When she’s not requesting her friend’s opinions regarding her Kermit the Frog drawings, junior Nina Skelly is asking herself if and when she’ll muster up the concentration to work on her AP US History papers. 

Skelly starts her day about an hour before her first class; she showers, gets ready, changes into sweats and a t-shirt and has a banana before sitting down to open Teams on her laptop. 

Skelly noted the importance of having a morning routine, saying that it “helps [her] get in a new mindset for the school day, making [her] feel like she has somewhere to go.” This addition to Skelly’s schedule helps tremendously with motivation. Her first two classes, Physics and AP Lang, usually end early; as a result, Skelly has a longer lunch period. She uses this time to relax, eat instant ramen or leftovers for lunch, and look over video recordings of her classes on her phone if needed. After, she heads to AP US History and Spanish, and then relaxes for a while before she starts on her homework, which she says takes around “2-3 hours since I get distracted easily.”

Overall, Skelly enjoys some aspects of distance learning, but wishes she could return to school in person. Skelly said that she “missed her friends the most,” during distance learning because they helped her, “look forward to school more and make class more interesting.” Instead, Skelly has “picnics with friends in [her] neighborhood because it’s pretty much the only thing we can do.” She notes that it’s difficult to get to know teachers and peers over Teams, “because you don’t have the same opportunity to connect that you would in-person.”  Skelly explained that although in-person schooling is easier for her, she “enjoyed the flexibility of distance learning since so much of our work is posted early on the week and students can plan out their work schedule.” On the flip side, “it’s easier to procrastinate because you can’t really connect with the teacher.” 

Skelly has greatly enjoyed having Wednesdays off, saying that “it helps break up the week and devote time to catching up.” On a typical Wednesday, you can find Skelly “completing work early on in the day, then taking the rest of the day to relax, walk [her dogs] and destress.” Her preferred methods of stress relief are, “baking, playing video games with friends and creating art.” 

Some of her artistic avenues include painting, in which she enjoys that she “can mess up and just paint over it”, and drawing visuals for our very own Wilson Beacon.