I have been at MSMS for over a year now and I came her for the exceptional learning experience and the opportunities that came along with coming here. In learning, becoming active in different communities, joining clubs, and participating in all the MSMS traditions but I still need time for myself.

It’s nice to come to my room after being at the library for the umpteenth hour finishing homework, projects, or papers and just relaxing. One of my favorite ways to relax after a long day of work is to watch a movie or my favorite television show. Being here at MSMS prevents me from watching shows on an actual television considering the condition of the televisions on each of the floors and that, if the televisions did work, it would disturb someone else who hasn’t finished their homework.

To combat this deprivation of media from the outside world beyond the gates of the MUW campus I use my trusted computer. I understand that when using things like Netflix, which is blocked for everyone, or Hulu, which apparently is only blocked for me, students can overuse these movie watching sites and prioritize an episode of “Riverdale” over studying for a Chem test. That’s why I limited my show watching to only the weekends. Also MSMS’s servers are not strong enough to support everyone watching Netflix at the same time.

One day after being in my room on a weekend after I had just finished all of my homework I decided I was going to reward myself for finishing my homework by watching an episode of “America’s Next Top Model” and going to bed after.

Upon typing Hulu into my search browser I found that after I clicked enter on my keyboard the page went to the “Safari Can’t Open Page” site, and at first I thought I typed in something different by accident, so I tried again and the same thing occurred the second time. I turned around to my roommate and asked if Hulu was blocked because the internet does go out often and I didn’t know if it was my connection or not. She told me it wasn’t so I checked my connection and found nothing out of the ordinary there. Even so I thought it was just a bad connection or something so I just went to bed.

Then the next day I wanted to check if Hulu still wasn’t working so after I came from brunch I wanted to watch “America’s Next Top Model,” so I tried it again and it said the exact same thing and then I came to the conclusion that this site was only blocked for me after telling several people about the situation. I don’t officially know if Hulu is blocked for me but from what I can see that’s what it seems like. I don’t really know what’s going except for the fact that Hulu doesn’t work for me.

Show-watching sites are not the only things used to enjoy life. Video games are another way to combat stress or chill after doing work, but some students overuse this outlet as well. Some students play their games until the wee hours in the morning on school nights as opposed to me who only watches Hulu, before it was supposedly blocked, on the weekends. I think, if my Hulu is blocked, it’s unfair for people like me, who only find pleasure in television shows than video games, should suffer. We need some way of getting our mind off the work we have to do and if we can’t do that then it could cause serious issues.

With no access to the outside world beyond the gates of the MUW campus, MSMS is a prison. There is more to us students than our grades and constant studying. We do need down time and if one of the ways we get our down time is by watching a couple of shows or a movie then we should have that. We are the number six public school in the nation and it’s not because we don’t watch Hulu or Netflix; it’s because we’re smart and we get better and better as a school as time goes on.

I went to a summer camp on a private high school’s campus called Phillips Exeter Academy and just like MSMS they have an ABC type schedule, rigorous courses, it’s residential, and they have different clubs and activities that you could participate in. Unlike MSMS, this high school did not block Netflix or Hulu, and they are ranked the number three best college-prep private high school in the nation.

I’m not saying because that high school doesn’t have Netflix or Hulu blocked they are smarter or more evolved. My point is Netflix and Hulu have no real reason to be blocked, besides our not-so-strong internet service, because we’re watching it anyway and we’re still number six in the nation. There could be a number of reasons my Hulu page doesn’t work, but right now I believe it doesn’t work because it is blocked. I don’t have much evidence besides the fact that when I go to the website it redirects to a “blocked site” type screen. If my Hulu is blocked and everyone else’s isn’t then that’s a problem that needs to be fixed.

Honestly I feel it is unfair that I’m the only one with Hulu blocked which means the only way for me to watch something to keep me sane is to turn to YouTube, which is harder to refrain from clicking from video to video. I just think if you block something for one person you should do it for all people for the sake of fairness but like I stated before, it’s pointless to block these outlets because there is absolutely no reason for it. These websites are not preventing us from being number one in the nation it’s the fact that we think it is.