They say accepting that you’ve got a problem is the first step to recovery.

Okay, I’ll accept it: I have a problem.

I’m an eSIS addict.

(For those of you who aren’t familiar with eSIS, it’s not some crazy new drug. It’s also known as Parents Online — the fabulous tool from the Blue Valley District that allows parents to compulsively stalk their child’s progress on every single test, quiz and assignment for every single class).

Now, having never been to therapy before, I don’t really know how the process works, but I’m imagining you’d share how you ended up there – how you became addicted.

Borderline grades. That’s how I became an eSIS-a-holic.

I’m a second-semester junior. That means that I’ve gone through five weeks of misery – five finals weeks. Every year, during December and May, I magically re-memorize the formula that lets you compute what grade you need to get on the final exam for a class in order to get your desired grade.

That equation is my best friend and worst enemy. When it tells me that I need to get a 114 percent on a final exam for a class in order to get an A, I know I’ve screwed up. Somewhere along the line during the semester, I complained that I was too tired to study for that test, too busy to do that homework or just plain unmotivated.

It adds up. Trust me.

And that’s where eSIS comes in. When you realize that an 89.4 percent in a class will show up as a B on your transcript, when you were so close to an A, it’s impossible not to feel incredibly annoyed at yourself. The college of your dreams has no way of knowing that it wasn’t a 79.9 that just barely gave you that B, instead of the much harder-to-earn 89.4.

So, in retaliation to my own frustration, I got myself hooked on eSIS.

Checking my grades every day may seem absolutely insane, but it’s better than the waiting until its too late. It’s not a bad thing to be involved in your grade earlier in the semester than the day before the final exam or unit test.

So, now is the time to be proactive. Spring break is exactly three weeks away (not that I’m counting or anything), and once we come back from getting tan or rockin’ the staycation, fourth quarter is going to fly by. Before we know it, it’ll be AP exams and finals time and we’ll be wondering why we ever slacked off back in February, and the rest of the semester.

Make your life easier during those last few weeks of school – stay on top of your grades now. You’ll thank yourself later.

So, maybe I’m regressing in this therapy process, but I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think being an eSIS-a-holic is a problem at all.