There are 1,395 days, from the start of our freshman year to the day we graduate. There has been 428 days since the start of the pandemic to today. As the number of days until graduation grows closer and closer to being countable on our fingers, it’s not so easy to look back on our days and number them through rose-colored lenses. 

It goes without saying that we have gone through a period in which no other before us has. There’s no telling how the pandemic, and all of the dominoes after, will affect the way we fall. There’s no model that allowed us to predict how physically and psychologically different we are now. But, that’s the thing—we all have changed, for better or worse. 

Like everyone else I know, my life shifted the day we were sent home last March. I didn’t expect that in the 78 days of “spring break” I would come to miss the hustle of students pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in the hallways. I didn’t expect to miss the micro-sleep I’d unintentionally fall into during my second hour Algebra II class. I didn’t expect to miss the dozens of people I’d see every day around the school, not clad in a piece of fabric covering half of their faces. 

With every new headline and every new text reading, “Hey, did you hear what happened?” it felt like another domino hurdling into freefall. Experiencing the constant changes through the eyes of both a senior and the Editor-in-Chief of Crier had me caught playing two conflicting roles. As a staff, Crier could not just look at our world’s changing climate as students—procrastinating homework meant procrastinating publishing the first draft of history. 

Like all other hardships in history, our challenges had to be overcome with the efforts many The staff would like to give a special thank you to Ms. Lanman for guiding us during an unprecedented year, and working tirelessly to ensure we published a successful Crier every issue. We’d like to thank English teachers who agreed to keep our issues in their classrooms. Finally, we’d like to thank students and faculty members for sharing their stories with us, commenting on our website and reading their Crier.