Junior year, or in my books “Satan’s year,” came prelabeled as the most difficult year of high school. And as it turns out, everyone has been right. Freshman and sophomore year were like two glorious pieces of double chocolate fudge cake, but sadly, junior year feels as if we have been handed a pile of dirt passed as “gourmet.”

Look at it this way: Each year of high school represents a lap around the track. Special to junior year is required added weight. It resembles a heavy 200-pound stone each student has to lug around the track in an effort to make it to the finish line.

Obviously some are stronger than others, and everyone can tell who is mindlessly kicking their rocks forgetting they are doing more damage than good. Then there are those who try their hardest to push those oh so heavy rocks but struggle helplessly behind massive boulders. Next there are those of us who can pick up the rocks but then end up falling flat on our faces multiple times. No matter the situation, sweat falls down the foreheads of most, and grunts and moans become the choice communication.

Despite these struggles, in front of the pack are those everyone hates. They’re the “bodybuilders” who are smart and prepared for this moment. Instead of actually training their bodies, they are training their minds. The boulders look like pebbles in their hands and they are ahead of the pack, running instead of trotting.

Three key factors make up junior year: stress, tears and expectations. But mostly tears.

At the beginning of this nightmare, every student is like a cute baby with rosy cheeks eager to take on the world. But after countless nights stressing over U.S. history homework that forces a suffering student to start considering 1 a.m. early, those kids are no longer cute. Many students of the junior class suffer from crippling depression brought on by the stress of not being good enough. It eventually affects us all in some way, like a disease spreading from one kid to the next.

If this morbid scene isn’t enough, many students find themselves suffocated by the “college conversation.” Juniors are constantly bombarded with questions regarding how they are going to get to college, what they are planning to study or what their dreams are. This seems to be the question of the century for most teenagers. Get it wrong and and get stuck under a lifetime surplus of crippling debt, which is most likely what’s going to happen. Or get it right to find out the work completed was entirely too much.

The life of the average high school junior is one big ironic joke. Many times students find themselves preparing for tests and spending countless hours drilling information into their heads to only find out while they are reading the first question that they were studying an entirely different topic than they were supposed to. Anyone can observe this phenomenon in any class taking a test, just look for the kid with the pencil not moving and tears rhythmically falling down his or her cheeks.

These tears are brought on by a realization that each junior must become a certified teacher. Being totally lost becomes a common problem throughout junior year, so in order to curb this problem students must learn the material and teach it to themselves. It is just as impossible as it seems.

Among the many hours each student dedicates to becoming their own tutors, they must find time to actually enjoy high school. The ones who do end up enjoying it have inevitably given up some time consuming factor. Between balancing AP classes, extracurricular activities, studying for the SAT and ACT and sometimes throwing a job in the mix, there is barely anytime to think. Friends start to dwindle, but you begin to find your place among the weirdos you belong with.

After all of this subsides and you have a little time to yourself realization sets in and you start to remember this is the last “fluff” year. The upcoming year means choosing the next chapter in your life, leaving the people closest to you behind and possibly never seeing them again…and then becoming totally independent.

Junioritis is a different creature, on top of the normal senioritis symptoms there’s an added fear factor. But eventually juniors won’t be shaking much longer and instead running onto the next segment of this marathon called life.