New Year’s Resolutions for You, Your Friends, and Everyone Else

It’s a new year, and there’s always room for improvement! But maybe the areas of improvement in your life aren’t within yourself. If any of the following resolutions benefit your friends, be sure to tell them (either for their own good or the student body’s)!

1. I will stop sleeping through my entire double period, then wonder why I’m failing tests.

Yes, we know that double periods are almost an hour and a half, that some rooms get very warm in the winter when the radiators are blasting, and that denial is the first stage of grief. An extremely relaxing and refreshing hour-and-a-half-long nap might be enticing; it’s a way to ignore the fact that you don’t understand anything on your upcoming test. Unfortunately, you just don’t have the same peace of mind that you once had as a carefree freshman, back when college apps were three years away, and motivation existed in all aspects of your life (note to freshmen: lock in now, things will get worse). Back then, you (hopefully) stayed awake in your biology class and enthusiastically learned about feedback loops! Well, maybe you can apply that knowledge to your life now: sleeping at school means a lot more studying at home, which leads to a lot more Celsius consumption, which leads to a messed-up sleep schedule, and then you’re right back where you started, plus a failed test. By then, you’ll have gone through the other stages of grief, too: uncontrollable anger toward your teacher for giving impossible questions (definitely not your fault), bargaining for extra credit to save your grade, depression once you realize that the academic comeback is not happening, and acceptance that maybe you weren’t cut out for this class from the start.

2. I will stop complaining about 99s.

“No! How am I ever going to be the first person ever in Stuyvesant history to achieve a 100 GPA now?! The only way I can guarantee admission to every single Ivy League university is to get both a 100 GPA and a 1700 on the SAT!” said no one ever. But seriously, if a 99 is bad, then the only way to go is down. What’s next? Lamenting the fact that your 100 wasn’t a 102 because you couldn’t solve the diabolical bonus problem that your math teacher gave? Or maybe, you’ll receive the rock bottom of terrible grades—a *shocked* 98?! If you somehow manage to only get 100s from here on out, though, we respect that. If you never have to complain about a test because you attain perfection, all we can do is hope to be like you one day. Instead, as normal people who are not perfect, we can only settle for being calm, cool, and collected when we get back our mid-80s.

3. I will stop sticking gum on the bottom of desks.

This seems to be a universally hated behavior that everyone deals with because no one does anything. However, it isn’t too late to change. Conveniently, each stick of gum comes with a little paper that it can be spit out into! Do you really want to touch gum, even if it’s your own? There’s nothing more disgusting than absent-mindedly touching the bottom of your desk to feel a strange sticky spot, then glancing under to find a green splotch that had once been in someone’s mouth. Before you think about doing this, imagine the billions of bacteria harbored in that little glob, and the slimy, dripping spit that you’re squishing onto furniture, of all things. If you’re the poor soul who’s touched it, unfortunately, your teacher’s probably in the middle of a lesson and will get annoyed if you ask to go to the bathroom to wash your hands. Even if you do happen to have a hand sanitizer dispenser nearby, it’s probably empty, just like every other one in the school. 

4. I will start doing my homework.

This might be the best example of untapped potential. There’s always that one guy who still manages to maintain above a 90 in a class despite having a big fat goose egg in the homework section on Jupiter. Whoever you are, we don’t know how this happens, but you must be doing really well on tests or have godlike participation skills. But just think of the heights you could reach if you simply… did your homework like you’ve been told, year after year, since elementary school. You would be legendary. Right now, you’re running a race with a ball and chain, prisoner to your own laziness. If you got rid of the weight, just think of how fast you would go… but maybe there's a reason behind your madness.

5. I will stop being late to second period even though I have first period free.

This might not happen all that often, but that just makes every instance where it does more embarrassing, for all parties involved. Teachers are bewildered by how you can get to school almost an hour after it started, when they have to be there bright and early no matter what. We won’t say that much, since you already probably have a good amount of motivation to regain the aura you’ve lost. You can’t bear seeing the dismayed looks on the scanner ladies’ faces when you show up late… yet again.

6. I will learn escalator etiquette.

Have you ever felt cheated out of your escalator spot by someone who skips past the crowd and slides around the column at the bottom, cutting right in front of you? Everybody has probably experienced this before. You have to maintain your nonchalance and not let that pesky freshman affect you, even if you’re anywhere from mildly annoyed to maddeningly enraged. When you finally make it on, you’ll see that someone has decided to incite extra rush hour traffic by clogging the open side. Nothing can get them to move, even your not-so-subtle attempt at intimidation by standing impatiently and glaring lasers into the back of their head. Meanwhile, you’re helpless to do anything but pray that you’ll make it to class before your teacher locks the door. Or, you’ll be rushing down the escalator after 10th, trying to make whatever train will get you home as fast as possible, when suddenly, your lane is blocked by the arms of two friends dapping each other up. In a matter of seconds, you have to calculate the deceleration required to prevent you from getting clotheslined and risking mortal injury by cartoonishly wiping out all the way down two floors. But fortunately, you now have the opportunity to teach everyone the difference between left and right so they don’t stand on the wrong side and annoy everyone anymore!

Good luck with getting your friends to complete these resolutions! We’ll be back next year to find out how they went.