As I sat in my eighth-hour class, I yawned, aching for the day to end. And in that split second, I realized how long Uni’s school day is.

It’s bad enough getting through the end of a day. Many days I’m exhausted and all I want to do is curl up and close my eyes. I can’t enjoy my day because I am having too much trouble getting through it. Whether I’m fretting about a test or freaking out about how I’m going to finish a paper, I always feel the day dragging on. It’s as if there’s a clock in my head that keeps ticking, reminding me my mental exhaustion is about to set off its alarm.

I’ve always been told that your mind works best in the morning. That’s why it’s suggested math and science classes take place in the morning, right? So is sitting in my eighth-hour chemistry class and feeling antsy to just sprint or crawl from the classroom normal? I feel myself tuning out. I want to listen, I want to engage in the class, but no matter how many times I pull myself out of this trance I fall into, I can’t seem to stop myself from being pulled right back into it.

My friends from other schools talk about how awful getting out of school at 2:20, or 3 p.m. is. I just look at them and think they don’t even know the half of it. While they have one-quarter of the homework I do, they also have seven-eighths of the school day I have.

In comparison to students from other schools, Uni students are in class longer and get more work to carry over into their free time. With this schedule, what time does my mind have to relax? Sitting in a classroom all day and sitting at a desk doing homework all night is seriously taxing my mental sanity.

While I feel I am naturally better at doing schoolwork in the mid-afternoon, when I’m at school it’s difficult to carry on that same pattern. It’s not just that I don’t get enough sleep and have numerous extracurricular activities, but just being in school from 7:55 to 3:50 is taxing.

I always used to remember everything from my classes before coming to Uni. I had trouble imagining how someone couldn’t pay attention. Listening seemed so natural. Ha! Gone are those six-hour school days and breaks from a classroom setting.

My days recently have been filled with school and then more schoolwork after the last bell has rung. With the four hours I spend on homework most nights, this totals to 12 hours of schoolwork overall. That’s half of my day! Add in sports practice, and it’s impossible for me to slip in any relaxation, not to mention an adequate amount of sleep.

What is the reason I have such a strong desire to escape from my last few classes of the day a great deal more than those in the morning? A simple answer is that they’re the last few classes in my exhaustingly long school day. No matter how hard I try, I believe I will always have the hardest time sitting though those last couple of periods, and that the sigh of climactic relief I let out as the last bell rings will continue to end my eight-hour school day.