You wake up on a nice summer morning in the month of August. Yes, I am talking about the hottest month of the year. The cool summer breeze comes through the open windows. It is most likely past noon, and you realize that you can have the famous breakfast for lunch or maybe dinner. The boiling heat, of course, continues throughout the day, making you want to jump in the pool. The cold water hitting your skin as you jump, trying to escape the hot air molecules beating on your back. It is only the beginning of the month and you realize you have 31 days to finish your ultimate summer bucket list.

All of this is true, if you do not go to Oak Park High School.

If you do go to Oak Park High School, let me tell you how a ‘nice summer morning’ goes. You wake up and you realize that school starts in two days. The summer days where you should be swimming in the pool, running on the beach sand and strolling through Disneyland are taken away. Let’s not forget the need to speed-read “Moby-Dick,” or “Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.”

Now, I am not bashing school. But let me be honest, when school gets out in May, nobody is going to jump into the pool. It is too cold, and it is definitely not the hottest month of the year. May is not the month to get out of school, and August is not the month to start school either. August is the month of driving with all the windows down along Pacific Coast Highway, and definitely not the month to peruse through Moby-Dick in hopes of understanding Melville’s eloquent language.

When students think of starting school, we get a certain feeling. We have reached the dog days of summer where we have checked all or most of the boxes on our summer bucket list. The sun has started to set earlier and the nights are cooler. The rainy days are starting to appear on the calendar. The heat index is lower and no longer triple digits.

This feeling gets more and more intense as the first day of school approaches. You are ready to see the friends you have not seen in awhile, and ready to spend more time away from your parents. But, we all know that August is not the month for those doom and gloom feelings. So, how do we continue summer into August when we are busy preparing for the summer reading tests?

Well, believe it or not, it is possible. First, make all your screensavers the beautiful beach scenes of Australia or Rendezvous Bay. I am talking foldable chairs on the shore, mocktails in hand and tanning in the hot California sun. Now, if you want to take this idea to the next level, you just have to take a mini beach with you to school, some salt water and a little bit of sand in a bucket. De-Nile is not just a river in Egypt, people!

Unfortunately, you cannot do this at OPHS. As much as the Instagram posts still show that everyone is taking aesthetic photos with painted wings in L.A., denial will not get us through this difficult period of our lives.

Therefore, we need to change some months. Not physically change, rather change our perception of those months. It is time we change the mindset of May and July. May needs to become June. This means allowing the feeling of being out of school and heading to the nearest theme parks hit you just a little bit earlier. July should have the feeling of the last month of summer, and the time to fill the last checks of your ultimate summer bucket list. The dog days of summer need to be those first days of August. And of course, if someone can get the sun to set earlier, then we can really make August the first month of school.