With the quarantine law in place, the first thing I did was I made a list of things I could do during this time if I get bored – it consists of three columns, things that let’s me be creative, things that keeps me healthy, and things that helps me keep social contact.
Being someone who spends a lot of time outside with friends and family, doing some kind of activities and just building relationships, it has been quite difficult having such a drastic change in my life. With us being in lockdown, my first priority went to keeping myself healhty – I make sure to exercise daily, and try to motivate myself to run at least 3-4 times a week. Some weeks, it’s been easy to get myself motivated and stick to a workout routine – other days I focused more on school work or tried something new to put some excitement back in my life. I’ve been trying countless of workout videos I find all over the internet, and also run/cycle new routes as much as I can because I am someone who constantly need a change in my life.
Some things I added in my list of creative things to do includes drawing more frequently and learn how to draw specific things – for example in the first week, I practiced a lot on drawing a nice rose. I used lots of inspirations on the internet to draw japanese art on branded paper bags, which allowed me to recycle something into an artwork which was fun. I’m proud of myself for picking up this hobby again because when I see the end product, it’s a physical evidence of something I can be proud of – which leads to how I have been focusing a lot on improving my self-confidence and doing things that allows me to feel a sense of pride and success. I’ve also challenged my baking skills from my GCSE food tech times, where I attempted to bake cinnamon rolls, cookies, swiss rolls, etc.
Living in this century definitely makes it easier to get through this pandemic because technology allows us to keep in contact with our friends and families. The first few weeks, my friends and I scheduled lunch calls to virtually recreate our lunch table – it was nice but eventually we stopped because lunch time was the only time we could take a break off the screen. Online learning has allowed me to become a little more comfortable in participating in class, and I hope to continue to that when we get back to class. However, all this screen time has been affecting my sleep a lot – which I try to use the times I’m awake as efficiently as I can.
