An illustration of Janet's profile. She has light skin, long black hair and is wearing a green, textured jacket with a black shirt and silver necklace underneath.

another day of spring by Janet G. '27

when canvas went down and i fell prey to overcommitment (again)

This Thursday, as many Thursdays go, felt like another day in the deceptively beautiful Boston Spring. Even though I woke up at 1pm (and immediately had to get ready for a meeting) and was running on 5 hours of sleep (as usual), the view outside my window looked picturesque with blue skies and shimmering waters.

A view of the Charles River taken through a window screen. The bright blue water is visible between lush green trees. In the distance, a rowing crew can be seen in a long shell on the river. A red car is driving on the road (Memorial Drive) that runs alongside the riverbank. A black street lamp and a small sign are visible in the mid-ground.

Unfortunately for me, I had no time to enjoy the view and instead had to lock in on my final projects. However, in a surprising twist of fate, when I opened Canvas absentmindedly to procrastinate on my final projects, I was hit with a NEW loading screen:

A dark, terminal-style digital notice with a thin red border. The text at the top reads "SHINYHUNTERS rooting your systems since '19 ;)". The message claims that the hacking group ShinyHunters has breached Instructure again. It issues a warning that if schools don't negotiate a settlement by the end of the day on 12 May 2026, their data will be leaked. It includes a link to download an "affected_schools_list.txt" and a .onion address for their website.

I do not have a propensity for time management. I have somehow never mustered up the willpower to fix this either,⁠01 not yet, anyway... #gottadream so I was left without the grade cutoffs for my classes and grading information for my final projects. To be fair, they weren’t entirely necessary anyway, but people on Piazza and study group chats locked in and I found the information that I needed anyway.

Canvas didn’t seem to be getting back up any time soon, so I started texting all my group chats and daydreaming about the prospects of deadline extensions. ⁠02 didn't happen for my class anyway RIP which is why this post is a week later than when it actually happened The commentary was pretty great.

A
one of these messages may have been from me... shoutout MIT affirm (ellie) for making this
A digital collage or
also from @mitaffirm
A screenshot of a standard Canvas maintenance page featuring a minimalist illustration of two small robots repairing a rocket ship. The text below reads:
A screenshot of an MIT Information Systems & Technology (IS&T) web page. The header features the MIT logo and navigation links like

I did some more work, procrastinated by reading more about this cybersecurity outage, and then realised that I was feeling absolutely miserable for no reason at all. I texted a friend, Lauren Y. ‘27, and she told me that I was probably feeling sad because I hadn’t touched grass in a week and was sleeping for 4-5 hours a night. Hmm! Perhaps she was right. So instead of doing more work, I went outside for the first time that day at 5pm to go eat dinner with some friends.

A vertical outdoor shot on a bright, sunny day. The foreground shows a brick-paved walkway with several orange traffic cones. A young woman in a beige cardigan and blue jeans is walking across the path. To the right is a modern, pale green (mint-colored) building with small, irregularly placed windows. A large, leafy tree dominates the left side of the frame under a clear blue sky.
the view outside was indeed kind of lovely
An architectural photograph looking up at a large, terracotta-colored building (MIT’s Simmons Hall) under a clear blue sky. The building is famous for its
flowers! not obvious from the camera but they were lovely pink blossoms
A full-length portrait of a young woman standing on a brick-paved courtyard during a sunny day. She is wearing a light yellow zip-up hoodie, a black top, ripped blue jeans, and a white and navy New York Yankees baseball cap. Behind her is a brick residential-style building and a large green tree. Shadowy patterns from the tree fall across the pavement.
my unwilling model lauren y. '27
girl bending down to touch grass
"i haven't touched grass in so long lemme do that real quick" me

Turns out, touching grass really does boost your mood, and I got some lovely photos of dorm row glowing in the sunset. We had dinner, I skimmed a paper I was supposed to read, and then Lauren and I went for a walk and ended up sitting at one of my favourite spots on campus and listened to the My Little Pony sound track (don’t ask how we got there) (it was good though lowkey underrated). 

If this blog feels uncanny to you, it’s because this has happened before. It really goes to show how old habits die hard: somehow I still rot inside my room all day, somehow I still manage my time badly enough to be sleep deprived all the time, somehow I still need Canvas to go down to help myself heal in nature. Somehow we once again see how fragile the global internet infrastructure is.

from xkcd, as usual

~*mmmmm pretend this is a smooth segue lalala*~

But you know what else has happened before?? Me overcommitting to a project and biting off more than I can chew. That’s right, I didn’t know how to do a nice conclusion to this blog so instead I’m co-opting this blog to make a fresh new announcement: i’m doing a BLOGPROJECT!

Back in February, all the way at the start of the Spring semester, I claimed that I was going to attempt to do a joint blog with every single other active blogger at the time.

A screenshot of a Discord message from a user named Janet. The message starts with "this is not a drill" in increasing font weights. Janet declares "WAR" by announcing her goal to do a joint blog post with every single blogger this semester to "reconcile [her] parasocial relationship" with them. She invites people to reach out with hangout ideas. At the bottom, she jokingly adds, "fuck u @Kayode and @Aiden with ur fortnite fridays."

TBH i don’t know why we bought aiden into this LMAO

Part of this lore was that I had blogger beef with Kayode D. ‘27, and we were going to have a mock war/competition over this joint-bloggery.

A screenshot of a slack thread from Thursday, February 5th. A user named Kayode has replied to Janet's earlier post with a parody: "this is not a krill. this is not a krill. THIS IS NOT A KRILL." Kayode declares "WAR" on Janet, aiming to have "as many Joint Blogs as Janet +1" through a new series called Fortnite Fridays. He adds a rule that names "CANNOT rhyme with Shmanet Shm[redacted]." Below, Janet has replied: "watch your back lil bro."

Unfortunately, this was Feburary 5th; by February 28th it seemed like enough (too many) wars had probably been started this year (and also lowkey we were all extremely hosed and busy), so I gave up on the lore framing idea. However, after spring break I decided that somehow my life wasn’t busy enough and I would try to do as much of this project as possible anyway. So I decided to set off on my grand journey of texting all the bloggers last week (a grand uhhhh two weeks before school ends 💀).

A collage of several overlapping screenshots of text messages and Discord DMs, mostly from a user named Janet. The messages are various versions of Janet asking different people if they are free to "do a joint blog," "do some plotting," or "hang out for an hour and yap." The dates and times shown vary, including "3:08 AM" and "3:15 AM."

am i locked in or am i locked in

I’ll be posting the joint blogs in installments; they’ll be tagged as #janet’s jointblogathon. I’m really excited to show you all what we’ve been cooking! It’s been challenging⁠03 to fit myself into everyone’s schedules RIP but so rewarding, and regardless of the quality of the blogs—by which I mean keep your expectations low and maybe even a little lower—I’ve had a really good time writing them (aka hanging out with my fellow blogfolk) and I love the bloggers so much <3

See you very soon with the first one… stay tuned 👀

  1. not yet, anyway... #gottadream⁠ ↑
  2. didn't happen for my class anyway RIP which is why this post is a week later than when it actually happened⁠ ↑
  3. to fit myself into everyone’s schedules RIP⁠ ↑