Life as we sophomores know it is almost over. In a month, our second year of high school ends. Come September, it will be time to move on to the junior sphere of Stuyvesant life. So what does that mean? Certainly not a decrease in homework.

College counselors playfully tell parents of sophomores to relax, that they have a whole year before they should officially start to worry. Yet within Stuy’s walls, college seems to be on everyone’s mind.

Only a few months ago, the entire senior class was in the process of losing their minds. At the slightest mention of college, some of them began to twitch and nervously fiddle with their hair. Most juniors are just as college crazed, but I will certainly not turn into such a fiend.

I absolutely refuse to accept that this is what awaits me next year. I will not turn into the junior with a freshman backpack—I already have one. I will not buy innumerable SAT, SAT II and Advanced Placement (AP) course books—I already have about 15 of those. I rebuff anyone who dares tell me that my summer will be wasted sitting at home reading text after text.

I am totally getting a head start on junior year. I’m even in control of the Stuyvesant programming system. I have chosen all my classes carefully, so much so that I recently had a dream involving the programming office scolding me for signing up for an extra AP class—AP Physical Education. And after I receive my classes, there’s no way I am letting the Hades of homework swoop down on me next year. I’ve already started pasting my walls with post-its of SAT words and testing how long I can stay up on one cup of coffee. Starting my preparation for junior year now may be my smartest move so far this year.

In fact, after I finish writing this article, I am going to read my AP US History book. Or maybe I’ll do some light SAT practice. My teacher says it’s good to casually throw some SAT words into conversation—there’s nothing like beguiling patois. Actually, maybe I’ll get to that AP book after my homework. Come to think of it, I’ve got homework all this week. Then afterwards, there’s Regents week—and who can study for anything but finals then? Maybe I’ll just start in July. Oh, I nearly forgot—I’ve got a life!

I guess I will have to wait until September to start my “new” Stuyvesant life. But then I will have homework every night, and, as you can probably tell, we’ve come full circle. All of us juniors will be stuck in purgatory with plastic smiles plastered on our faces, urging the current sophomores not to take the same classes that we took and not to make the same mistakes. But they will, because that’s the natural cycle of things. We’re not really going to spend our precious free time on schoolwork—we’re too smart for that. As freshmen and sophomores, we’ve figured out the Stuy way of life already: slack off, do some work without getting our teachers too enthused (they might develop expectations), “study” over Facebook, slack off a little more, and finally remember that our final is next week. At that point, we cram.

Anyone who tells you that they’re going to study all summer is kidding themselves. They’ve probably got a pool in their backyard and a vacation to the Riviera Maya planned already. Perhaps I’m giving junior year a little too much thought. Then again, I might just be trying to psych you out…after all, it’s a student-eat-student world out there. And the 2009 editions aren’t looking any thinner.