Another day at CVHS, where academic rigor isn’t the real test; it’s how many clothing changes I can manage in eight hours without losing my mind.
I walk into first-period AP Psychology feeling good. It’s a solid 72 degrees Fahrenheit, and I have a pair of jeans and an “I Heart CVHS” Rhinos T-shirt on. This is the kind of temperature that makes you think, “Maybe life isn’t so bad.” I’m relaxed, even borderline optimistic. This is what I imagine classrooms feel like in utopias.
But then, the second period hits — AP Government. For reasons unknown to the modern air-conditioned world, it’s noticeably warmer. It’s as though want us to feel the heat of political debates. Sweating for the Constitution? Not exactly in the syllabus, but sure. Maybe I should’ve used the CVHS changing rooms.
As I am making my way to AP Calculus in the math hallway, I notice blaring sirens and rows of changing rooms open. Oh boy, it must be worse than usual. I quickly hop into one of the changing rooms and wear my favorite white shorts and an airy Hawaiian top. As I step foot in the narrow hallway, I can feel the sand between my toes and hear the seagulls in the palm trees outside every classroom door which making me long for summer. Calculus is where hope goes to die — not because of the math, but because walking in feels like stepping inside a convection oven. No air conditioning, no mercy. I genuinely think I could fry an egg on my desk. By this point, I’ve rolled up my sleeves, tied my hair up and seriously considered asking the teacher if I could submit my derivatives in the form of interpretive sweat patterns.
It doesn’t get better in Statistics 2. Nope. Same building, the same sweltering fate. I peer out the door and notice my peers playing beach volleyball in their swim trunks. At this point, I’m convinced the probability of the air conditioning working is a solid 0%. The only distribution I care about is the distribution of fans in this room ( spoiler alert: there are none.) If hypothesis testing could prove whether I’d pass out from heat exhaustion, I’d reject the null in a heartbeat.
After the bell rings I am eager to get out of the math hallway. I enter the English hallway, and I am met by a beautiful cool rush of air conditioning. As I am lining up by my advocacy room, I remember that I hadn’t changed from my Hawaiian shirt and shorts. Hopefully, that won’t affect me.
Boom. The second I open the door, a blast of arctic wind slaps me in the face. It’s like someone decided, “Let’s take the leftover air conditioning units from Calc and Stats and crank them to the max right here.” I’m shivering, teeth chattering, wrapping myself in whatever fabric I can find, which at this point includes my backpack strap. I swear I saw a kid trying to light a Bunsen burner just to survive. Maybe I should’ve gone back to the changing rooms.
AP English Literature is mercifully normal again. I am happily reading the next English classic and listening to the soothing tunes from the SmartBoard. Just enough time for my internal body temperature to stabilize before the next descent into chaos.
AP Chemistry? Warm. Definitely no AC. The air feels thick, like it’s full of unspoken chemical reactions and rising humidity. I imagine it’s a greenhouse experiment, except the plants are students slowly wilting in their seats.
As I make my way back to my last class of the school day in the same room as my advocacy, I remember to enter the changing rooms to grab my thermal gloves. Ha! Beat that HVAC system!
And finally — Newspaper. It’s frigid enough to preserve last month’s print editions forever. I can’t type because my fingers are frozen. I contemplate setting the pile of rough drafts on fire, partly for warmth, partly out of sheer frustration.
By the time the final bell rings, I’ve lived through all four seasons and developed the survival skills of both a desert nomad and an Antarctic explorer.
As I’ve navigated the entirety of the CVHS seasons, one thing is clear: dressing for success, means dressing for survival.
This story is satire
