Blog Posts on Blog Posts on Blog Posts

I love these blog posts. Reading them gives me so much insight into the minds of my peers (not in a creepy way, I promise) and they all feel relatable in some way. Despite this, however, I don’t necessarily enjoy writing my own—after all, I have a tendency to resent any and all homework that comes my way, regardless of subject or specific type. That is why, instead of writing about something of my own creation, I’d like to write about a pattern I’ve noticed as our time with the AP Language blog has progressed.

Stress. Anxiety. Pressure, expectations, doubts and fears. These are some of the most prominent feelings in my brain at the moment, and, as I already knew, the brains of so many others my age. They are also some of the most prominent topics of this blog. Though we might handle the subject differently, both healthily and unhealthily, we are all still high school students facing a mountain of expectations and commitments, trapped on one side by our own critical attitude towards ourselves and in the other by the looming threat of GPAs and prospective colleges.

When given absolute freedom in choosing our writing subjects, many of us focused, voluntarily, on the anxiety we’re facing. This is by no means a coincidence. The common themes throughout these blog posts and the similar catalysts that propel them into the light lend themselves to the idea that maybe, just maybe, high school has become an overpowering and debilitating force in a teenager’s life, physically and mentally. Furthermore, these writings suggest that school can become not a force in everyday life, but the force, the sole concept dominating the majority of our waking moments.

To an extent, this can be expected. High school constitutes a handful of a person’s most formative and educational years, inside and outside of the classroom. Because of that, mistakes will be made. Lessons will be learned. Limits will be pushed, and personal discoveries will be made. Beyond this, however, the ceaseless and omnipresent anxiety shouldn’t be tolerated. Levels of stress and depression in teens are at record highs. This could be attributed to many things, like the spread of social media and the internet. It could also be argued that the internet is simply the go-between that allowed our generation to voice our struggles and connect, making the stress ‘epidemic’ known. Maybe the American school system is to blame. Who can know for sure, when we’re all busy doing three homework assignments at once? Not me, that’s for sure. But it is still a fascinating, albeit disheartening, subject. Maybe I’ll discuss more anxiety and causes in a future blog post. I can guarantee stress will be on my mind.