I’ve heard almost all my teachers say the fourth quarter for seniors is a joke. And it is, to an extent. There comes a point where suddenly your schoolwork doesn’t matter as much anymore, and all you want is to graduate. Schoolwork suddenly becomes ten times harder to do on time, tests and papers are insignificant compared to hanging out with your friends, and your weekends are spent doing everything except your homework. 

Here’s the thing though: if you believe that the fourth quarter of senior year is a waste of your time, stop complaining and do something. Instead of wasting my time writing something I would never read so I could jump through some gradebook hoop, I decided to spend a couple days during class in Newspaper to stop grumbling and do something I felt was more interesting with my time.

I’ve always wanted to know how to animate. My major in college includes animation, and a dream job of mine is to work for Disney/Pixar as an animator. I don’t have any programs to practice right now, but I can learn some of the basics. So for an entire class period I watched a video explaining the 12 principles of animation as stated by Disney animators. I learned about drawing styles and ways to animate that make your animations more interesting and fun. My favorite principle has to be the Squash and Stretch principle, which states that in animation things move dynamically in different directions. For example when a ball is falling from the sky and it hits the ground, it doesn’t stay a perfect circle, it will squash into an oval as it falls and hits the ground. 

You can combine this principle with other principles, such as the principle of Anticipation. Anticipation is exactly what it sounds like, keeping your audience on edge. For example, if a character is running, they may step backward before bolting forward. The audience is anticipating that the character is going to do something. Their body will squash down into a smaller position when they step back, and spring up into a straighter position when they run. This makes movements seem more lifelike and dynamic, and gives your animation personality and character. 

As you can tell, I had much more fun learning about the principles of animation than doing something I didn’t want to do. I used my time to do something that got me excited about learning again. Now I’m not advocating slacking off. Spending your class periods scrolling through Instagram or watching funny videos on YouTube is wasting your time. What I am saying is this: any time you have some down time in class, consider reading about something that interests you. Perhaps you want to start your own business, get serious about learning another language, read about design, or teach yourself complex math for engineering school. Stop complaining about how bored you are, and use these last few weeks to jumpstart your future. You’ll find that time moves faster, and chances are you’ll thank yourself later.