0800 hours: Time to wake up, and not a second after my alarm’s first blare. Like Ex-Navy SEAL Jocko Willink says, “When the alarm goes off, you get up and you go get some!” Sure, his alarm goes off at 0430 hours, but I’m really not a morning person.

0830 hours: Thirty minutes to spare before the first Zoom of the day, so I go ahead and get after a mean pump (approximately 38 pushups). Of course, you can’t forget to replenish after a workout, so I make myself a protein shake. Figured two heaping scoops would do it, ‘cause everybody knows serving size suggestions are bull.

0900 hours: Here goes my professor on the same spiel every other Joe Shmoe on this campus feels obliged to give: “Oh, I really wish I could see you all in person, and boy I am getting sick and tired of these masks!” Yada yada yada, we’ve heard it all before. As I scroll the latest on the most reliable and legitimate news site InfoWars — my personal favorite — and I stop and think to myself, what’s keeping me from not wearing a mask? That’s it. Civil disobedience, baby. My professor’s right, wearing a mask is annoying, and I’m just about tired of being annoyed! The rest of class flies by as I prepare to unfurl the sails of freedom.

1100 hours: I step outside my dorm room. Maskless. I triumphantly walk the hall and down to the study lounge where I notice a girl from another hall studying, mask on. All these COVID-hoax theories I just muckraked are about to change someone’s life. I coolly approach the girl, sitting down across from her and fire away. “You know, you’re just breathing in the same germs all day with that mask on.” She looks up and replies, “What?” She had earbuds in. Some people just don’t want to learn. I shrug it off and make my way over to my next class.

1120 hours: Finally, an in-person class, here we go. I proudly march up the Elaine Langone Center hill and through the quad, with Mötley Crüe’s “Greatest Hits” blasting in my AirPods. As I pass by other students, some of them are giving me funny looks, staring in disbelief. They’re completely astonished by my bravery. A smirk curls over my maskless face. So this is how our forefathers felt after dumping all that tea. I am a lion wading through a sea of sheep. Nothing could possibly stop me right now.

1130 hours: I get to class and my professor kindly asks me to put a mask on. I’m flabbergasted. The audacity. My mind buffers as I try to come up with a clever response. I fumble over my words, eventually spewing out a half-hearted, “I forgot it.” Welp. The professor frowns and turns around to start the lesson. My god, I’ve got him. I remain the trailblazer of liberty. My introspective celebrations are interrupted by an all-too-helpful classmate a row behind me, saying, “Hey, I have an extra mask you can borrow.” My expression becomes blank. The rest of the class, including the now irritated professor stares intently at the prospective transaction. I slowly turn around in my seat, taking the mask followed by a defeated “thanks.” He nods cheerfully in response. I sigh into my mask fogging up my (blue-light) glasses and slump down in my chair. The revolution shall live on.