The girls basketball season ended a week ago, and since soccer doesn't start for another week, I've been able to go home at 4 o'clock for the first time since swim season ended about four months ago.

Even then, I had to go to bed early since I had to wake up around 4:55 to get to a 5:30 a.m. practice. Furthermore, I decided to do club soccer during the fall, which meant three evening practices a week.

With my soccer games on Sundays (tournaments took up the whole weekend) and swim meets on Saturdays, my weekends were all booked up. All of this combined with weekly piano lessons made Friday my only free day of the week.

Unfortunately, swimming and soccer ended on the exact same weekend, and then I had to start basketball the next Monday. All of these activities have led to a stressful year, and I have been greatly anticipating this three-week period of no sports for a long time. I thought that I might be able to get my homework done and practice piano and afterwards have free time for once.

I am half way through my second week of "freedom," and I've started to realize that having no sports is not as great as I thought it would be. For one thing, I decided to read all seven Harry Potter books again. That, as most of you know, is a time-consuming activity in itself. Aside from the length, it's so hard to put the book down that you end up reading for long periods of time.

Then there's the fact that the earliest my mom can pick me up from school is 5 ( I haven't figured out how to take the bus home yet). So when I get home, I immediately pick up Harry Potter, and, figuring that I have LOTS of time, I read that for about two hours. Therefore, I don't start my homework until about 7 o'clock, which was just a little earlier than when I started my homework during basketball season.

I've also realized that I've started going to bed later because my procrastination forces me to stay up later to finish homework, so I'm sometimes a bit more tired than I was during basketball season.

Then there's the fact that I no longer have a free period during PE with which to do homework anymore. I've taken this privilege for granted over the past few months, and I never thought I'd miss it as much as I do. I didn't realize how much homework I got done in that hour.

Additionally, I can't leave off homework that I don't understand. Previously I would just ask other people petitioned out in PE the next morning, but now I have to figure out everything on my own the night before (or at least try hard to).

Maybe I just need more time to adjust to all this freedom, or maybe I just procrastinate too much, but these three weeks have made me appreciate all of the sports that I play. Getting home later made me start my homework earlier in an effort to get most of it done before it got late. I would also do my homework before I relaxed, but now it's the other way around.

I am also convinced that if I quit a sport (which I have considered many times this year), the free time I would have would most likely not be put toward anything worthwhile and would probably just be spent reading and goofing off and becoming a couch potato.

Even so, despite the fact that soccer season is my favorite sports season of the year and I am incredibly sore from running two miles in fitness class for the first time in about a year, I will still miss the free time that came along with these three weeks.