Simply put, school is exhausting. 

A typical day in the life of a quarantined student is one that revolves around tedious online activity repeated over and over again and at times it’s borderline depressing. 

Yet, being at home is also somewhat comforting. Personally, I wake up about 30 minutes before my first class and proceed in my morning routine of getting ready for school, still managing to at least capture the essence of what it felt like to go to school before the pandemic. Alas, that’s where the similarities to the 2019 school year-end. 

After rolling out of bed, I drag myself to my bathroom to take a nice long warm shower and head to the kitchen to prepare a morning meal of things like avocado toast and fruit. 

My day officially starts when I open my Mac at 9 a.m. and from there I’m subjected to school, sitting in my office for (probably losing my eyesight in the process) close to six hours. 

My first class of the day happens to be clothing construction and, in between my designs and Ms. Marassa’s lectures, I try to also tackle my abundant scheduling conflicts, in order to keep my life afloat. Do I I attempt to do all of last night’s homework that I put during free time? Do I take a nap and save it for later? Decisions, decisions. Yet none of them are all that appealing. 

Naturally, if I didn’t take advantage of the breaks in between classes I’d probably be close to losing my mind by now. Therefore, I try my hardest to find something to do for those bitter-sweet 15 minutes.  Be it catching up on a current show I’m watching, communicating with my friends, or just overall trying to be productive and getting ahead in my classes, there’s never something not to do during the breaks. 

This leads me to the end of my 2nd period, where I then proceed to try to make some more comfort food in order to keep me motivated through a long day of grueling, and painfully slow-paced work. 

My alarm to go to my third period goes off loudly, and I hustle to my computer from my kitchen to grab my notes, to get prepared for my AP Stats class. And although stats is by no mean an exciting class, to an extent, I find the will to continue on with my day, just from me trying something to learn something new. If anything I’ve learned throughout this experience is that the people who say routine is good, obviously never had to go through things like e-learning, where it’s very easy to get distracted. I mean, I am in my own home, after all.

I’ve found that it’s virtually impossible to keep myself entertained for six hours without trying anything new or doing something to spice my life up. So after each class, I’ll try something new, or on a good day, I might even go for a run or exercise a little in order to keep myself alert. And on this day, I decided to go on a quick little mile run before heading to my fourth period. And yes you read that correctly: I ran a mile during my meager 15-minute break. 

With it being late November, before heading out, I make sure to grab my favorite Nike track jacket that keeps me warm while being lightweight enough for me to enjoy a good run. I run my mile in approximately 6:46 minutes and I proceed to make sure that I’m prepared for my fourth-period Environmental science class, where I’m sure that I’m going to get a lecture or another lab that forces me to go back outdoors, which is the only real fun I get all day. 

Soon after comes my favorite part of the day: lunch. Although I obviously am not the biggest fan of e-learning, I must also say it has its perks. There’s nothing like rolling over and logging into class, without having to leave the comfort of your own bed. While it also definitely encourages bad habits, and distractions at times too, in the forms of things like food, or giving you an outlet to do anything except what you should be focused on. But a nap during lunchtime hits like no other. 

Plus it’s necessary when I have classes like AP literature and history next. Someway, somehow I never fail to get very bored during those classes in particular despite them typically having intriguing subjects, and it’s quite possibly just the immense amount of screentime, but overall I just can’t help fighting the will to fall asleep or do literally anything else but.

All in all, my day is rather drab due to us being in the middle of the pandemic, and my opportunities to see my friends are limited. In the end, even I still applaud the school for the e-learning system. It fundamentally allows everyone to get homeschooled and allows everyone to be actively involved with their school community, without taking risks during the pandemic. And it allows me to live a relatively normal life in the process also. 

Some stereotypical high school tendencies never change, though. As even though I’m spending my last year at H-F away from campus, I still find myself looking at the clock at the end of seventh period, eager to go and spend my time doing things I generally enjoy, and ultimately that’s what’s really important. 

After this experience, I wonder if college is this exhausting?