Tired comes in many forms. Today is June 17.

I woke up this morning from the midst of a hazy dream involving the Fourth of July, fireworks and college life. As per usual, I’m not sure how to interpret my unconscious mind, but my best guess is I was thinking about celebrations and the future before falling asleep. Soon after getting out of bed, I made my way to the living room to work on submitting National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) and Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) entries. 

Today I focused entirely on making sure all 30 of our CSPA entries for Bearing News processed successfully. As I was going through the narrowed down list Anna Xu and I had made yesterday, I realized there were a few mistakes. I marked those entries in red and color coded the submissions we were unable to submit for technological reasons or because of judging criteria in purple. For each submission I had to fill out a form on the CSPA website with information about the entry and RBHS.

Creating the submissions was relatively simple, but sometimes the CSPA website would not allow me to finish working on one entry because it somehow stopped recognizing our login information. When that happened, I had to go back to the homepage, restart the submission and re-enter all of the relevant information. I enjoyed getting to go back and read old posts. For some of them I would make changes like adding pull quotes or fixing basic headline and style errors.

For three submissions, I ended up needing to create and design pages from scratch. This wasn’t terribly difficult, except when working with tags because I’d have to edit old posts to add the tag before being able to continue on the page I wanted to design. The hardest part of the whole process was how long everything took. Selecting Bearing News’ 30 best pieces of writing, art, photography, videography, infographic work and packaging was emotionally draining. I did my best to give everyone a shot at competing while at the same time working with Anna to ensure our strongest, most competitive pieces entered into competition.

In all honesty, I’m not sure I have the best eye for spotting what will win and what won’t. Although I pride myself on my feature and in-depth writing, somehow a sports story of mine ended up placing first in a national competition rather than any of my other pieces. While I was happy to have won, I didn’t feel the same sense of accomplishment I would have if I’d earned first for a more complex and time consuming work.

Once I’d finally submitted all 30 digital entries for CSPA, I began creating a multimedia feature package for NSPA of our online content related to horror and Halloween. In October 2019, I’d asked several writers, photographers, videographers and artists to create pieces related to Halloween to publish between Oct. 28 and Oct. 31 of the year. Looking back on the content now, I realized we had a variety of mediums and types of pieces to combine. I copied the text of the code from several posts into one page and began adding dividing lines, enlarged photos and embedded videos. I didn’t completely finish the page, but I should easily be able to add the final touches tomorrow.

Around 3:45 p.m. I called it quits for the day. I took a shower and changed out of pajamas and into real clothing. My mom and I then went to a few stores before heading up to my grandpa’s house. My mom had to change his bandages, so we picked up a pizza on the way to eat with him. We hung out at his house for a while talking about politics, life and college. When my mom was changing his bandages, a friend of my grandpa’s came by to visit. He and I talked about the importance of learning languages and what life will be like in college. The four of us sat outside and talked for a while before my mom and I decided to head home. I loved being able to see and talk with my grandpa, and I can’t wait until I can give him a hug again without worrying about accidentally making him sick.

My dad got home a little after my mom and I did, and only a minute or so after my brother left to spend time with a friend. For the rest of the evening, the three of us lounged around and watched Chuck. Tomorrow is my dad’s 60th birthday, so I want to be well rested and have lots of energy so I can make sure his day is great. My mom and I are going to make his jamoca almond fudge pie together, and I’m sure we’ll do gifts at some point in the day, but other than that I’m not sure exactly what the plan is. I just hope I can make sure he has a wonderful day he’ll remember for the rest of his life. 

“The most important thing is to enjoy your life ― to be happy. It’s all that matters.” ― Audrey Hepburn

How did you spend your 92nd day of social distancing? Let us know in the comments below.