Quarantine hit like a flash. We were all dismissed from class, excited, and thinking that school was over early. That was definitely not the case. One minute I was in school, the next I was doing work from home. The first day was no challenge though, since I assume the teachers had to get everything organized for “at home” learning. Most of the first week was like that, and I could at least relax at home most of the time, playing on my Xbox or watching YouTube. Then the second week came, and with it a large amount of work. Xbox was the main way I could stay in touch and hang out with my friends. Also, my mom was already working at home when I got out, but my dad was also forced to work at home during the second week.

I never had a moment alone in the house, and with the amount of work I had the second week I barely had any free time whatsoever. I had assignment after assignment and test after test. The only good part about this second week was that every day we got takeout from a restaurant. Then the third week came with the same velocity. I was beginning to get somewhat overwhelmed with the amount of work, and some of the days that week I had to do over eight hours of work. I barely had any time to call or talk to other people. Then, the school decided to make Fridays an extra day to finish work. So, the next week was a lot easier than the last two, even to the point where it only took like three hours of one day to get the work done. Then it felt like I spent more time relaxing and hanging out with my friends on Xbox than actual school work. Then, the work went on a steady decline, getting easier and easier. After I finished a couple projects the week before, this fourth week was a piece of cake. The rest of the next month after that was fairly easy school-wise, too.

Overall, this whole situation has been quite a pain in the butt to me, and has kind of made me more depressed than usual. I had been mostly playing the same video games with my friends for the first month, but eventually I got tired of it and decided to start playing new games by myself. At first I would have joked about this whole situation so it could stay bearable, but now I feel like there isn’t anything left to joke about. Summer is here now and I don’t know what to do for it, or even what I can do. This abrupt change has led me to view the world as a place that always meddles in your life, whether it creates a good thing or bad thing, and sometimes things can come up that take complete control over your life. In the end, the only thing you can do is look forward to the future by moving on once it ends. Still, moving past this hardship we face currently is hard for me because it seems to just perpetuate longer and longer. I know I should just be looking toward what I can do when this whole pandemic is said and done, but it is still difficult to do so because to me it seems like there is no end in sight.

I decided to try some new things to keep me interested during the pandemic. I had Taco Bell for the first time, and I have to say it tasted great. The only book I read during the quarantine was the one you assigned us, Mr. Hilbert, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and found it very interesting until the very end. In this situation right now I kind of feel like I’m in the shoes of Sheriff Bell, who didn’t really have a chance to do much to help Moss or his wife CJ. Right now we don’t have much chance to do anything outside of our homes. But like Bell, we need to learn to move on and look toward the future. Misfortune will always hit at the most unexpected times, and many of these times we can’t change what’s going to happen. All we can do is accept the change and move forward.