As I woke up at 8 o’clock to attend my first period on a cold August morning, the reality of school hit me. Even though I wasn’t ready for it, I knew I had to make the painful transition from my relaxed summer schedule to a packed work schedule for senior year; I would have to have set aside a significant amount of time for college essays along with my many AP classes.
The main change I made to my schedule was fixing my sleep cycle. Over the summer, I was able to wake up whenever I wanted because there was nothing to wake up for. This meant that I could go to sleep at 2 a.m. and still feel energized when I woke ten or eleven hours later.
Once school started, however, I had to wake up early again. Because I needed to wake up at 8 every morning, I had to start going to sleep much earlier. The time I went to sleep could no longer be based on how many movies I wanted to watch at night but rather the amount of work I had to complete and turn in the next day.
Another major change was my decreasing free time. This was an expected outcome of school starting and classes taking off, but because of online school, the difference between the summer and the school year was less significant than it would have been if we went back to in-person school.
With the new schedule for online school, most of my classes take the full 75 minutes that is allotted to each period, 15 minutes less than the previous in-person class. School also ends at 12:55 p.m. for me this year instead of 2:10 p.m., which gives me a little more than an hour of extra time. With this free time, I can start and finish my work earlier and put more time aside for college essays. I can also relax more and relieve myself of any stress that school has caused. Best of all, I can spend some time during my day playing some video games and not thinking about school work.
Despite the changes to online school this year, so far the switch from my summer schedule to my current schedule is not as bad as I expected. As the year goes on, I will likely be drowning in endless tests, homework, and essays. Hopefully, though, online school will alleviate the approaching stress that I will face this semester.