It’s officially been one year with COVID. Our lives haven’t been “normal” now for a full year, meaning online school, masks, and restricted sports.

Within this past year we went from having full time school, online school, and now hybrid school. “I prefer being in school everyday because I learn better in that setting,” sophomore Nelson Yeung said.

Students haven’t seen other classmates in their grade for over a year because we had online school and then hybrid school, teachers haven’t even met some of their students yet if they are fully online. Students and teachers have had to learn to just go with the flow because schedules this year have known for changing very quickly. “Even though we are coming back fourth quarter it’s still sad that most of my senior year wasn’t spent with everyone being together,” senior Emma Van Stone said.

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School sports went from being cancelled to being allowed with many restrictions but just not making them the same. Teams have had to cancel games or have their season end early because someone or the team got COVID. Some teams even choose to be fully online so they don’t take the chance of getting sick from school. “I had to quarantine before state for the dance team because we couldn’t risk getting anything and not being able to compete in state,” sophomore Sophia DiPaola said.

We have worn masks wherever we go now for a full year. We haven’t been able to have big events like homecoming, sporting events, and gatherings. “Not having any school gatherings is sad because it’s something I look forward to during the school year,” junior Maggie Amaris said.

At a time where most of us need a break, traveling has either not been an option for some people or traveling with lots of restrictions. People this year have had their travel plans canceled because of COVID. “I can’t wait to be able to travel again; I have many places I hope to go to,” sophomore Francesca Lichtenberger said.

When COVID first started most people didn’t think it would end up how it did. Students remember the last day of everyone on campus and when everyone heard we were shutting down, people would guess when we all came back and people would say we would be back in 2 weeks. “I never thought we would be shut down this long and my life would have changed this much,” junior Maggie Amaris said.