It's here, folks: we've reached the definitive point in the NTI experience that I've deemed worthy of my serious and very public cry for help. (It's more of a cry for understanding as opposed to help) (Please read, I promise it will be better than that first sentence) 1/?

I've always loved school. I delight in the challenge of a math test and nothing brings me more joy than submitting a carefully-crafted essay. Sure, I've whined about memorizing polyatomic anions and chemical formulas, but there's something sublime about acing a chem quiz. 2/?

I love the library's quiet and the cafeteria's buzz. I love the peacefulness of walking through the hall to the bathroom. I love cracking jokes with classmates and talking to teachers. I even love taking notes, knowing there's nothing to focus on but my teacher's lecture. 3/?

I've been a part of @JCPSKY since I was in kindergarten. I've felt nothing but love and support at @FieldElementary, @Noe_JCPS, and @duPontManual. I still talk to some of my elementary and middle school teachers and they've shaped who I am. 4/?

I've made it to the second semester of my senior year — one that is supposed to be filled with senior traditions and slumps and celebrations meant to recognize the blood, sweat, and tears that we've all shed the past three years. 5/?

It's a time I've looked forward to for a long time. I'm eighteen, I know where I'm going to college, I've worked my ass off for four years, and it's time to have fun with the people who've been with me for it all. 6/?

Except, it's been absolutely miserable. It's nothing but assignment after assignment — a flurry of Google Classroom notifications and Outlook emails and remind text messages telling me that my GoPo chart is due at midnight and my calculus test is tomorrow at 1:10. 7/?

As a Gen Zer, I'm pretty sure it's illegal to actively not want to be on my phone, but I feel intense dread each time I pick it up. Intermingled with texts from my parents and Snapchats from my friends are GC notifications, reminding me of work I haven't done. 8/?

School is everywhere now. It's at my desk in my bedroom, stacked on top of my nightstand, and a fixture of my Screen Time report. Sometimes, and I try my hardest to avoid this, my classroom is my bed. 9/?

It's crushing to feel suffocated by something that I have loved, still love, and will (hopefully) continue to love. School now has such a twisted place in my heart and it's horrible to think that this might be my lasting impression of it. 10/?

I know that this has not been an easy year for everyone. I'm not trying to have a "triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of high school football" moment here. I'm grateful to my teachers and my school for being so helpful and accomodating. 11/?

I know that everyone in JCPS feels stuck right now — it's not just the seniors or even the students. More broadly, I know that people have lost their jobs and their way of life to the pandemic. Some have lost a friend or a family member or even their own life. 12/?

Obviously, my challenges with school pale in comparison to the suffering of some. But it's fallacious to assume that makes our own suffering invalid — something that many seniors are struggling to understand. 13/?

It's valid for us to mourn the loss of a year that was meant to be the pinnacle of high school. It's valid to feel robbed of experiences that have been romanticized since we were little, watching Disney Channel. It's valid to feel frustrated, unmotivated, and pissed off. 14/?

We have grown numb to this year — a year we can't redo, start over, or makeup. Although our world seems to dig itself out of the covid-sized hole a little bit more each day, we're running out of time to be high schoolers — only 100 days left. 15/?

I suppose my point is that NTI is a life-sucking, stress-producing monster and that it's okay to dream about ripping out its organs each time your phone buzzes. It's okay to blame it for ruining the past six months. It sucks. It really, really does. 16/?

I don't expect that many people made it this far in the thread. If you're reading this, congratulations. You've officially read more words of this than I have of Frankenstein — a statement that is only partially a joke. 17/?

If you're a senior, please know that your pain is valid and that things will (hopefully) only get better from this point forward. We (might) get to go back to school and we will (maybe) get graduation. By the fall, college will (perhaps) be relatively normal. 18/?

If you're reading this and you're a teacher, I'm sure you hate it, too, and you're ready for this to be over. If you're specifically one of my teachers, I'm sorry I've been checked out over the past few weeks. I'm working on it, I promise. 19/?

If you're reading this and you have any sort of power or platform, please help us get back in-person. I don't know what I'll do if I have to live with the fact that March 13, 2020, was the last day I ever walked through the halls of my high school. 20/?