Over the past year, I learned to live with the situation, I learned to live with wearing a mask everywhere I go, I learned to social distance from people outside of my house. But by the end of 2020, when I thought the situation was getting better, I and my family got covid. It was an awful experience. We were worried, especially about my nephews and nieces, they also got it. Thankfully, we recovered, we did not have to go to the hospital. We cured. Of course, everything has changed, nothing is the same anymore. We went virtual and going virtual was good for me because I am an introvert and staying inside is something I like. I learned so many tips on the computer I did not know before. Many good things have come like new skills. I learn how to bake, braid my hair, and drive. Also, at that moment I started taking more pictures and videos. I realized that’s something I enjoy.

This time period taught me a lot about spending time with people closer to me. Many people lost their loved ones during that period and if they could have only one chance to spend time with them, they would. So now, I enjoy spending time with my family. Even with people (love one) far from me. It also taught me how to manage my time well. How to be more responsible. Something different that I might do is wear a mask wherever I go, social distance from people, be mindful of other people.  

  When 2021 began, I started to have the feeling things would get better.  Covid vaccines started to get distributed.  I got my first dose on March 15 and my second dose on April 7.  On April 18 and 19, I got to celebrate my little sister’s fourth birthday with a few of her friends.  I also didn’t have to wear a mask at the party.

  On May 14, I got to meet up with one of my friends at a dance for the high school we graduated from.  I was so happy to see her again after over a year.  We had a fun time at the dance.  We met up again on May 25 at a high school graduation for a few other friends.  I also got to go to another friend’s graduation party, and it was a lot of fun.

  On June 1, I went with my mom and my brother to Red Top Mountain in Acworth.  We were there from June 1 to 3.  We walked on a trail.  On June 5, I got to reunite with my friends at a Mellow Mushroom in Roswell.  It was great to catch up with my friends.  On June 11, I had a job interview at Dollar Tree and I got a job as a cashier.  I started working on June 18, and I’ve been earning a lot of money.  June 26 was my 22nd birthday.  I had a birthday party at the swimming pool.  I got to spend time with some of my friends that day, and it was fun!

  On July 14, I met up with a few friends at a swimming pool and it was a lot of fun!  On July 26, I went with my mom and my brother to Oakland, Maine.  We were there from July 26 to 31.  I got to see my grandmother, my cousins, and my uncles.  We did some swimming in the backyard pool, we watched the Tokyolympics, and we went to a minigolf course.

  On December 26, we went to Dallas, Texas.  I got to see my grandmother, my uncle, my cousins, and their lovers.  We stayed at a rental house.  The house had a pool, a hot tub, a game room with a pool table, and a music room.

  I learned that I should wear a mask when I go to a public place, wash my hands often, and social distance from anyone who has not yet been vaccinated.

  In conclusion, 2021 was better than 2020.

Over the past year starting from March 2020. The world feel more normal before we even thought about a lockdown. Around 2020, I found out that  not everybody is your friend.  Through  the course of the lockdown I wondered who I will hang out with every day. Despite me not having a lot of friends in the neighborhood, it didn’t bother me as much but I was a little curious on who I hang out with. During the course of the months, I found out social media was a huge distraction. Through the lockdown, there was times that were boring and we just go on social media and see what our friends or others are doing. Throughout 2021, I found out that I have a bunch of hobbies and interest in life then I expect it. I always thought I could do one thing but then I learned that I love multiple things. When I stop playing video games on January 14, 2021. I thought I’d be super depressed. I learned that it actually make me happier. Presently, I’m balancing out everything from social media to reflection to work. I think going forward I will always balance on my work, my free time, and alone time. I also worked on during the 2021 PHASE that my ego was bad and I needed to be changed. The lockdown and social media made me look at the world differently. I saw the changes, accepted it, & worked on myself. I think the lockdown was a great thing to me, but also harmed others bad.

 

 

 

 

 

The month of March 2020… Everything was shut down. I could not go out, go to church, neither go to school nor meet with friends… It was frustrating and annoying. It was something new and people were dying all over the world. I was worried that I or a member of my family would get it and, worse, die. I would always check if I were sick or not. My family prepared ahead of time. We brought everything we might need in case things run out in stores. We brought cereals, milk, rice, water bottles… One of my sisters was a nurse at the time, she would always tell us how cases were rising at the hospital. She had to wear a mask all day and wash her hands all the time.   

 

 

What comforted me was my relationship with Jesus. I got closer to Him during that period. I read the bible to make me calm about the situation. I did not watch any tv shows or movies on Netflix at that time. Yet, I would always be on my phone, talking to my friends and family. I would watch funny videos on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Tiktok. This is how I spent most of my days. As we could not go anywhere, I had to spend time with my family. We did a lot of activities together like walking on the street (we would wake up in the morning and go for a walk in the neighborhood), we played board games, we talked a lot. At that time, I was so bored that I almost tried everything. I would do my hair every week, do my nails. I did a lot of baking too. I baked cake, crepes… I also learned how to braid my hair and other people’s hair. I read somehow cartoons like Webtoon and Episode on my phone.

Blog Post #3

English Composition I

Tony Moore

 

 

I don’t remember March 2020 vividly, but the events months after caused terrible experiences. I knew to start taking the virus seriously when my mom went to the grocery store every day to make sure my little brother and I had enough food and supplies we needed to prepare for quarantine. I didn’t believe things could get affected quickly and thought everything would be fine in a couple of months; who knew we would still deal with Covid years later? Everything around me started changing from being forced to stay in the house to doing school online. Those days were the worst because I’m a terrible virtual learner. When my grades started to slip, that’s when I was worried the most. I had to worry about that, but I also had to worry about the upcoming football season and how Covid was going to affect it. I’ve always been tough tho’ so, I didn’t let these tragic events take a toll on me, but they definitely had me stuck in certain situations. I felt like everyone around me was panicking; my mom would freak out if I didn’t wear a mask to certain places or if I didn’t wash my hands before I touched something. I think what scared her the most was the news; her seeing thousands of people die weekly really freaked her out. It seemed like it was all she would talk about during those times.

When Spring turned into Summer in 2020, the main thing I set on was preparing for the football season. I didn’t care what rules or regulations Covid had implicated; I just knew that I wanted to be playing on that field on Friday nights. When I wasn’t focusing on football or working out, the main thing that kept me entertained was taking care of my 3-year-old brother and playing video games. I also loved binge-watching shows all week throughout the summer; it seemed to keep the time flying by considering that I wasn’t allowed to leave the house most of the time.

 

BLOG POST#4 pt three

Today we are still in this pandemic from 2020 to 2021, and now things have changed so much. At first, in 2020, everything was closed down. We were locked down for a while; restaurants, schools, clubs, airports, etc., were closed down to the public. We were doing school online; everything was virtual court meetings, church sessions, classes, etc. During this time, I learned many new things like eating and baking. After all, I had to know because I was home and I could go outside much at first. As time went by, they reopened schools. You could come to school in person, or you could finish online. Courts were still on zoom meetings. They came out with the vaccine to help fight against the virus if you caught it. Many places require you to be vaccinated, as health care workers must, and traveling out of states, you must be vaccinated.

To get on a flight, you must have been vaccinated or tested negative for covid 19. Today things have reopened with mask-required signs for entry. When we returned to school, things were strict; we had to walk only one way to class and go up and down the stairs one-way shopping. We still must wear masks, but some people don’t enforce the overcapacity rule much longer. We are wearing masks and practicing social distancing. Some people don’t even wear masks. Some people never did because of the belief. Many have seemed to go back to regular living without wearing masks, and more people are now coming back outside. Then some people are still being cautious with this by still wearing masks and face coverings out in public, shopping, work, and school. Hence, there is still some positivity in this; we live life somewhat normally again but with masks and hand sanitizer. I learned many lessons from this. To be cautious. Keep my hands washed. Use hand sanitizer after touching things like the gas pump, keeping everything disinfected with disinfection spray, keeping everything clean, making sure the kids keep their hands washed and ut their mouths, and practicing social distancing. We should continue to prevent the spread of any virus..now it’s a new virus out named omicron variant. They did even know much about it yet. It’s very frustrating because we don’t know what is happening or how dangerous this new virus is. other than that, we are somewhat back to living a regular life, still wearing face-covering and social distancing.

I, as an introvert, found the idea of two weeks of not going anywhere quite appealing. When the government put the whole country in lockdown I was rather excited. All of my friends were bored and done after the first week, and really, I just didn’t understand. As a homeschooler (and in one of those weird homeschooler families that actually didn’t do much outside the house) I didn’t have to move online for school. I got to just be at home, do my normal school, and never had to think, “Oh yeah, we have to go to such-and-such place today.” As an added bonus, my (adored) aunt had to stay in our basement the whole time because she couldn’t get back to her home in China after the whole country shut down while she was traveling for Chinese New Year. It was fun having her there for so long. She retaught me how to knit, and I would go down to sit and knit with her while we watched things or just talked. It was one of my favorite parts of the year.

But not going anywhere did (eventually) affect me, because, for all of you reading this in a hundred years, outside interactions are important. I was in a big house, with seven other people, so there were people around if I needed a hug, and there were places to escape to when my siblings got too noisy. But I started to miss outside interactions, though I didn’t really realize it till we started going back to church a while later. Even walking into a big sanctuary that only had twenty other people in it, I could feel the difference between worshiping separately and worshiping together. I think Covid has made me actually appreciate the social interactions that before I had just taken for granted.

We spent a lot of time at the pool that summer. It was easy to forget everything happening while I was there, because I was used to there not being many people there, so spending the afternoon with the pool completely to ourselves felt normal. For a little while, I could just relax under the water, floating, in the calm silence. I loved to just lay there, limp and peaceful for as long as I could hold my breath, then stick my head up for a breath of air and go back down. The quiet was my favorite part. With four younger siblings that’s a bit of a commodity.

When I was cold I would swim around fast to warm up, or play games with my siblings. Often, when I was done drifting, I would swim down as fast as I could, then push myself off the bottom to

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out of the water. 

blog post#3 pt two:

In March 2020, I remembered being in school in my first-period health science class doing an assignment on preventing the spread of covid. I was working at Zaxby’s, a fast-food restaurant in Florida, things started changing radically; restaurants were closed for inside dining for a while, but the drive-through was open a lot of places were to go only. Playing sports was difficult, especially for student-athletes. We couldn’t play and get highlights. We couldn’t do what we love. We could work out by going to the gym either the pandemic was that bad. Academically, we weren’t getting that classroom time we needed to our teacher in person, like hands-on things.
Even some people found it difficult to pass their classes. Even some people had trouble focusing on school when so much was happening around them. Many families lost loved ones due to covid 19. many people still had to be quarantined for 14 days after traveling. Some people had to stay away from their elderly family members so they wouldn’t bring them into contact with the virus, and some people couldn’t even see their families because they had the virus. Some people were getting sick and couldn’t come in for work. So, the business was short of staff we could be outside. I feel like something or someone is trying to control the world dangerously, and it’s unnecessary. Going out in public is not the same. We have to wear masks because every store has face-covering required for entry policy it working so far. Still, it’s scary because wearing a mask does really stop you from catching it, but it does help you prevent the spread when visiting someone in the hospital. Even doctors always wear masks for protection. Everyone was shopping for the same things, which caused a shortage of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, disinfection spray, even masks. If your mom is anything like mine, you know, scared of everything and believing everything the news says. My mom was afraid of us leaving the house and returning to bring germs to my baby brother; she got a face-covering required sign on the front door. She even has the hand sanitizer dispensers around the house on the walls. So imagine just going to school one day talking about how to prevent the spread of the virus to doing school online from home in the middle of the year because of the virus. The cases were getting outrageous. Everybody was quarantining everybody has to be cautious going out in public and practice. Continue to practice social distancing staying 6 feet apart, listening to music, and doing school work. I watched Netflix series like Jane the virgin money heist, just things trending on social media. I even started looking at college because, at first, I was thinking about joining the military. Still, this pandemic made me want to become a doctor or nurse in the medical field to help prevent future viruses.

My name is Ahdeshia. When it comes to my interests I’m kind of bipolar, one day i like something and the next day I don’t. Some of the more consistent interests include movies, cooking, and video games. I am a HUGE movie buff when it comes to horror films; I have watched every horror movie you can think of. My favorite horror movie is “IT”. Next, I enjoy cooking for others and seeing their whole face light up when they taste my food. When I’m cooking all my anxiety and worries seen to go away in that moment. My favorite dish that I’ve cooked so far I don’t have a name for it yet but it’s rotini noodles with sautéed mushrooms, spinach, red onions and garlic. Lastly video games, I don’t own a console YET but in the meantime I watch youtubers and other gamers play the games that I’m hoping to play one day. I do play Call of Duty mobile on my phone so that’s progress. 

My goals right now are to finish up college with good grades. I slipped up a little bit when I didn’t go to any classes for a whole week but I can most definitely bounce back and succeed. My career goals are to work as a nurse for Emory. I love helping people and showing my caring side so being a nurse I feel like is a great career choice for me. Later down the rode I plan to join the air force in the medical field. 

The last social experience that I had before I started worrying about the pandemic was going out shopping and getting ready for prom with my friends. My friends and I were on the way home from school in one of my friends car who was the only one driving at that time. It was afternoon during mid February. We went to different stores and malls looking for suits for prom. There were 4 of us total. We were listening to Roddy Rich’s high fashion when it had just came out. We were watching tiktok while it was starting to get very popular that time. Everything was chill and relaxing.

The virus was developing around the world during December 2019 and January 2020, but most of the people in the United States were not that worried about it. I heard about covid on the news but never worried about it. I thought it would be like Ebola and that it will just go away. I actually thought of it as a joke. Little did I know it would ruin my junior and senior year. We were halfway through the week when they just closed the school. I was happy because that means I got to play Fortnite all day. I also just started working that time. Everything was starting to get stressful for me. It was alot to take in with what was happening around me at work, school, and my friends. Everything felt gloomy depressing.