After being stuck at home for nearly 12 months, students have endured the most boring year of our lives.

And if you’re like me, you’re probably wondering how one of the best possible vacations we could have – remember that extended three-week spring break? – turned into a year of hell for people around the world.

On March 13, 2020, students received the best message from the district we probably had ever heard: campus was closed until after spring break. That meant spending more time with friends, family and best of all, no homework. It’s basically half a summer.

Unfortunately, students later learned that we would have to stay in quarantine because of COVID-19. It’s ironic how we were all happy when this started, and now we’re bored and stuck at home.

From March to May everything was pretty easy to handle. School was a breeze, barely any homework and tests were assigned, and teachers didn’t know how to navigate online school that well. But when school started in August everything started to get frustrating.

I look away from my phone for one second and I have 10 assignments. Getting used to online school was very hard to be honest. I’m not even completely used to it myself right now.

“Learning online has definitely made it harder for some people, but also easier for some other students in my class,” math teacher Gilita Thomas said.

One thing is for sure though, I’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring all of my assignments this year. On the other hand, some students have found ways to motivate themselves to become better students.

“Quarantine has given me a lot of character development,” sophomore Aalok Gokarn said. “Though it has been depressing because I can’t see friends and family, I’ve had a lot of time to study more, work out, and have a healthier mindset. It was basically a good time to self-reflect.”

During such a hard year there’s one thing that many people always enjoyed, TikTok. I go on my phone for one minute and next thing you know, I’ve wasted an hour of my day watching people do the “renegade”.

TikTok has been useful though, as a lot of people have used it to promote their music or new products. It’s really interesting how this app made for entertainment has been used to turn profits for their business. I’ve personally found music artists that I listen to on the daily because of TikTok.

TikTok wasn’t the only way to pass the time during quarantine, though. Esports became a lot more popular because people were stuck at home, and frankly, video games were some of the easiest things to do.

“I was focused on streaming video games and hanging out with friends because I had more time,” junior Carl De Vera said, “I started taking streaming and esports more seriously.”

Games such as “Valorant”, “League of Legends” and “Rocket League” started getting really popular over quarantine. All these games were originally free, or became free, so a lot of people that didn’t want to spend money on video games started playing them.

Many people have also developed new hobbies like, embroidery, knitting, walking, biking and more.

“I’ve been meditating and biking lately, I even started gardening,” biomed teacher Joanna Condon said.

Instead of being sad because we were stuck at home and were not able to visit with people we used to on a regular basis, a lot of us found ways to take advantage of doing something new and beneficial with our lives. These times have taught us to adapt to our circumstances and live our life to the fullest.

But this doesn’t mean we’re not tired of this incredibly extended three- week vacation.

“Although it’s been nice at home, I’m really eager to see my family and friends again,” Condon said.