By Jason Dagenhart
Round Table reporter

So why are high school students always groggy, drowsy, and so bad-tempered all the time? We’re tired; we’re sluggish, we’re hormonal, we’re angst-y, we’re teenagers. That’s what teenagers do. The national hobby for every American teenager-heck, for every teenager- is being tired.

Ever just wake up one morning and not want to get out of bed, go to work, or go to school? That’s how most teenagers feel every single morning. They don’t want to exert any physical energy to get their rears in gear and go to school for five days a week.

I empathize with them. I’m one of those tired, slightly lazy teenagers that sometimes feel that waking up at the crack of dawn to go to a school that starts at 7:30 is kind of ridiculous.

I walk through the halls and I am constantly hearing about how someone is tired or exhausted from how early they have to wake up and how late they go to bed. I think it’s outrageous how early some teens have to wake up to arrive at school at a decent time.

Personally, I have to wake up at 4:50 every morning, but that isn’t out of necessity, it’s a personal preference. I wake up that early to get some of the morning to myself, when it’s quiet and when I actually have time to be awake, relax, and think about whatever’s on my mind.

But, that doesn’t change any of my opinions about how early schools open. I use the early hours of the morning to my advantage because that’s what I have. It doesn’t change how tired I am of hearing the alarm blare at first light or how tired I am in general because the crazy hours I keep.

I’ve had people tell me that I need to go to bed earlier if I want more sleep. Although, it wouldn’t matter what time I went to bed because it always comes down to what time I wake up that deems how tired I am during the day.

All in all, we all should expect to be tired because as teenagers we have responsibilities and we need to have proper time-management skills (which we don’t have). So having issues with fighting to stay awake is inevitable.

Sleep deprived? Yup, so am I.