Monday morning, a non-MCPS school day where students could catch up on missing assignments and get their grades up right before the quarter ends, was met with a big rocket as the focal point of the Canvas screen. Who is to blame for this stolen workday?

A nationwide Amazon Web Services outage on Monday, October 20, caused a myriad of applications and websites to temporarily shut down, affecting students and teachers alike. This abrupt outage was met with confusion, frustration, panic, and joy, truly an embodiment of the seven stages of grief. Whether you immediately hopped on Roblox or emailed your teachers for extensions, the great Canvas shutdown forced the nation to pause its educational endeavors and made time for personal reflection.

Canvas stopped, but assignments didn’t. Though some teachers have extended due dates on assignments due on the day of the outage, other classes have not been as fortunate. To those unfortunate students, best of luck. You have a week and a half to lock in, or until whenever the deadline approaches, whichever comes first!