On February 13th, the senior class decided to hold one of their senior skip days. The thinking behind the skip day was that everyone was staying up late watching the Super Bowl, so it allowed us to sleep in and take the day for ourselves. However, I was one of the few people who didn’t stay up late to watch all of the Super Bowl, only tuning into the event to watch Rhianna’s iconic Super Bowl halftime performance.

So, I went to school the next day and sat in bare bones classes, with only a few kids in each of them. My first period class was SUPA Public Policies, which had a WHOPPING seven kids out of nineteen in the class. My teacher Mrs. Corvino declared the day a wash in terms of teaching new material with so few kids in the class, so we played games. We played a round of Hangman, guessed the Wordle for the day, etc., until we ran out of games. That is until somebody brought up a game similar to Wordle called Heardle.

Created by Spotify, Heardle is a song guessing game where you get to hear the first second of a song and try to guess the title. If you are unable to guess the song from the first second, you can add five seconds, then ten, and so on and so forth. The game, much like Wordle, only gives you one song a day, so you can’t keep playing it for hours on end, but it also means you get one shot to play it.

I never thought of myself as someone who had perfect pitch, or could guess a song based on the first note played, until playing this game. I became a master at it, guessing songs within the first second every time I heard them. I thought it may have been due to them being popular and well-known songs, but it wasn’t until “Midnight Train To Georgia” by Gladys Knight that I realized that some of these songs weren’t as well-known as I thought they were.

I had just found my secret talent.

After spending the day playing Heardles of different genres and varieties, Mrs. Corvino announced that we would be doing the Heardle every morning, just to see if someone could beat me at getting the answer quicker. That’s when everything changed.

I would arrive at my friends houses early to pick them up just so I can be on time to class to hear the Heardle. My thirty lates to the morning class quickly turned into zero all due to me wanting to be the first one there to try and guess the song of the day. It got me excited and motivated to get to class. Who knew that simply trying to guess the song of the day would help me get my act together?

The only downside to this early morning game is that it has turned into an addiction. If Mrs. Corvino isn’t there that day, then I do it on my own time. If I’m out sick, I do it when I wake up. When we had a guest speaker, I was tuned out due to the Heardle not getting me ready and focused for the day.

So, you could understand my shock when I found out that Spotify was going to shut down the site on May 5th. My class had to let me down easy that the site would no longer be there  due to Spotify putting their efforts into other music related projects.

When I walked into class that day, I knew it was over. Even though it was the end of an era, doing such a silly game in the morning made me learn new things about myself. I had a talent for guessing songs and knowing music of all kinds. And when I didn’t know a song, it opened up my musical horizons and introduced me to a plethora of new music that I wouldn’t have ever heard about before. The sight oddly enough got me into a good habit, coming to school on time and exciting me about a class with daunting research.

Thank you Senior Skip day for introducing me to my newest addiction. But a special thank you to Heardle for opening up my horizons and making me a better person.

You will be missed.