oh wow, it’s been a while- a few months i think. i know i said it was going to be a pretty long break but it felt like it’s been forever- however, do not get your hopes up, i am still on break as of now (aug 2). ^^; school is starting in 3 weeks and since i’ve gone on break i’ve been able to think about some things. first of all, i’ve felt much better going on break, i haven’t felt pressured to check scratch every passing second and i’ve been able to spend more time with my family and friends. and secondly, this is really important, but… i’m considering partially leaving. my reasons why? well, i’ve come to realize that before i went on break, checking in felt like a hassle and too much of a chore to be enjoyable. i felt like i was meant to get on and when i didn’t i felt bad. that took a toll on my mental health, checking scratch just bogged me down and made me feel burnt out, which led to another thing: focusing on academic work. school is really important as we all know. from the very moment you start kindergarten to the moment you go to graduate high school, you've been taught to never skip school and to study hard. otherwise you won’t make it far in life. now, i don’t know if that fits how some of you all were taught but that’s what i’ve been told. .w.” focus has been something very hard for me, with anything, even checking scratch! but what was really hard the past couple of years was focusing on school. scratch isn’t all to blame with derailing my attention span in school but it did have an impact. when i find something uninteresting and boring, i tend to zone out or find something else to do. and that is a huge problem in school. i would be sitting in class and the teacher would be talking to us yet i would zone out and go to my chrome book. the first website i would go to would be….yep, scratch. i would get so involved in whatever was going on with scratch to focus on my homework and to notice that…the teacher walked over and was looking over my shoulder. :’) but since i couldn’t focus on homework i would get so far behind in work that i would basically get buried in it leading to arguments with my mom and internal conflict with myself. that didn’t have a good impact on my mental health.. but to sum it all up, i might partially leave scratch for the sake of my mental health and academic career. hopefully you guys will understand as this is something that i believe will help me in the long run and is a big step to take. i might check in from time to time just for grins and to see how everyone is doing but otherwise i’ll be offline. love you all, peach <3
