I sit down in my 2-3 class, coffee thermos in hand. After a long night of homework and studying, along with a club meeting and a choir rehearsal, I’m exhausted. I hear someone speaking next to me, but I don’t bother to look up as it would be too great a strain on my tired eyes.

“Ugh, I had so much work last night. I didn’t get to bed until midnight.”

The surrounding students groan understandingly.

“Well I had to be at school until eight for swimming. And then wake up early for more swimming,” someone else replies.

The group lets out another collective noise of sympathy.

“Oh yeah?” I counter, lifting my head from my desk/pillow. “I was up until one studying for the two tests I have today. Then I woke up at five to squeeze in some more.”

My peers look at me with pity and return to their screens with nothing else to say. But these pitiful looks almost seem envious, and I know I’ve taken the prize this time. In that 2-3 class, I won the trophy for the most sleep-deprived and stressed. But why does that feel like winning? It seems as though being overworked is trendy among Glenbrook North students.

Obviously, yes, we’re in high school. It’s not supposed to be a breeze. We should be challenged and pushed to do our best in class. But since when did it become cool to be pushed past the point of sanity? To be pushed to where students will proudly tweet about anxiety or put a picture on their Snapchat stories of whatever ungodly time it is with a textbook and notes?

It seems that to be highly regarded as a student you need to be in 13 clubs, play 19 musicals instruments, be on 23 different sports teams and be enrolled in 72 AP classes. Anyone who does less is seen as, well, less.

But what about the students who are working extremely hard at their own levels and are doing just fine? According to the philosophy of GBN high schoolers, these students aren’t seen as book smart or as intelligent just because they happen to be getting a healthy amount of sleep and can spend more than 15 minutes having family dinner before worrying about their next obligation.

The important thing to remember is that everyone works at a different pace, and that does not make him or her any less of a student.