A Day in the Life of Online Senior Year

Wen hui Wang/Deposit Photos

9:15 AM — Hit the snooze button a million times. Most seniors don’t have to suffer the indignity of zeroth period, but even with that and the fact that school start time has been significantly pushed back, I still have to fight the urge not to smash my phone alarm in the morning. Of course, my parents would murder me if I did such a thing, so I usually end up throwing my phone under the covers.

9:27 AM — Three minutes before AP Research, my first class of the day, I force my sleep-deprived bag of flesh from bed and walk an astounding two feet to my desk.

9:30 AM — Half asleep, I open Schoology Conferences, praying that the software doesn’t glitch on me, as it typically does. Since I can’t interact with my classmates or even see their faces on Conferences, I slouch in the corner of my desk while Mr. Meyerowitz discusses our barrage of imperative research projects for the final AP. Unlike almost every other AP exam ever, the AP Research exam involves the composition and submission of a 4,000-5,000 word paper and presentation of said paper. Of course, my brain is physically incapable of absorbing so much information in the morning, so it mentally reroutes to Youtube and Netflix, where I make a quick list of binge-worthy episodes for the day.

10:10 AM — Mr. Meyerowitz finally excuses us from the Simpsons Cult after we “mayvin-hoivin” our way out of Professor Frink’s digital lair. I make a mental note to google “mayvin-hoivin” during passing period, wondering how, in the name of Carl Azuz, our Acorn Board class turned into a cult.

10:12 AM — My OrthoK night contacts start to irritate my corneas, reminding me that online school has critically barbequed my retinas. I hurriedly scamper to the bathroom to remove said contacts, crying in pain along the way. Luckily, eye drops exist.

10:15 AM — Spanish class, is uneventful, which is quite refreshing. By the time senior year rolls around, uneventful classes are a blessing because the eventful ones always require excessive work to be done. Maestra Mayra is very accommodating and considerate of our senior year burdens (AHEM COLLEGE APPS) and doesn’t slam us with too much work. After AP Spanish, Capstone Spanish is a breeze, though I still have a difficult time understanding the characters’ dialogue in the films we watch.

10:55 AM — Spanish finally ends, which signals the beginning of my free period. As a senior citizen, naps are a necessity. As soon as Maestra Mayra excuses us from the Zoom, I hop back under the covers and snooze for the next forty minutes.

11:45 AM — Normally, I would rather defenestrate myself than wake up from a nap, but Dr. Davies’s Capstone Industrial Chemistry class is one of the few classes of senior year that I find both fascinating and fun, so I willingly climb out of bed. Seeing Dr. Davies’s smile, every class always brightens my day. Sometimes, I wonder how teachers like her manage to smile authentically after having to deal with teenage bags of flesh all day, but Dr. Davies remains living proof such a feat is possible. For the first trimester, we learn industrial organic chemistry exclusively, which is actually quite captivating (though it did forever ruin my opinion of organic foods).

12:25 PM — Now that I have reached lunchtime, I breathe a visible sigh of relief, knowing that my school day is halfway over. While I could always eat food, I usually decide that the ten feet trek to the kitchen is too much effort. Thus, I flop back onto my mattress and dive under the covers for another forty-minute nap. Tuition for senior year is the ultimate economic cesspool, but at the very least, I’m finally getting some return on investment from my bed (which I never used freshman to junior year, since I was too busy damaging my vision with prep books and selling my soul to Acorn Board).

1:15 PM — College counseling is where all the magic of senior year trimester one happens. Logistically speaking, this may just be the most important class that BISV students will take in the sixteen to seventeen years they’ve been alive. I mean, when you have Asian parents harping on you about how your self worth is dependent on Ivy League, Stanford, and MIT admission and that they will disown you should you fail to attain admission to these ten schools, nothing else really matters.

2:00 PM — As I am writing this, I recognize the words I am about to confess to the page will seem astoundingly unbelievable, but I love AP Calculus BC! Never in my life have I ever enjoyed math class before, but when you have the formidable but witty Dr. Gerges, math takes on new meaning. On the first day of school, Dr. Gerges tried to prove to a skeptical audience that math is more fun than watching our favorite movies. I thought he was crazy until he began teaching. Tumbling through integral and derivatives with Dr. Gerges is honestly even better than watching Kung Fu Panda, particularly because Dr. Gerges always references Kung-Fu Panda when he teaches. It also doesn’t hurt that one of our homework assignments was to watch or rewatch Kung-Fu Panda. Dr. Gerges makes math make sense, which is truly mystifying; back in AP Calculus AB, my comprehension of calculus was equivalent to the derivative of a constant, but thanks to Dr. Gerges, my understanding of calculus is now approaching infinity.

2:40 PM — Knowing that I will inevitably have to attend or even host club meetings is stressful. Instead of preparing for these meetings, I choose to nap instead (#Senioritis)

4:00 PM — I thoroughly enjoy myself in clubs, though most meetings involve making memes and chewing on matcha pocky.

6:00 PM — I contemplate doing homework, and if I were a younger, more motivated teenager like I was before junior year broke me, I would have tackled all my homework. Instead, as a senior, I climb back into bed and nap.

8:00 PM — My “thirty-minute” nap turns into a two-hour siesta. I finally force myself to jump on the internet and be productive.

10:00 PM — After two hours of “productivity” with the Pomodoro Method (25 minutes of overthinking, getting distracted by Youtube, or general procrastinating + 5 minutes of actual work), I finally trudge to the kitchen for food. Because I spent most of my day napping, this is the first meal I eat and is thus breakfast, lunch, and dinner all shoved onto a porcelain plate.

11:00 PM — Rather than continue to be “productive,” I open Netflix and say hello to Eleanor, Chidi, Janet, Jason, Tahani, and Michael in the afterlife. Cue the two-hour binge.

1:00 AM — The golden hour for writing essays. As a night owl, I tend to do my best work at the worst hours of the day. No wonder I barely function during the day. Though I probably should fix my sleep schedule, it’s honestly just too much work (and realistically, my melatonin tolerance is currently sky-high).

3:00 AM — Youtube extravaganza! Any leftover action items on my “To Do” list are automatically pushed to my “Tomorrow’s Problem” list.

4:00 AM — I shower, stab my eyes with OrthoK lenses, and promise to “fix my sleep schedule tomorrow.”

5:00 AM — After some quality reading time, I finally drift off to sleep.