Have you ever had something sneak up from behind you and corner you, preventing you from any escape? You can run. You can hide. But it is not use. It will find you, time and time again, and strike you when you least expect it.

So you learn to embrace it. After all, everyone else around you has been consumed as well. Once the clock strikes twelve and the new year begins, this is when the real symptoms set in. From here on out, the effects only worsen.

The disease continues to spread throughout the student body, pervading even the darkest corners and least visited halls. The students who were once thought to be immune, the strongest, have now fallen prey to the vicious beast.

And at the same time, life becomes a miserable waiting game. Application after the application is sent out. Month after month passes. No response. How about now? No, still no response.

Every student soon finds themselves a victim of the question(s), "What are your plans for next year? College? Which one? What about your major?"

To which, one can only respond with a polite smile so many times. But on the inside, we hold back a groan. It is January. When is National Decision Day again? Oh, that's right. It's in May. Is it May? No, I didn't think so. Check back in at a later time — a much later time.

The disease threatens to infiltrate every aspect of your academic life, dragging you into the depths of despair and draining you clean of motivation.

Yet, it strangely liberates you from the shackles of obligation. It empowers you to take that leap of faith that you perhaps wouldn't have taken as a fearful freshman.

"It" is the manifestation of the senior year second-semester slump —otherwise known as the deadly "senioritis."

We are more than a week into second semester now. As seniors, we can feel a change in the air. Some force of nature has provoked us, urging us to live it up. The stress that school has caused for the past twelve years is mysteriously gone, and we have no desire to go in search for it.

If these words sound like you, then continue to enjoy your last days of high school because who knows how many days we have left together until we throw our caps into the air?

(That's 123 days, in case you were wondering).