Last Minute Work

Every school year we get summer reading, and every year I just barely get it done. So why should going into junior year be any different? Since I started doing summer reading I’d buy the books two weeks before school started, staying up late the few nights before school started to finish (and start) all of the books. I had a system, and it had been working out for me, for the most part, my whole life. At least, I thought it had been working out, since I manage to get my work done every year.
Going into junior year, I was taking two AP classes. I have never taken AP classes this year and I knew that I could expect a lot more work, but I was not really aware of how much that meant. My summer reading seemed like a huge amount, but then again it did every year. I had to read five chapters of the textbook for AP History and "Fast Food Nation" and "The Great Gatsby" for AP English. June went by and so did most of July and summer reading did not cross my mind. However, I thought I had made more progress than in previous years, because I did actually buy my books in July. It turned out that this did not have much of a positive effect on the overall result of accomplishing my summer reading.
August came around and I had four whole weeks to do everything, I thought. However, reading textbooks on the beach sounded a lot more appealing and relaxing than it actually was. In fact, it turned out that almost anything was more appealing than reading. Pretty soon summer was over and sports started back up, not adding to my reading motivation at all. Now that it was around the week before school was starting, so I was right on schedule to start my summer reading. It probably all would have worked out too, if I had a normal amount of work. In just a few short days I had to read and remember facts from about 500 pages in total. This was just not going to happen. I stayed up late and read, but never really managed to finish everything.
Not finishing AP English showed a lot, and it especially showed for AP History. One of the first days of English class we had to write a paper on "The Great Gatsby," the book I did not read. This made the assignment much more difficult. The English summer reading test was also much harder to study for considering I did not completely know the ending of the books. History especially showed that I saved my reading for the last minute. I got a 65% on my summer reading test for History. Needless to say, I should have started all of my work earlier. My grades paid the price in the beginning of the year, and I would need to start spreading things out more if I wanted to get them back up again.