She hit the snooze button, hoping it was just a dream that her clock read 6:15 am. Still half-asleep, she threw on her worn grey sweatpants—and her thinking cap. Drowsy-eyed Kendall Rochlin ‘15 rushed out the door for a two hour test that the majority of Staples students were glad to be done with. Make-up midterm day.
At the crack of dawn, Rochlin not only had to be up and functioning, she was scheduled to review pre-calculus functions with her tutor before her exam. “I can barely wake up on normal days, and the fact that I had to have a tutor and take an exam on a day that everyone else slept in was really annoying,” Rochlin said.
The atmosphere of Staples High School on midterm make-up day is the opposite of the normal Staples. Students roamed the halls, drained, void of energy, an apocalypse of walking zombies. Many were just getting over illnesses.
Unusually for 10 am on a Tuesday, students could hear themselves think in the hallway. The normally packed parking lots held a handful of cars, and the conventionally bustling cafeteria was silent.
Haley Heidtmann ‘17 felt the tangible desolation as she went through the day. “For the first time I’ve been at Staples, the library and cafeteria were pretty much empty,” Heidtmann said. “It was a weird feeling.”
Opinions about the atmosphere of midterm make-up day varied. To Eliana Aronson ‘16, “school was empty and depressing with no one here, and waking up was harder than usual.” And to Mat Chernok ‘17, “school was mellow and chill.”
Even though a snowstorm cut the second midterm short, have no fear, the make-up exam will be rescheduled. But there’s no doubt that all students, even those who worked hard on midterm make-up day, were dreading coming back to full school days.
Lindsey Felner ‘17 was one of them. “I think everyone, even the people who came in to make up a midterm, is tired, and no one is looking forward to going back to school from the four or five day break,” Felner said.
