About a million years ago when I was a freshman, I absolutely hated Anchor Days. 

Perhaps it was because I had to lug around a backpack with five binders, each filled to the brim with papers about cultural diffusion from World History, the “petit déjeuner” menu from French, and my notes on the pig dissections from Biology. Perhaps it was because I would get nothing done in a 40-minute period, or the fact that I had so much homework the night before.

Yet now, as a mighty junior, I have started to look forward to Anchor Days. Wednesdays are quite possibly the best day of my week. 

Now, I have a locker that I can put my binders into, so I am no longer destroying my back. The prospect of not listening to my teachers rattle on for 80 minutes also fills me with a little bit of happiness (don’t get me wrong—my classes are great—but sometimes the lectures can be a bit dull). The fact that my teachers assume other teachers have given me homework and give me none also makes the workload the night before much easier.

But there are even more reasons why my love for Anchor Days has grown: for one, my free period typically is 4A on Blue Days. This means that on Anchor Days, I have both 4A and 4B free, since one is my lunch. I get to see all of my friends and take a well-earned break in the middle of the day. 

This year, coincidentally, Anchor Days are the only times I can see my best friend. Because both of us are incredibly busy after school with sports, extracurriculars, and ever-growing piles of homework, it is a rare occurrence for us to see each other throughout the day. The 40-minute allotted time is a godsend. 

In a more general sense, the retreat days, which typically only occur on Anchor Days, also allow me to get work done or relax (something I rarely get to do nowadays), depending on my mood. On Oct. 22, for example, I had four free periods: my two normal ones and two extra (Biotechnical Engineering and AP Physics). These two periods just so happened to be my seventh and eighth periods, so I was able to have yet another 85-minute break to do homework.

Yet perhaps the best, most amazing, most important part of Anchor Days is the fact that there is no Early Bird! Last year, I took EB Chemistry: a fun class with a great teacher, but it came along with the not-so-great aspect of arriving at school at 6:45 when, in the winter, the sun hasn’t come up yet. It was a bit (very) depressing. Yet, on Anchor Days, I could arrive at 7:50. An entire hour of extra time! I could sleep in. I could eat breakfast. I could frolic around my room. I could do basically anything I wanted.

Even now, since I take EB Yoga, I choose to sleep in and get the slightly better seven hours of sleep, instead of sleeping my normal five and a half hours (much to the chagrin of my doctor). I now leave my house at 7:50 instead of at 7, and I get to talk with my friends for a little bit before climbing the stairs to my fourth-floor advisory.

All in all, Anchor Days are the best thing to ever happen to me because typically, I am constantly doing work for all of my junior-year classes that I rarely ever get a chance to even breathe.

I encourage everyone to follow in my footsteps and use Anchor Days as just that: an opportunity to take a second to recollect themselves before jumping in to the rest of the week.