Youtube is my frenemy. Sometimes it is my worst nightmare, but sometimes it is my life saver. Heading home after taking my English final, math equations that Mr. Curko taught during the last 9 months of school floated around my head. I imagined my ripped up binder with more than 100 pages of math problems that I accumulated throughout the entire year. With the math final the next day, I knew I had no time to waste. I had to get home and immediately start on the math problems.

When I got home it was 12:20 pm and I was glad I got home early, so that I could study for my math final. I knew that I needed to do well on the final in order to maintain my 4.0 gpa.

I stared at the binder, and hesitated to open it up. I don’t know if I was out of my mind, but I was determined to review every single problem I ever did during the whole entire year, so that I would be ready for the test. By the time I got to only the 20th page, it was already three. Then I suddenly remembered about the math final review Mr. Curko had put on his school website.

As I searched Google for Mr. Curko’s page, I saw a red notification signal of a message from my friend Lucy. Distracted by the red notification, I quickly checked it. It said: “OMG SAM! haha! You HAVE to see this!” and a Youtube link was attached to it. I clicked on the link and the video was of a cute, red panda that tumbles down on its back after getting scared by a zookeeper. I chuckled and watched it once more. Looking at the clock, I knew I had enough time to study, and I needed a break from the horrendous amount of review material.

I clicked on another video on the side of the screen titled “Dogs that don’t want to bathe.” My eyes were glued to the computer screen. Before I realized it, I was clicking on animal videos one after another like a mindless zombie.I kept telling myself to stop watching videos, but my hand kept clicking uncontrollably on the next video. I had already watched so many videos, my eyes hurt. It felt as though someone was poking them with needles. I just wanted to turn off my computer and sleep.

I looked at the time and it was already 11 pm. I couldn’t believe I had wasted more than 6 hours on Youtube! Then, suddenly I remembered my math exam at 7am the next day and started to panic. I cursed Youtube for taking away my precious time that I could never get back. My heart started to beat against my chest, and I panicked. My legs started to shake.

I opened up the review guide, and read the first question trying to calm myself down. However, even though it was just the first question, I didn’t know how to solve it. Images of myself hyperventilating during the final because I didn’t know anything came into my head. My whole body was shaking and I started to sweat. “Stupid, stupid Youtube!” I said over and over again.

I searched on Google for help; some kind of tutorial that would teach me how to solve the problem. After hours of searching, I realized Google wasn’t going to help. It was already 1 am. As I was about to give up and shut down my computer, I saw a little Youtube video thumbnail on Google. It was a video of a guy solving a math problem similar to the one on the review packet. I was a little bit scared to watch it, in case it caused me to procrastinate again. But, I didn’t have time to contemplate. The 5 minute video on how to do the problem was magical. I could feel my tense legs relaxing and my mind started to clear out as I realized the problem wasn’t that hard to solve. It felt as though 200 pounds was lifted from my shoulders. The man solving the problem did so step by step, clearly showing me how the problem should be solved. From that time on, I searched up every math concept I didn’t understand on Youtube and surprisingly it really helped me to understand and improve. The next day, I did perfectly fine on my math exam and got an A- on it. Youtube, curse you for stealing so much of my time away, but thank you for teaching me.