FLOOD WARNING Click county for more information: Osage, Ottawa, Rogers, Tulsa, Washington         FIRE WARNING Click county for more information: Woodward        

I've focused easier in a fog, in a rain storm, even when a childhood buddy stirred up the wasps and pursued me.

It was easier for me to focus in each of those situations than during the stretch from spring break to the end of the school year.

To this day, I see the blue sky and feel the sun's warmth coming through that window in my afternoon spring semester political science class in college. That was 22 years ago.

Anyone else remember that pain of being in class when so much was going on outside? Does anyone still suffer that pain?

You'll have to answer the first question yourself. But high school counselor Sandra Rose, longtime university educator Terry Clark and high school student Ben Bible helped me with the latter.

Counselor Sandra Rose has worked at Emerson Alternative Education Center for more than 30 years.

She's seen the scenario over and over and over.

"Sometimes they get senioritis and they just lose their minds temporarily,” she said. "They see the light at the end of the tunnel and they don't want to step forward to reach it.”

So Rose is more than willing to give them a nudge.

The first day after spring break, she had three or four seniors who did not show up for school.

If they continue as no-shows she mails a certified letter to their parents saying, "If your son or daughter does not complete this course, they will not receive a diploma in May.”

What if they are in class, but still really not there?

"I send letters to those parents too,” she said.

But in addition to going to the parents, she goes to the student herself.

"I say, ‘I'm ready to call your name to come across the stage and here you are backsliding on me,'” Rose said. "It works on those who are serious.”

Terry Clark is a journalism professor and chairman of the mass communication department at the University of Central Oklahoma.

The longtime educator said the semester flows smoothly. Then comes spring break, and then comes reality.

Reality is that soon, very soon, all those college research papers and presentations will be due.

"A student realizes, I've got this and this and this coming up, and you can see a glaze in the student's eyes,” Clark said. "In the upper-level classes, where they've got two or three heavy classes, you see the stress levels go up.

"And about the time that lets up, they approach finals and those add to the stress.”

So how do you relieve that pressure?

Putting off a paper or other work only adds to the stress, so Clark structures his assignments.

"I use a step-by-step process,” he said. "I won't let them put it off until the last minute. You can't do that in some courses, but I can in mine.”

Bible, a senior at Edmond Memorial High School, said this stretch is "very hard, because I'm so close to the end.”

But, he says, that makes it even more important for a few reasons.

First, his school transcript is not complete.

"There's no reason to throw it all away,” he said. "I want to be finished with everything in May.”

Also, this marks the end of a school routine he's known throughout his life: going to school, coming home afterwards, hanging out with friends and then going back home to mom and dad.

Bible is planning to go to college in New Hampshire in the fall.

He is in transition.

"The end of high school is the start of something completely different in my life,” he said.

These last few weeks may in themselves seem like months or years.

But looking back, I would say summer and that new stage of life will come soon enough.