal of a college correspondence letter.

At this point I have heard back from three of my backup schools but I’m still anxiously waiting to hear from my first choice The University of Southern California and my other top schools. I can’t even imagination the excitement I’ll feel if one day the pile contains an envelope with the words “Welcome to the Trojan Family!”, I may faint. So much work goes in to the application process and then it’s over and done with and all one can do is wait and imagine the best and worst possibilities.

I feel the wait for acceptance is in some ways worse than the actual application process because as seniors we have no control over the situation after submission. The next four years of our lives lay in the hands of foreign admissions advisers. All of the thought we put into constructing ideal students in our applications and research on the size and major we want in a college could be wiped out by one thin envelope full of condolences.

According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, more than 4,200 teens aged 15-19 were killed in 2007 due to driving related accidents. That means eleven teens died every day from something that could have easily been prevented.

Emergency rooms treated almost 400,000 people between the ages of 15 and 24 due to accidents that year. Although people of these ages only made up 14% of the U.S. population, they accounted for about 30% of medical costs for car accidents. That’s about $26 billion. $26,000,000,000.

I don’t know about you, but I think this is a bit ridiculous. These numbers are way too high. As fun as it may seem to go 120mph down El Camino Real, we have to resist that urge. This generation needs to start taking driving a bit more seriously.

Yet even with the large amount of campus spirit, a large group of students play independent, out of school sports.

“When I played football during freshman year, I liked it but we had so many people that I barely played” said Cory Ziegler, a former football player, junior.

From most points of view, athletes say that it wasn’t a matter of difficulty or dislike; mostly departures came from there being so many people on the teams. Sports such as Football and Wrestling have lengthy rosters. The current roster for freshman football is 89 members, Jr. Varsity has a total of 92, and Varsity has 78.

“Yeah, the team I think is really good and all, but there are a lot of them, I guess that’s why they never look tired.” Said Royce Farnham, Fan, sophomore.

While our school’s success at sports is a much totted asset, many of the outside independent clubs or teams are also well known. Many well stocked with former maverick team members. One example, the club soccer group Storm has an excellent statewide reputation with one their best players Joseph Richardson, a former team member and student on our campus.

Being a student at a successful D1 school has a lot of benefits, we win CIF championships and have great coaches but there are many drawbacks. While our rosters are well stocked, many student athletes find themselves being pushed to play their passion outside of school.

The first morning was different, for the usual morning slowness was reinforced by a metaphorical cloud that seemed to drift through my brain. The cloud would cover the proverbial sun of my mental state, slowing my thoughts down while speeding time up. As the day progressed the cloud thickened to a dark, ominous grey. It then began to rain, and the darkness condensed into a thick flood that wormed its way into my sinuses. I battled the flood with a countless amount of tissues, but to no avail. Luckily, I found a small amount of relief in the form of a cold pill. Little did I know, the sickness still lurked in a dark, shadowy corner of my body, licking its wounds and planning its next attack.

As I sat in a close friend’s garage and stopped yet another alien race from destroying the world, the beast that lurked within the recesses of my body reared its ugly head and struck. In a matter of minutes, a storm materialized and descending to shroud my very being. I dissolved into a state of constant sneezing, and a torrential downpour emanated from within my nose. I could no longer function, and the storm was no longer tolerable. I took cold pills for no reason; It had become resistant to the few drugs that could help me. The storm crackled with thunder, mocking my futile efforts to send it on its way.

I returned home from a friends house, told my parents I needed to go to the doctor and found my bed. For 26 hours I stayed in that bed. The cloud had had completely enveloped my brain, driving up my temperature to 103 degrees and limited my mental capacity.

I couldn’t move. For all I tried I couldn’t muster the will to get up and move around the space I had. I could see the fan blow hair out of my face, but felt no wind on my forehead. Something was wrong. I blinked, and the world changed.

Colors dissolved into red and blue and objects blurred. Was I dreaming? No, I thought, I must be wearing 3D glasses. I reached up expecting to pull them off and found nothing. There was no way to explain the hallucinations I was experiencing, and I was scared. I was not in control and there was nothing I could do about it. I blinked.

Now it was night, and now I was soaked in sweat. I assumed I must have been hot, so I removed the cover. I was instantly too cold, and when I put them back on I was too hot. There was no relief. At least it was dark.

I awoke to a series of tremors that shook my bed. In seconds that it wasn’t the bed, it was me. Still shaking, I curled up underneath the covers thinking I must be cold, and realized I was covered in sweat; I couldn’t stop. I don’t remember falling asleep. The storm had gained complete control, playing hell with my body and mind making me suffer as it saw fit. I was only a puppet.

The trip to the doctor confirmed that I had swine flu, and my mom and I were given the antibiotics needed to fight it. We returned home, and I retired to the couch I ended up occupying for most of the next 5 days.

It was not until Wednesday that the antibiotic I was given finally started to take effect, and I felt the clouds slowly lifting off of my mental state. The fever had finally burned itself out, leaving me with an overall feeling of congestion. I had regained the ability to function, and the hours spent laying on the couch grew more and more monotonous.

It was not until that Friday that I felt perfectly normal, save an overwhelming sense of boredom. The quaratine was to be lifted on Saturday, and Friday dragged on to no end. It marked end of a long, painful stuggle between my body and nature, but a person can only stay in one place for so long, and I had grown very tired of my confines. My release came none too soon.

No matter how much a young driver may try to debate it, he or she usually tends to be irresponsible and inexperienced on the road. So far this year, many accidents have occurred around the campus area.

If one was leisurely commuting from their house to work one morning, and happened to cross paths with Camino de Los Coches,(Notice how the word “coche” is the spanish equivalent of cars; possibly a relationship to the excessive amount of cars that barrel through the street?) they would see drivers “flooring it” in an attempt to get through the green light and through the congested traffic. They would see vehicles jutting in and cutting off the drivers behind them. They would hear the music of different sounding horns reverberating throughout the canyon, or they could possibly witness an accident.

Unfortunately, it is not hard for me to defend the common title given to teens when it comes to drivers. I would not consider myself experienced on the road. In the past week I have come close to getting in accidents twice, and here is when the commonly-used cliche comes in: “the third time is the charm”.

About a week ago, I was driving home from my friend’s house who lives deep in Rancho Santa Fe. In ease, I was coasting through the windy curves at the speed limit or lower. Around the sharp curves, there are usually special speed limits so that there is minimal chance of veering off the road. Since I am a novice to the windy roads of Rancho Santa Fe, I drove as safely as possible. Suddenly, a silver beamer comes barreling around the same curve I was executing, and cuts into my lane. In angst, I slam on the brakes and swerve into the dirt. The driver of the beamer didn’t even stop.

Another incident happened just a few days later, as I was driving to school going east on Rancho Santa Fe Road. Instead of turning right on Camino de Los Coches, it is also possible to turn right into the Henry’s parking lot to get ahead of the mainstream traffic. I decided to take the shortcut, when immediately I heard a screech of tires from behind me. Two cars–a Honda Civic and Toyota Camry were racing each other and jockeying through the traffic.They both turned into the Henry’s parking lot, and both cars went on either side of me. I am guessing that there was only a few inches of space in between me and the two cars. There was a huge chance that one of them could have hit me–if not both.

Again, only a few days later, I was driving on Rancho Santa Fe Road, heading towards the intersection of Rancho Santa Fe Road and Calle Barcelona. I was about 50 yards away from the light when it flickered yellow. Going at about a 50 mph pase, I had to brake, more abruptly than usually. Just as the light turned red, and I was no longer in motion, my head felt as if it whipped off my neck, and my car jutted forward; the brakes clicking from underneath my feet.

Looking into my rear view mirror, I see the hands of a shocked student clasp her face. We both pulled over to the side of the road, and it turns out that I had a small dent on the right side of my bumper.

After exchanging insurance information, I realized that her rear-ending me, wasn’t entirely her fault. I could have braked more smoothly to give her a warning. However, the driver should have been paying more attention to my actions.
After this experience, I have intentions of driving more safely. There have been so many accidents in the San Diego area in the past month. Although I received a rude awakening on October 5, I’m very fortunate that I wasn’t injured or the other student who rear ended me wasn’t injured. I’m even more lucky that my wake up call wasn’t a fatal one, like one that occurred recently involving the Torrey Pines students.

Even though most of the students driving to school every morning are still speeding, swerving, and cutting people off, I have learned to drive in a more relaxed manner. What’s the difference between getting to school three minutes later than I used to? Those accumulating minutes are more valuable than totaling my car or getting myself into a fatal accident.