Asynchronous Mondays were the first step to world peace. It was beautiful, an extra day to reach out to teachers, finish homework, explore nature, and enjoy what the world has to offer. There’s nothing quite like that Sunday night knowing that I have a relaxing, productive Asynchronous Monday the next day.

This absence of the Asynchronous Monday for this 2021-2022 school year has been a gaping hole in my life. Doing homework on Sunday night is depressing. You know what the best part of my day is? Waking up and forgetting that I had Asynchronous Mondays taken from me.

The naysayers are the worst part. See, what my parents and Beth Barts could never understand, is that it wasn’t about the three day weekend or procrastination or a four day week every week. No, absolutely not. It was about the blissful connections of intellectualism.

I won’t say that every Monday I went to Rust Library and read novels while wearing my tweed jacket. But I would catch a train to the city and go to museums of art and history. It was one of the most deeply intellectual experiences I have ever had, and Asynchronous Mondays made that possible. Whether in person or online, school could not come close to the amazement of seeing a mummified pharaoh on loan from the Museum of Cairo or the awe of seeing the actual hand-annotated speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on full display. See that’s what the school board never can understand, you can’t get that experience anywhere else. Asynchronous Monday, in my mind, was more of a movement and idea, I’ll remember that day forever, nobody can take the thespianastic museum trip away from me.

But now, things are different. I have to wake up and go to school every Monday like a schmuck. My vessel of creativity, thoughts, and ideas has sunken to the bottom of the ocean. Every Monday when I walk into the building and see my fellow students, I’m reminded of what they took from us.

In discussing this with the Newspaper staff, fellow thespian Maggie Sheridan, Senior, said she felt “sense of defeat,” Knowing I have this limited time to complete my work is stressful, Sheridan said. “These Administrators can not relate to us, they have never walked in my Air Force Ones,” said Sheridan.

School can be very stressful. The thing about stress is that it follows you everywhere, in cars, streets and sidewalks. It follows you everywhere, there’s no escape. The grindstone of school and applying to colleges can be very overwhelming.

Seventeen colleges to apply to on the CommonApp, six hours of homework everyday, and I’m supposed to handle that? Frankly, It’s a disgrace!

Our hope was an innocent lamb, beautiful and wanted wear; It was led to the harsh ever going slaughter that is life.

Now Asynchronous Mondays, they fixed that. It was the wild west. But it’s gone now, and I have to go to school on Mondays like a schmuck. That, in itself, mirrors the tragedy that is the human existence.