When challenged to attempt to break our poor habits for a week, I decided to stop skipping class and to be on time. I selected this not only because I needed to write a story, but also because I needed to break this bad habit for good because I don’t want to end up in summer school and I definitely didn’t want to bring this bad habit to college.
This unhealthy habit began at the end of the sophomore year’s winter break. I’m not sure why I started this behavior, but I believed I’d be alright if I skipped a few classes; I was a straight A student and was on top of all my classes, I figured skipping wouldn’t hurt my GPA. I used to skip class every two weeks, but then it became three classes a week, and then it became either skipping the entire school day three to four times a week or missing all of my classes except my sixth period. I only went to my sixth period because it was my favorite class, all of my friends were there, and I could relax and do whatever I wanted.
This bad habit worsened overtime. I would skip class everyday that It did ended up hurting my grades. My teachers became concerned because I was doing so good in my classes during the fall semester but it went downhill as spring semester started. They would have weekly meetings with me to try and talk to me but I would just shrug it off as I no longer cared about my grades and attendance, I kept telling myself that sophomore year didn’t matter and I would make it up during junior year. The more I kept telling myself that the more I tended to skip class. I had a total of 106 absences and 43 tardies all together by the end of the school year. I surprisingly passed that school year with a 3.0 gpa.
Due to me skipping my classes everyday during sophomore year I brought this habit into junior year. It was even worse than last year, not even a week since school started and I started skipping until now. I realized this habit had gotten out of hand and it needed to end. It was my junior year, which is apparently the most important year of highschool, so when Mr. Lee offered the challenge I knew exactly what to do.
The day before the challenge, I was determined to get up at 6:30 in the morning. I was already ready for bed at 9:30pm. I set my phone down and laid in my bed, closed my eyes, waiting to fall asleep. A couple minutes passed by and I took a peek at my phone to look at the time and it was only 9:36. Desperation to fall asleep was all over my face. I gave up after trying once more and merely looked through my phone till three in the morning. I ultimately passed out, missed my alarm, and woke up at eight in the morning. I normally need an hour to get ready for school, so by the time I was ready plus the time to get school (usually 45 mins), I had already missed my first class of the day. I went to Pete’s Coffee to cheer myself up because I was already feeling discouraged, but doing so caused me to miss my second and third classes.
I didn’t give up yet, though. I turned to my massive brain on that night to come up with a plan to wake up early when it finally dawned on me. I intended to setup fifteen alarms every five minutes.I went to bed at 9:20 p.m. using the same schedule as the previous night, but after ten minutes, I picked up my phone and spent an additional five hours scrolling around tiktok and eventually fell asleep.
The first day of the challenge finally started, I would wake up around 6:30 but I felt horrible due to the lack of sleep but I pushed through and left the house around 7:45. I arrived at school around 8:35 and headed to my first class. 20 minutes into class, my lack of sleep got to me and I put my head down for a few minutes and class was over as soon as I woke up. It happened again during my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th period classes, where I would fall asleep during a presentation or during classwork time. I even made up an excuse during 3rd period that I had a bad stomach ache and went to wellness to take a nap. By 5th period, I hear my teacher giving us advice but I was so tired and couldn’t focus that all of his suggestions went in one ear and out the other. As soon as I sat down in 6th period, I just knocked out, I even heard myself snore for a bit. The school day ended and I felt so groggy. When I arrived home I ate dinner and got ready for bed. By the time I was done it was already 9. I was so exhausted I knocked out right away.
Day 2 of the challenge was similar to day 1. I speed walked to my first class and was late by 2 minutes. But I don’t count that as a failure because she didn’t mark me tardy. Later though,I had a sudden urge to skip fourth period because I didn’t want to deal with the textbook my history teacher was going to force us to read and take notes from, but I went anyway because I was already walking up the stairs and was near his classroom. For the rest of the periods we were doing something productive and weren’t sitting for the whole period which helped me stay awake.
From day 3 to day 5 I was getting the hang of getting up early, I would arrive at school 5 minutes before the bell. I felt accomplished as my first period teacher had noticed I’d been arriving to class on time. Instead of her low toned annoyed “good morning” whenever I walked into class 30 minutes late, I would instead get a more happy and gleeful “good morning”. This motivated me to keep on going throughout the day as it would not only make me happy but also my teachers.
However on Day 6 I failed my challenge. I was going strong the past few days but I had procrastinated on school work and stayed up until 3 in the morning doing it. I woke up at 8am and arrived at school at 9:28 am. I felt embarrassed to show up to class so late after going so early for the past week. Feeling defeated, I decided to just skip the class and get a hot chocolate at Cup Cafe. I didn’t want this failure to upset me for the rest of the day so I went back to school and continued with my day.
On day seven, not much happened. I went to bed at a reasonable hour, slept comfortably, and woke up at 6:34 a.m. I left the house at 7:30 and reached school at 8:32, able to complete my day without missing any classes or being late.
During this challenge, I learned that breaking habits can be difficult at first, but they become simpler as you set your mind to it. The task started hard, as I had to overcome the desire to skip class or intentionally arrive late. I may have failed the challenge, but I am really proud of the improvement I achieved during the days when I did not come late or skip school.
During that week of school, I was never behind on my work and was always on top of it. I was also not confused about the tasks we were going to do in class. This made me realize that the main reason I’m failing most of my classes is that I never went, and as a result, I never understood the content that was taught when I did. The challenge helped me open my eyes, and I’m now more encouraged to go to school and improve my education. It also made me understand that, even though I tend to give up easily when I fail at something, I can always let it go, ignore it, and get back up.
