Students wistfully watch summer fade away- going, going, nearly gone. Dark days are looming in the horizon as hot sunny days are now replaced with nightfall at the premature hour of eight ‘o clock. One might say that, fittingly, the weather is forecasted to rain on the first day of school. It is as if the weather is completing the unofficial transition into fall: the first day of school.

“Don’t tell me it’s August,” laments a distressed Kane Vu, junior.

August is the hottest month of the year for Washingtonians. This year felt especially warm with temperatures averaging at 80 degrees. It was a prime time for students to recharge on the dock or by the pool before being thrust into their respective school schedules for the following nine months.

Unfortunately, August is also a time of transition. An unwelcome harbinger of the fast-approaching school year. School is, technically, starting.

Rrriing!

An alarm sounds in the heads that have been blankly staring at the sun for the past month and a half. Junior Mia Johnson said, “When I hear that it is August, I think that I need to get my life together and begin focusing on school.” I start to think about summer books and summer homework.”

These last few weeks are filled with constant back-to school commercials, boatloads of summer assignments, and emails from school. This signifies the approaching end to long languid summer days.

Insistent reminders transform August from a month to be spent by the water into a countdown towards the beginning of school, of how much times students have to finish their summer homework and order their books.

Junior Nate Graves can attest to this. When he was asked what he thought of when he thought of August, he said, “…it essentially makes we want to cry because I really need to start my summer homework.”

Goodbye, late nights. Goodbye, lazy weekdays. Goodbye, shorts and swimsuits.

See you next summer.