BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
The sound of my alarm clock echoed throughout the house, waking up not only my dog but also my parents. The clock read 7:25, but I knew for a fact I wouldn’t be getting up before 7:45.

A feeling of laziness conjured by the lack of activity during online school made it impossible to wake up. The plan every day would be to wake up 25 minutes before school, take a shower, eat some breakfast, and join the Zoom call, but I would be pressing the snooze button on my alarm clock at least twice just like every other morning. Instead of 7:30, I got up at 7:55, put on clothes, and rushed downstairs like a dog chasing after its ball.

Bloodshot eyes from a lack of sleep and staring at a screen for 6 hours the previous day, a feeling of exhaustion from not being able to take a shower were daily occurrences. I was dreading this day. I had a Chem test in the first and second period. It was going to be hell. I was practically falling asleep, but I had to pull out complex strings of thought from my brain hoping to score well on this test.

Just a minute before joining the Zoom call, I surveyed my living room, my area of study. The more I looked around the more alive I began to feel. I noticed the picturesque paintings on the wall, the sunlight blaring through the windows, and my little black dog Maisy, slumped over on the windowsill basking in the sun. As I began spacing back into the real world I had only a minute before class started. I quickly pressed on the Zoom link, dreading what was to come. The familiar ding of me joining the Zoom call out and Mrs. Brockland, the chem teacher, started class immediately.

Thermodynamics was the subject, but sitting in my chair with a cozy blanket wrapped tightly around my legs, I barely knew what day it was. It didn’t matter what I did, the lack of social interaction and going straight from bed to school produced a trance that throughout the whole school day possessed me and most other students.

This narrative, written for College & Career Writing with Mr. Stastny, answers the question “What was life like for students?” during the last school year.