Staffer Discusses his Love-hate Relationship with Sundays

Sunday afternoons used to be one of my favorite parts of the weekend. I didn’t have a care in the world and the hardest thing I had to do was cheer on the Chiefs.

Now that I’m older and have more responsibilities, my Sundays won’t be the same for the rest of my schooling years. I spend all Sunday working on homework, going to church, bible study and swim practice. All these activities leave myself with no time for what Sundays are truly meant for: rest. Because of procrastination and electronic distractions, it becomes even more difficult to enjoy Sundays.

Sundays used to be one of my favorite parts of the weekend, with nothing to do and no commitments—it was a day of relaxation. I remember one Sunday in particular when the Chiefs were opening their regular season against the Houston Texans. I woke up at 11:45 a.m. and rushed to take a shower, I throw together a quick brunch of a blueberry bagel, Cheetos and a Dr. Pepper. At half the Chiefs were losing at the half but I still watched; I had been waiting since the end of last season for this, I wasn’t going to give up after an hour and a half. By the end, the Chiefs lost 20-3, but my love of watching the Chiefs on Sunday afternoons was still strong. The rest of my Sunday was spent going to church, eating a family dinner at Panera and playing catch with my dad. I couldn’t have asked for a more picture perfect day.

Sundays now are as bad as the day I found out that I will most likely not grow up to be president. Take, for instance, last Sunday: I woke up at 9 a.m. and headed straight to church, as soon as I got home I started my schoolwork. My day was a race to finish homework while at the same time juggling swim practice, church and a Bible study. Even though all these things are important to me, I wish I had more time for relaxing.

Everyone should just stop what they are doing on Sundays and hang out. With more free time on Sundays, some of it could be devoted to a sit-down dinner with my family. A nice homemade dinner can be just the pick-me-up needed after a hard week of school and sports.

On a perfect Sunday with no homework and more time, there would be no need to rush to Church, Bible study or to your friends house; everything could be more relaxed and less hurried. There would be no need to rush away from the Bible study and head home to finish that math assignment.

There would also be time to fit in hanging out with friends, watching football or even play ghost-in-the-graveyard, things that I have yet to do as a high school student on Sundays. The final part of my day would be spent on the couch in my family room watching the Chiefs work their ways towards a Super Bowl.

The only way that I can work to achieve a perfect Sunday is by changing my habits.

Like most kids my age, I save all my schoolwork until Sunday night. I leave myself mountains of homework—from my Pre-Calculus review packet to my text problems for Chemistry. Many of my homework assignments need a computer, from websites for turning in homework to word processing. Even though electronics are a huge part in most of my homework, they are also a huge time-waster.

I could easily finish most of my schoolwork for a night in just two hours if I put away all the electronics. For me, it’s a familiar scene; I go on to Facebook to ask someone what the assignment is and end up getting side tracked. I’ll start on Facebook and move to Twitter to Yahoo to ESPN and all the way back to Facebook—it seems to be a neverending cycle. I’m sure that if I stopped procrastinating and avoided distractions, my Sundays would open up tremendously.

Time management might seem like a completely obvious way to cut down on my workload, but not so for me. I always end up telling myself that I will just complete that assignment after I eat lunch or after I clean my room, but for me, that will never happen.

Turning off distractions, starting my homework sooner and working on my time-management skills are all great things but truthfully, few of them will get done. Facebook stalking and reading @occupyoakland’s tweets about the Oakland CA Occupy movement are just too interesting and overall more palatable than that outside reading project for English due the next day. When I get home on Fridays after school, the last thing I want to be doing is Trigonometric Identities or conjugating verbs in the preterite.

If I could only manage to complete everything faster and more efficiently, I would get back a much sought-after day of rest. Although it isn’t quite the Sunday from my childhood, my ideal Sunday would be devoted to my friends, family, God and an hour or two of the Chiefs game.

For now, I’m working ahead on my English project so I can have that perfect Sunday.