I was 13 when COVID-19 struck in my eighth-grade year and we were forced to move all classwork online. Restrictions hadn't been lifted by the end of August 2020, so I started my freshman year of high school via laptop.

I hated it then. Remote work and I never really got along. Not that I was having frequent computer issues or anything like that; rather, I felt so overwhelmingly disconnected from my schoolwork.

Dragging myself from my bed each morning to my desk to log on for a soulless seven hours felt like trudging through tar. Eventually, I would stay in bed, log onto a Zoom call, turn over and go right back to sleep – which was not at all a reflection of who I was as a student before the lockdown or who I am as a person. I had always cared about being present in class and actively engaging in the material. It was like my entire brain had gone flat the second we transitioned, and it stayed that way for a very long time.

Not a super fun way to start my high school years.

Thankfully, once the mandates were lifted and we were allowed back into school, masks or not, my approach to academics received what was akin to an electric shock. I felt that........

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