The COVID-19 Virus has been going on for more than four months now, and it has changed my lifestyle quite a bit. My usual weekend, going out with friends and walking around Singapore, has altered to staying indoor twenty-four seven. I go to the Tampines Mall for restaurants or movies, seldom shopping, and usually once a week. In other words, I don’t go out as frequently compared to many other people, and with the epidemic going on there really isn’t anything else I can do (Singapore is quite a boring place, to be honest). The school has also decided to begin our Easter holiday on March 15th instead of 25th because of the epidemic’s increasing severity. Consequently, I started to think about what I can do during the holiday.
I initially planned to use my holiday to study for the upcoming mocks, which I did (going through all those Physics and Math textbooks alongside with past papers), but I ended up doing many other things. On a daily basis, I studied around five and a half hours and hopped onto my electronic devices for the rest of the day: playing my favourite video games, organizing my photographs or files, working on my DT project, and watching Netflix or listening to Spotify. Almost everyday my friends would join me in voice chat on our Discord server (a platform developed by Skype), thus social distancing wasn’t that much of a problem for us.
However, even with a number of things to do at hand, I still got really bored on some days. Surprisingly, on those days, I find myself listening to good music continuously for a few hours. I did nothing else on those days, not even watching Money Heist (fabulous Netflix show). When I was in boredom, I listened to EDMs, for example, Legends Never Die (by League of Legends), Sail (by Awolnation) or Five Hours (by Deorro). These songs’ fast beats were able to kickstart my brain and even made me feel hyped for doing certain things: the last whole Friday I was sketching and updating my Instagram art account, and the next day I was willing to exercise after listening to Blinding Lights (by The Weeknd). On the other hand, when I was sad or depressed for no reason (maybe because of being imprisoned), I listened to music from the 2010s, which I believe were the time when most of the best songs were created. Besides those songs, the ones that really cheered me up are Safe and Sound/One Minute More (by Capital Cities), High Hopes ( by Panic at the Disco), Don’t Stop Me Now (by Queens), and many more. This is when I realize that music is a powerful emotional tool. No matter what mood or situation you’re in, music can help to ease it down. Most importantly, when you listen to music for a period of time, it tends to make you think about your past and good memories, which can bring up much positivity. This is great as people generally felt rather depressed during these quarantine days.
Lastly, there’s also another song that anyone should listen to right now: Heal The World by Michael Jackson. Not only is it a smooth and classic song, but that it also has significant power in cheering people up in this epidemic outbreak. Overall, listening to songs really helped me during my holidays, as in reducing stress and acting as a distraction away from the current situation. I believe that any song is significant and important right now because as long as it fits the person listening to it, it could be a psychologically boost.
Here’s also a link to my Spotify 2010 playlist if you would like to try it out :
