Green Dot Runner-Up: Advice For Online School

You’re tired of it. 

You’re tired of staring at a computer screen every hour and doing every assignment that your grade requires. You have a missing assignment, now five, now ten.

Then you wonder when this pandemic and semester will end. 

Opening your laptop to a lesson,  the instructions are unclear.  The distractions at home make it hard to hear. You type and click, link after link. Your wrist is sprained and your eyes, they sting.  Your posture is worse.  Your head, it hurts, 

This online school thing feels like a curse. 

These quizzes and tests are so exhausting, the thought of the consequences so haunting. You picture your parents looking at your grades.  They would scold you and call you a disgrace.

Family and friends are having fun while you stay in your room and make sure the work gets done. Life is happening outside your door, while you’re stuck inside trying to raise your score. 

If they say hard work is the key to success, then why does this work make us feel like a mess?    

You just want to punch a wall and forget it all, yet you think about what would happen if your grades start to fall. Then you look at the clock: time went by fast. But you just couldn’t bring yourself to finish the task.  You are so tired of this online class!

You tremble and shake.

Your heart pounds fast. 

You can’t stop the racing thoughts:

There’s something wrong with you.

You’re going to fail.

You can’t get this right.  

You are not working hard enough.

Stop.

It’s not good to push yourself to do more than you can do. If you can’t work at the moment that’s alright, that’s cool.  It’s better to not cry about that presentation.

It’s unfair I get it. I know it’s hard. Do the most you can, don’t overwork yourself and get mad, Your health matters more.

Go get a snack.

Take a nap.

Focus on yourself a little more.