Dear Sick and Tired,

I hear you on this! I have homework nightmares too.

This one time, I was trapped inside the top part of a number eight, and all my friends were in the bottom part, along with my camera and the cats and dogs from my grandparents’ animal shelter.

There was a horrible rainstorm going on in the top half, so I was drenched and shivering, and it was like a beach party in the bottom half, with loud dance music and a bright shining sun.

I’m no dream interpreter, but I think that kind of speaks for itself: I was literally trapped in my homework, and it was keeping me from having fun and doing everything I love!

One thing that has helped me is doing homework with my friends, and right after school (so I’m not doing it in bed with a flashlight at 1:00AM).

This way, we can all help each other, and it becomes part of my social life instead of something that takes away from my social life.

Of course, I’d much rather do other things with my friends – like play video games, shoot hoops, and sit around talking about stupid stuff, like who can eat more cheese fries. But unfortunately, we can only do that stuff after putting in our time with the books.

It also helps to take breaks. So, let’s say you work on math for a half-hour right after school with all of your friends. Maybe all of you can take a walk to the store to get some candy and snacks, then come back and work on your English homework.

If you break it up like this, it won’t feel so painful. Just be sure you don’t get into something that you’ll have a hard time stopping. (That means no Minecraft. It’s like a massive vacuum – it totally sucks you in!)

I hope this helps!