With cases of deaths from covid raising each day, people start to wonder wether a cure or vaccine will be developed. Especially with school starting back up around the corner, parents start to also wonder if teaching will return to in person or stay virtual. The county soon announced that teaching will stay virtual. When becoming a senior, I did not think that I would spend the year online and not able to experience what other seniors before me did. This being my first time doing virtual learning, It was difficult for me to get used to since I did not use computers much but sooner or later I was able to figure out how to use it. Having friends in the same class also helped a lot because they were able to help me with any questions I had.

Although the first semester was difficult to adapt to the second semester was easier. Being able to wake up a couple minutes before class started was such a great thing. I could wake up, join the class meeting noting having to worry about the teacher or the other students seeing me, and sometimes go back to sleep if I was too tired. With the semester coming to an end, me and my friends started talking about graduation and it would be done since it’s an important part of every high schooler. The school would soon decide that they will be doing an in person graduation with every attendance wearing a mask. The week during the graduation we were required to come back to the school to receive our award and practice for the actual graduation. Going back to school and being able to see friends I haven’t seen in a while was great.

When graduation came, I felt proud of myself for making it this far. Being the first person in my family to graduate high school and move onto college during a worldwide pendamic, I felt that I had made my parents proud. Walking across the stage and receiving my diploma was sort of embarrassing since I’m a shy person with many people watching but I was also excited and happy. During the summer I spent a lot of it working my first job with my dad. Working almost everyday of the week, it felt like summer went by super fast and next thing I know I was applying for college. Now here I am, not knowing whaat will happen next and just hoping the pandemic will be over soon.

Things have become a lot better ever since the start of the pandemic during the first months of 2020. Today, there are vaccines and treatments for symptoms. The streets are busy again and schools are opened again. Some bad came with the pandemic like Asian hate. Many Asians were attacked or harassed because they were blamed for the cause of the disease. I’m Asian so it kind of heated me seeing footages of elderly and vulnerable Asians being attacked and harassed. Some were even killed. I also experienced racism at my current job. I work at Panda Express now. A lady got mad because she had to wait long and said, “yall brought the disease and now you’re making our food. I don’t know what she expected at a restaurant that’s Chinese. Some good things that came from this time was people coming together and supporting each other. People also learned new habits. 

There are many lessons that I can learn from this period. The most important I learned was that not everything is gonna go as I planned. I was disappointed a lot during this time. I also experienced some depression that taught me how to deal with it now. I learned about the nature and behavior of some people. It really surprised me experiencing new emotions and situations. I will carry with me the lessons I learn forward. I have become a bit more mature. I try to learn new stuff and improve myself now. I will do things differently now by not thinking about things much and take every opportunity I have. I will be more grateful for things that I have and for my friends that are real. I will apply the lessons I learn to do things differently now. 

 

I don’t really have a clear memory of March 2020. Some of the things that I remember was that school was changed to online classes instead of in person. I lost the ability to go to some places like malls and stores for shopping for accessories. I wasn’t feeling down or anything. I was more of an introvert so it was kind of good for me. The only thing I did not like about was that I couldn’t go play soccer. I couldn’t see my new friends that I just made starting of that year anymore too. I remember texting those friends joking about covid 19. Many people were panic shopping for water, toilet papers, and other essentials. I was working at a grocery store so I saw that in person. People were stacking full two or even three carts full of supplies.

There were some things that kept me comfort through the pandemic as it leaned toward summer. I had friends that I texted everyday. Mostly every second. I did not worry about much. There were tik tok trends created because of all the bored people in lockdown. I sometime go with my friends to the soccer field to play soccer. I was also gaming alot and watching anime. A lot of shows was canceled though because of lockdown. Summer soon came but it was terrible. I had covid for about 2 whole months. I had symptoms for a whole month. I had diarrhea for a whole month. Fever and cold both at the same time during the first 1 or 2 week. I could still taste and eat food though. That was the plus.

The last thing I remember before worrying about the pandemic event is my last baseball game. This last game was the most important game of the year. It was the game that would qualify us to be in the playoffs. Which caused everyone to panic. Panic to the point where everything started to go wrong. People were leaving their equipment at the school, and people were throwing up in the back of the bus. When we got to the game we started off winning but things went downhill as the game progressed.  That loss caused us to lose all hope in ourselves. We had worked so hard to get where we were now, just to lose before the biggest moments of our lives. Everyone on the field that day went through an emotional breakdown. Looking around, I saw tears and snot coming down from my teammates. My coach threw down his hat and clipboard forcefully with anger. It’s like I could have seen the smoke fuming from his ears like it was a cartoon. I looked at the other dugout, heard laughter, and saw smiles across their faces. Seeing that made me so angry and frustrated. Knowing that everything rode on that game, and we were not able to pull through, was the worst feeling. Since I was the only one on my team that was not on an emotional roller coaster, I knew I had to say something. “Aye, Aye I do not understand what y’all crying for. What is that going to do for us? We did not work this hard to give up. Obstacles are going to come whether you want them to or not, it all depends on how we deal with them. On this team we do not give up, we are going overcome this setback and work even harder,” I said passionately. “What we are going to do!!,” I yelled. “WORK HARDER,” they screamed back. I looked around to see if everyone was ok and all eyes were on me. “Get up! All hands in!” Everyone got up slowly. “On my count, hard work, 1 2 3.” “HARD WORK,” screamed my teammates. I looked at my coach and I could see the smoke from his ears fade away. He gave me a nod and looked away. I packed my things up and headed to the car that my whole family was sitting in. The whole ride was quiet. I roll down the window just to break the silence. I stare up into the blue cloudy sky and thought “Next year will be the best baseball season the school has ever seen.” I packed my things up and headed to the car that my whole family was sitting in. The whole ride was quiet. I roll down the window just to break the silence. I go on my phone to go to Instagram and the first thing I see is the Corona Virus is spreading. My teachers and friends always told me that it was going to spread and it was going to get bad, but I never really listened. Schools were closing and some of the businesses that I go to were closing down.  

From 2020 up until now, everything has unfolded into a weird enigma. Vaccine developments and studies with Pzier, Johnson and Johnson, and  Maderna. It was like watching 3 toddlers fight over a trophy for recognition versus actually trying to make a difference …which is both humiliating and hilarious. One of my biggest accomplishments was to participate in the BLM movement during the pandemic

. It was exhilarating, inspiring and something I will never forget. I can still hear every chanting together, walking side by side with a poster in hand in unison. People were willing to raise their voices for the black community and I am honored to be one of the many that day.  

. It was exhilarating, inspiring and something I will never forget. I can still hear every chanting together, walking side by side with a poster in hand in unison. People were willing to raise their voices for the black community and I am honored to be one of the many that day.  

One of the major conflicts that developed in my life was catching covid in 2021. It was very scary. When I first caught Covid it really put me in shock, I was scared and afraid, and with me having a history of asthma. I definitely wasn’t sure how my body would manage the virus. My whole body felt drained, hallowed, painful, and sensitive to almost everything. There were even moments that weren’t able to open my eyes without my migraines getting worse. 

It’s defiantly not a fun experience, but what was fun was testing out my lack of taste from Covid. I tried eating several things such as ranch, ice cream, onions, garlic, and even wasabi. When I tried eating garlic I could feel the spice-like feeling override my senses and the same could be applied with other spiced foods. When I ate bitter foods, it felt an odd tingly base sensation around the base of my tongue.

 I defiantly enjoyed having my mini science experiment!  In a way, that little experiment started a new wave for me.

 

I wanted to expand my life experiences and try things that I probably wouldn’t. For instance this month I got my septum pierced when I was always too afraid to get it. 

I started going out to new places, trying new foods,  became open to expressing myself more, and overall just trying to live my life to my standards. I think I learned to just live myself through that one moment. I didn’t think I was going to pull through, but I did. And I will always be grateful for that. The greatest lesson that I learned from all this was to live and just enjoy everything. You never know when the worst will happen or when things will change. Of course, the second lesson would be to always be careful with your health and take precautions with everything around you.  And that I can live with. 

My last memory before the pandemic outbreak was being in my physics class ready to go home. Other students in the class were joking about the decease because it has yet speeded throughout the world, I just laughed along because I personally wasn’t worried about it or think would spread throughout the world in such little days. My teacher announced to the class that we won’t be coming to school on the first day on next week. I didn’t think much of it and just thought we had an extra day added to our weekend, little did I know it would be the last day physically being in school. I did not pay attention to any news or story about the decease already spreading to the United States either.

Thinking that I would be returning to school soon I was stressed because I had not completed any of the assignments, I then started asking around for help. My problem was soon resolved when the school and county announced that classes would be moved to online until further notice for us safety and the others. With the pandemic getting worser each day, we were required to be quarantined and not go out unless necessary. Not being able to go out, my video game and my phone was the only thing that kept me entertain. One of the thing I did a lot during quarantine was play a new game called Warzone. Still not really worried about the pandemic, me and my friends would still hang out not having a clue that the pandemic just gets worse each day passes.

After the first few months of isolation in COVID, new mandates requiring masks whenever we’re out in public gave us a small glimpse of our old life. By the end of 2020, my family had integrated a new schedule in our life of the pandemic; mornings are the same, but we now wear a mask before preparing to go out, never taking it off for a moment. Anytime we touch a door, a wall, or any object in public, we’d have a small bottle of hand sanitizer to use to clean our hands immediately. Doing this so often, eventually the strong and somewhat burning scent of hand sanitizer on my hands was comforting in a way, especially when out in public. Whenever we got home, we’d always take a shower right away as one more safety precaution against COVID. Anytime we bought anything as simple as groceries, the packaging that they were in would be washed with soap or water wiped down with wet wipes. For my family, we’d integrated these new steps for doing the most mundane things into our life and we’d continue doing them for the entire pandemic.
While my family got used to our new life with COVID, the virus had a trick up its sleeve. I remember playing a viral game back in 2012 named Plague Inc. in which you play as a disease attempting to wipe out humanity. There were different types of diseases you could play as such as bacteria, parasites, or of course the virus. The most notable thing that made viruses stand out in the game was their ability to randomly mutate more often than the other diseases. Just like the game, the COVID virus mutated in late 2020, with the new variant being named Delta. New fear emerged as the Delta variant was rumored to be more fatal and dangerous than the first variant, now being named Alpha, but the Delta was supposedly less contagious than Alpha. Regardless, paranoia quickly ran through me because just like that game, I knew it was just going to mutate once and be done. Even though my family was more less the same before the Delta variant came, I still ran extreme dread.
By now the first vaccines for COVID came out but due to work my family, mainly my mom and I, weren’t able to get the vaccines yet. However, my dad was able to get all 3 shots by mid 2021. By November of 2021, both my mom and I took the vaccines to better increase our chances to survive should COVID infect us. However, things got worse by December of 2021 when COVID mutated once again, with the new Omicron variant. Though rumored to be less dangerous than Delta, it was more contagious and still was lethal to the older and more ill of our population. Eventually my fears would be justified when my dad caught COVID. Panic and paranoia ran through me for days hoping my dad would be fine, and luckily he was able to leave the hospital without having to visit the ICU. Since my dad lived elsewhere, my mom and I didn’t get COVID. Now here we are today, where COVID cases in the U.S. have no dropped very much since its introduction, and the pandemic raging on.

The sun was shining as bright as it had been for years, trees and flowers were beginning their pollination season again, and the birds and bugs that roamed near my home continued to scurry and fly as if nothing had changed. However, a lot changed for our society; COVID had found its way onto the U.S. and spread rapidly like a wildfire in dry grass. In wake of the virus, schools closed immediately and all students and teachers had to move to digital work. Unfortunately for my school, this sudden change in our environment was tough for a lot of students because we were used to being face to face, not face to screen. The days of sitting on a desk, writing down notes in front of a teacher had ended for that semester of school. In its place, we learned behind a screen as teachers worked quickly to convert all their planned lesson into digital lessons. In the case some students had no internet access, there were places students could go where free computer and internet access was allowed, but I never had to use them.
Going outside just to get groceries was like Russian roulette during these times because you were potentially gambling for your life with the virus being anywhere, but you aren’t able to see this invisible killer until it already has its hold on you. I didn’t understand a lot of the virus during its early stage but I understood one thing: it wasn’t something to play with. I was still young and the virus was only dangerous to the older population was, but that’s what I worried most about. Much of my family is fairly old with my grandfather being diabetic, which is what scared me most about the virus. If I caught it, I could potentially spread it to other family members. Luckily, the government began mandating masks and preventing parties that consisted of too many people. Some people may have hated this sudden change in environment, but to others like me, it meant the government realized that the virus needs to controlled before it claimed the lives of millions. The pandemic had started, and now the world was racing to combat it.

My covid experience in March was a mixture of anxiety, disappointment, and placement of new directions.

When states started to shut down on March 15, things did shift in an interesting way. Minus the mask mandate and social uprising with personal opinions and false narratives. I noticed changes in myself. I started to become more and more reserved with everyone and everything due to Covid.  I remember watching the news almost daily in fear of the worst. The numbers fluctuate and grow like a massive pulse. It was terrifying. I felt like I was losing part of my sanity. 

I watched with disgust as people started to turn on one another AND GREATLY EMBARRASS themselves to degrees I did not think was possible. Between people hogging toilet paper and hand sanitizer, people screaming at each other over social distancing, and people once again claiming that the virus was fake news. I seriously thought I was on a global reality show. People completely lost their minds. I think a part of the little hope I had for humanity died a little during this time.

I still had hope that things would get turned around and things would go back to normal. Of course, that little dream did not work out. So, why not try to enjoy the little situation I was involuntarily placed in? With time I started to reflect on myself and my direction in life. I started to enjoy myself more at home, went out occasionally for self date nights or for personal outings. I remember a specific moment in May when I had a self-care day after a difficult week and went to Jeju Spa in Atlanta. It was my first time going there and I was really blown away by how great it was.  Each individual room had a different purpose and set characteristics such as the charcoal room for “detox” purposes, and another room had gold-like plating around the small hut-like room.  It was nice.

I first started realizing things were bad when we didn’t have school. School being canceled was a shocking (also happy) thing to happen. This was March 13, 2020. Everything past this point was different. It wasn’t good or bad, just different. Just to go to the grocery store, everyone had to wear a medical face mask. Not even just the grocery store. Going outside in public places with more than a few people, going to restaurants, or entertainment places. All of these required a mask to be worn. At first, it was very suffocating but after 2 years of wearing them, you barely notice. During the peak of the pandemic, March and April of 2020, places were starting to close down. Some of my favorite resturants and areas to hang out, like parks, just weren’t open anymore. At some point, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) advised not to go out in groups of people. This is when quarantine happened. People couldn’t leave their house unless going to the grocery store or getting basic needs. I felt so isolated during this time. Of course, I have my mom and aunt who I lived with but I couldn’t see my friends. Socializing is a big thing I need and without seeing people I didn’t know what to do. I had recently quit gymnastics when quarantine happened, but I was regretting it deeply. My sleep schedule in the spring and summer started to get very unhealthy. I would watch tv shows all night, as last at 5 am and then wake up well into the afternoon the next day, 2 pm.

Many things during this time were depressing, but I picked up new interest since I had so much free time. I started to watch a lot of television. I just got into anime and was watching about 1 show a day. There are so many genres that I just couldn’t get bored. I would listen to music every second of every day; Hip Hop, Pop, R&B, and KPOP. I discovered Kpop during this time as well. This genre was just so fun because of the many sounds used and different languages. When watching the music videos, pops of vibrant colors were everywhere as well as amazing dance moves. I also know that some of my friends, that I texted, never went outside or got any fresh air. Unlike them, I still had a dog that I had to walk at least three times a day. Going outside during the summer was a good getaway from the boring indoors. The yellow sun burned down on my skin and felt as if it was close to the Earth. For some reason, last summer felt like the hottest summer I’ve ever experienced.