Summer projects, the most dreaded assignment of them all and perhaps the cruelest. How can one be expected to sit and read “My Antonia” while the sun shines brightly outside and knowing that everyone is doing something more interesting than you are? For some unlucky students, summer projects don’t stop at summer reading.

Most AP classes require a project or packet or research paper of some sort to be completed in the summer and will be counted for some type of grade in the first marking period.

I happen to be one of those students, but I am a bit better off than some of my friends. See, I’m taking two AP’s next year (APUSH2 and Lit) while others are taking three or four. On top of reading My Antonia and Animal Dreams, I have to write a 6-10 page (not including the intro paragraph) double space paper on the rise and fall of the Populists and complete a PreCalc packet that will be counted as a test grade.

If you’re like me, assignments like these are overwhelming to say the least, but since I’m leaving for Europe in two weeks, I don’t want to leave knowing that I have a pile of work to get done. A lot of my friends called me a psycho for doing this but on the first day of summer I started research on the Populists and as of today I have pretty much everything done. I checked out my summer reading book, My Antonia and Animal Dreams and I’ve already finished reading the first one. As I’m reading, I go to sparknotes and read the chapter summaries there to clear any confusing parts up. As for my PreCalc packet…I was told not to start it until July 15th so that’s fine by me. I have until July 20th to read my books so if technically I’d only have my PreCalc packet to after I come back from Europe in early August.

The point is, get the assignments over with, especially if you’re leaving for vacations because there is honestly nothing worse than knowing that there is still a research paper waiting to be completed while you’re sipping your (non-alcoholic) pina colada.