Scattered across the room was a downpour of paper that seemed to grow larger every day. Stella couldn't take it any longer. She was drowning in homework and projects. Life as a student at Englewood Middle School definitely required willpower that she seemed to no longer have. Stella stared at the papers until they blurred together to make a larger mound; she gasped in fear. After a while, with trembling hands, she lifted a sheet from the very top of the stack. The entire heap of papers collapsed on top of her.

In the context of the story, what does the word drowning connote?