The first day back from break was awful. School dragged on and on, and by 2:40 p.m. I was more excited to go home than I was to originally be on break.

When I got up Tuesday morning and found out that we had off school, the universe came back into balance. I pranced around my house like an elf who had just found out he was being promoted by Santa. I followed snow day protocol, shoveling my driveway and my elderly neighbors’ driveways and then coming inside to a piping hot plate of bacon and eggs waiting at my place.

It was at that moment that I realized how much I dislike Cyber Days.

While I appreciate the idea behind getting out at a reasonable date in June, I’d rather spend the extra time sweating in school and seeing my friends than participating in Cyber Days. On Cyber Days, even the classes you enjoy become the bane of your very existence.

For example, for band, we play music everyday in class. During Cyber Days last year, I figured our assignment would be to practice our instruments, but because of Cyber Day’s confusing and unspecific rules, teachers are supposed to assign work to take up the same amount of time as a scheduled class, along with normal homework as well.

Our band assignment was to write a paper on the history of our instrument. I would have enjoyed learning about the tuba’s origins, but all of my classes (even the classes I wouldn’t have had if we had school that day) assigned me at least an hour and a half of pointless busy work to make up for classwork and homework. In total I had 10 and a half hours of schoolwork to complete.

Now, my numbers might be a bit off, but we’re only in school for about seven hours. Besides being unable to receive help on misunderstood assignments, Cyber Days are also completely time consuming. So why make it a procedure that students spend their entire day doing busy work just so we can still get out on time in June?

Steps towards revising Cyber Day have been taken. Vice President of Student Affairs and Technology Brian Powell has stated that work per class will now be limited to forty-five minutes, and if you don’t have a class that day, you don’t have to do the work assigned.

But even with these new fixes, Cyber Days still ruin any hopes of enjoying yourself you could have wished for.

After hours of shoveling, nobody wants to do anything besides relax, take some ibuprofen and a hot shower, and eat warm food and hot chocolate.

Working students, who may be shoveling or plowing all day depending on their line of work, would have to pile their school work on top of that, and then shovel their own driveways as well. It’s miserable.

So last year’s snow days became more treacherous than trying to drive a golf cart through a blizzard. It got to the point where I prayed it wouldn’t snow because there’s nothing worse on this planet than hours of physical labor followed by hours of meaningless busy work that only stresses you out and wastes everybody’s time.

Yes, and that’s busy work for everybody. Because every assignment a teacher assigns, he or she has to grade.

The real question becomes—is wasting hundreds of students’ time worth getting out four days earlier in June?

Absolutely not.

Eric Johnson is a Sports Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.