Homeschooling as the Holland sister

It was March 2020 that the Coronavirus took a hold of the world and stopped the everyday life of Millions of people. Everything was closed and so was school, but that didn´t mean there was no classes. In the beginning, none of the teachers knew how to handle a bunch of kids ranging from early stages of puberty to stressing over college while having an existential crisis. And they would simply ask for Assignments to be turned in. Needless to say, there was a lot of lazy or stressed-out pupils, missing assignments and raging teachers.

Now, almost one year later, the teachers learned all about how to get a hold of their students only through a laptop or computer from home and didn´t hold back with the mountains of work anymore. Grades were taken for granted again, School a mix of Zoom classes and assignments. It was an unholy amount of work, expanding even to the weekends and nights.

For fifteen-year-old Marlene Holland, it was simply Hell.

               ~~☆~~

I was sitting at my normal sized desk which could barely hold my laptop, textbook and Maths folder, and listened to Mr. Brodey going on and on about Analysis. It was still early, Maths being the first lesson on this boring, boring Wednesday, so I was literally dozing off. I hadn´t gotten much sleep the night before, because Ms. Anderson had given us 2 pages of homework to do in a time span of two days, and I had sat on them until 11pm. Obviously, I still wanted to watch my favourite series afterwards, Supernatural, which resulted in me only sleeping about five and a half hours and two of my older Brothers learning the hard way not to talk to me. In my defence, they should have known already, considering that no matter how much I loved them, anyone who tried to start a dialogue with me before I was fully awake was triggering my anger and annoyance and this early in the morning, I was unable to filter my words and actions of anything mean. I always felt sorry for the boys, especially Paddy since he would always be in such a good mood and trying to motivate me for the day. He was an optimist… I surely wasn´t. Before I could properly mourn over the fact that I missed my other brothers Tom and Harry, who got stuck in another round of Quarantine due to filming, I heard my teacher greet us goodbye.

“Okay guys, you definitely need to become more active in the online lessons if you want a good grade. Giving in the Assignments but not partaking in Zoom classes won´t work out. However, I will upload your homework for today in the cloud and expect you to send them in until Friday. Preferably before the lesson starts, pupils!”. Oh great, I could add another subject on my list for the week, although I still had to hand in Physics and Spanish ´til tomorrow and about four others at the end of the week. For now.

“See you on Friday then, and remember being late is unacceptable, doesn´t matter if you´re at home or at school- lessons are lessons.”

While everyone turned on their mics to say goodbye, I hurriedly closed the tab. It always felt like a race of who would be stuck in an awkward staring match with the teacher because they were the slowest to leave the conference. I didn´t want to be rude or disrespectful, but my anxiety was out of control when I drank coffee. And since that was the only thing keeping me awake, I got used to downing two cups of it every day. I didn´t even like it. Way to become an addict.

Taking a deep breath, I took my maths folder and book and set them on the floor, quickly exchanging them with my English things. I checked if my Background was acceptable, already knowing that Ms. Anderson wanted our cameras on, whereas Mr. Brodey was more concerned about the Wi-Fi connection. And then, I got ready for English class, still not fully awake.

About half an hour in I was explaining the features of short stories, getting distracted by the opening of my door which I could only see on camera.

“Another typical feature is-“ and in ran Tessa, our beloved dog. I had missed her in the past few months but had to remind myself that my teacher was most likely not okay with this.