As a student, my life has circulated around molding myself into an engaged participant in the classroom and a translator of its lessons to the world outside of the school walls. Not only that, a student must be able to observe, interpret and again translate lessons that exist outside of school into the lessons inside of our textbooks. It's a task that is simultaneously the most stressful and the most fulfilling because, without exposure to new things, we lose sight of the future. Therefore, returning to my desk Monday morning seems more redundant than invigorating.

I am a firm believer that education is the most beneficial aspect of life as it is the fuel behind our thoughts and perspectives of the world we are in. The lessons we are learning are the tools that we use to mold our future and tackle the situations that face us. That is why education is held sacred in my life, but after spending most of my life in a classroom my desk feels more like an entrapment than a well for knowledge.

The prospect of planting myself in a desk for a discussion session makes my mind recoil. I don't really know why; an hour in a desk isn't nearly the worse thing that I could be doing. Yet, reluctance is the only way that I can describe my feelings about returning to classes after this weekend. Motivation to participate in discussions about the structure of the English language or legal fictions of the Enlightenment is blurred from my vision, with future clarity currently out of my immediate sight. Thoughts like these are nothing new for me, despite my belief that education is necessary. They arise every now and again, frequently from the rubble that's left after something like midterm week.

Over the course of my almost two and a half years in college, I have found myself in a situation that everyone must face: balancing obligations with our passions. For the most part, I feel that I've been successful in this pursuit as my life revolves around my studies and music, which are my two biggest inspirations in life. Neither of these things provide me much monetary wealth, but that has not stopped me from working in a school, concert venues and putting on concerts of my own. It's a balance that I feel content with fighting for, mostly because it's not in a classroom. I'm not knocking the role of the classroom or teachers themselves, as those are two mediums that have contributed my success. But like everyone else, I struggle to place myself at my desk when I could be somewhere else.