Finally, the wait was over! After almost two years of virtual learning, I am at last back in person.

   As the alarm started blasting my favorite song, “Gone, Gone, Gone” by Phillip Phillips, I rolled over, hit stop, and looked outside. It was dark as night outside with drizzles from the sky hitting my gray roof. 

   My first thought was that I needed an outfit change, so I added my white Polo rain jacket to my blue jean shorts and black V-cut tank top. When I finished getting ready, I walked outside and immediately ran back inside the house because I had forgotten my plain-white mask. 

   Hundreds of students poured into the school all masked up, and everyone was forced to Gym 4 or the 20 cafeteria. Weird, I thought. This didn’t happen my freshman year.

   The hallways felt unfamiliar. I didn’t know where I was going, and it felt like a maze. I couldn’t tell if someone was a sophomore or a freshman. There were teachers standing at the corner of every hallway. 

   “Hey! Where are you going?” A teacher dressed in khakis, a white button-up shirt, and a blue tie questioned me as I tried to go to my locker. I told him I had to put my cross-country bag in my locker. “You’re not allowed to roam the hallways anymore, wait until 7:15 to go to your locker,” he said.

   My first class was APUSH 2 with Mr. Thompson and right off the bat, he started with US 1 notes as a review. 

   Then, the rest of the day began to fall into place. I learned my classmates’ names, an interesting fact about them, and what they and my teachers look like. I always dread this part because my name is hard to pronounce, but I am definitely more patient and understanding now than when I was younger.

   Lunch was definitely the biggest change. Not only is it thirty minutes shorter, but I can now only see the friends who share my lunch period. This hit me the hardest because this was the moment where I realized that school this year will be dramatically different.

   I will have to adapt to this new environment.