It’s time to get up at 5 in the morning to get ready, and be at school by 6. The “fill-in-the-blank”: band rehearsal, ROTC practice, Cheer, Farmerettes, starts at 6:30 a.m., before the sun has even peeked through the horizon. Practice is done by 7:45, and school hasn’t even begun yet. The day is just getting started.

Many students have some kind of elective, or an extracurricular activity, in their high school lives, even if it’s just an extra class chosen to fill the next nine weeks. But some kids have more stuff on their plates than others. Some have a lot more, such as senior Giorgio Ioannou.

“For the fall semester my classes are band first period and then I have AP biology, and then I’m in calculus AB, and debate 1…as far as other things I’m involved in, I’m communications officer for Interact,” Ioannou said. “I’m the head drum major for the band. I’m also a member of the math UIL team. I’m a member of StuCo and NHS.”

Those with daily schedules full of activities, teams and clubs often have to sacrifice their social life for school activities. 

“With all the stuff that’s going on, the only way I’m able to spend time with friends, you have to purposefully work it in,” Ioannou said. “There’s always still time to hang out with friends, especially on the weekends, and you just have to be able to manage your time.”

And on most days, that time cuts into the very last hours of the day.

“If it’s a really good night, I go to bed at 11,” Ioannou said. “There are some nights when you only get four or five hours of sleep. It’s just inevitable.”

But he’s not the only student like that. Katherine Ahn, a senior, also has some classes that keep her up late.

“For my entire high school life I have either taken Pre-AP or AP courses,” Ahn said. “My current classes are AP Bio, AP Calculus, and AP English 4. On average, I get about five hours of sleep on weekdays.”

With all the activities these students have to keep track of, sometimes it’s too much to keep up with in their head alone.

“I use the calendar on my phone to keep track of current events,” Ahn said. “During marching season, I have always been dependent on alarms to wake me up.”

And with all of these responsibilities, sometimes there’s just not enough time to do everything that one would like.

“I normally go to church every Sunday, but my schedule has been busy, so I have not managed to go weekly during the school year,” Ahn said. “I hang out with my friends about one to three times every month.”

Kira Bruner, a Farmerette, also has a lot on her plate.

“On football game days I wake up at five in the morning because we have early morning practice on the field with the band,” Bruner said. “I leave at 6:30 when we have practice after school, and then of course I get home at like 10 or 11 at night when we have a football game.”

Bruner also said why it all mattered in the first place.

“The girls on my team are what motivate me to keep going, sometimes the practices are really awful and you’ll just have a terrible week, but as soon as I get to see all the girls I feel better” Bruner said. “We are a lot like sisters and very supportive of each other. They remind me why I stay motivated even when it’s hard. All the hard work makes the end product so great.”

Ahn said that it was important for her to give her best effort in everything she does, but noted that a commitment like that requires a lot of extra time. However she said the sacrifice was worth it.

“Sometimes I feel like my busy schedule and the amount of responsibilities I have help to make me a better person for my future life and makes me more mature,” Ahn said.