I will do it later.

My entire sophomore year has been lived by this phrase. From simple homework assignments to massive projects, I have made it my life’s mission to do everything at the last possible minute. Sophomore year was the year I became a procrastinator.

I was not always this way. There was a time when I would come home after sports practice, sit myself down at the dining room table, and finish all my homework; no matter how long it took. Sure, I would be tired afterwards but I got all my work done. All I had to do from there was turn it in.

School was a breeze for me back when I did homework. I always knew what was happening in class, I could answer all of my teachers’ questions, and I barely had to study for tests. My grades stayed high and rarely fluctuated. My academic life was solid.

But all of that changed sophomore year. School got harder, like I knew it would, but I was confident that I would be able to keep up. At first, I stayed on top of all my assignments, finishing all of my work before going to bed. But then the work got more challenging. Homework began to require more brain work and more time to complete. Slowly, I started to push off the easier homework to the next morning, when I had more energy to put into the 15 minute assignments. I continued to push more and more things off, until finally, I ended up doing half of my homework at night and waking up at 5 in the morning to do other half. It was a stupid system, but at least I got all of my work done.

Everything changed when I was cursed with the one thing that would ruin the rest of my academic life: an iPhone. With Facebook, Snapchat, Netflix, and hundreds of other distracting apps in the palm of my hand, my nights were filled with social networking and Keeping up with the Kardashians marathons. There was no longer any time for homework.

I started waking up at 3 in the morning, after a Kardashian-filled night, just to finish all of my assignment. At school, I was a zombie, fighting to stay awake in class. Then I had an epiphany: Why did I not just do my homework during school? Then, I could watch as much of the Kardashians as I pleased and still sleep for more than 4 hours! In my mind, I was a genius; my time at at school would be spent worrying about school while my time at home would be spent relaxing. It was the perfect plan.

Except that it was not. School became 1000 times more stressful than it had already been. I had never taken into account that because I had to hide the fact that I was doing homework in class, I never got to actually complete any homework. It left me scrambling to complete 60 minutes worth of homework in the 10 minutes I had during passing period. In addition, because I spent all of my class time attempting to do assignments for another class, I stopped paying attention to anything my teachers were saying. When I had questions, I was forced to rely on Yahoo! Answers to learn the material. I stopped learning, I stopped working, and my grades dropped.

Looking back on my sophomore year, I made a lot of mistakes that I wish I could have taken back. Sophomore year was hard but it presented me with a chance to become a better students and a better person. Unfortunately, I failed to step up to the challenges that I faced and missed an amazing opportunity to grow. From here, all I can hope for is a great end to a not so great school year. I have learned from my mistakes and I am excited to move on from them. I am looking forward to the challenges of junior year and cannot wait to continue on with all of my friends and fellow classmates. Go 2015! And may we forever stay classic.