Online School

I just finished up my second week of online school. How was it, you may ask?

I have mixed feelings.

I am much luckier than others; I have a good quiet environment most of the time where I don't have to worry about background noise or not being able to turn on my camera. So therefore, my experience is probably much better than most others' experiences.

Here are the pros (at least in my opinion):

• My school day is shorter (so I only have school with 0 period from 7:40 to 1:00)

• Classwork turns into more homework and times to complete classwork are much more flexible, so I have more time for other pursuits

• I can easily go to the bathroom and make breakfast for myself whenever I feel like it because I have a good amount of time between classes.

• Doing school at home is somehow less stressful than being in the actual school environment (at least for me).

Here are the cons:

• Staring at a screen for that long each day is most likely to cause many students eye problems.

• It's very easy to just stay in one spot for the whole school day, so many students may not be getting the exercise they need.

• Obviously, I miss human interaction, and Zoom breakout rooms just don't cut it.

• It's harder to communicate with teachers and ask them questions, although office hours are working well thus far. I guess that for me it's just easier to ask questions in an actual classroom setting.

• Most of my teachers are really stressed out about making this work, which makes me feel bad!

• Working from home can also seriously slow my motivation, and so I'm more likely to procrastinate assignments or quizzes because my room feels less serious than a classroom.

• It's my senior year!! And I'm really missing football games and other fun events that I was looking forward to as a senior.

• I feel as if my classes will likely not be covered in as much depth as they would in the classroom (nothing against my teachers, they are all amazing, but it's just a fact that classes are not going to be taught as well over Zoom).

Is online school just as good? No. Is it a good alternative to going to school in an unsafe environment? Yes. For me, the worst thing is not having that human interaction that I get at school. However, having Zooms with my peers is way more social interaction than I had all summer, so I'll take it!

A year ago today, our school had its first football game of my junior year. The memories that popped up on my Snapchat today felt bad. I never thought that that would be our last football season.

Happy senior year, guys. We made it. I wish it could've been different, but here we are.

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