After almost a full semester of remote learning, Lakeside has recently made the decision to reopen campus for hybrid learning. Students, masked and socially distant, are now back in the classroom learning with their teachers and classmates. The campus is no longer quiet and staff and students can see people in person outside of a Zoom rectangle. Yes, it’s the first step to a normal school day again but come on, reality check; it’s so overrated. There are so many more reasons as to why you’d want to stay home and stare at a screen all day!

First of all, there’s this idea of hygiene and getting ready for the day. For those of you who are deciding to return to campus, think about this: you can’t wake up two minutes before your first class; you actually have to get up earlier, eat breakfast, and leave enough time for the commute. No more Zooming from bed; it’s now a premeditated process of picking out an outfit the day before or remembering to shower to make sure your classmates don’t smell you from six feet away. Then, once you get to campus, you actually have to greet people, socialize, and do the taxing task of just being nice. During free periods, you have to try and be productive rather than watching TV or taking a wonderful afternoon nap. When we’re in person, we also can’t spend every moment of free time with our families and we might actually go a full day without bickering with a parent or sibling. Pffft, no thanks.

Let’s not forget the many positives to being on Zoom all the time. It’s lovely when you or others have poor connection and continue to speak without realizing that nobody can hear you or that you sound like some sort of malfunctioning robot. We are also all going to dearly miss the infinite loop of politely telling each other “Oh sorry no, go ahead” or when you accidentally chat a rather embarrassing message to the whole class instead of just one person. It’s also ideal to not have to pay attention to what’s being taught in the class and instead mess about on other tabs or to be able to mute your volume when you don’t want to listen to someone speak. Imagine not having the pleasantry of quickly shoving bits of food in your mouth as stealthily as possible in hopes of looking engaged but not looking like a goon. It’s also simply not possible to go on your phone during class when in-person; we can’t check our notifications or scroll through social media. How preposterous! Even though we are still on Zoom every other week, let’s face it, we’ve all been consistently online every week for so long and we’re finally getting the hang of video conferencing software so why change anything at all?

Considering these highly compelling arguments, it’s easy to see the silliness in Lakeside’s decision. Why would the school ever think we wanted to go back in person?