I remember...

I remember…

January 25 2020: Cebu, Philippines  

I’m on my CNY break. We decided to go to Cebu, today I saw on the news about a virus being shot around China. Probably just a flu or strep, no biggie, right? 2 hours later I get an email from my principal, “School will be shut down for the next two weeks, classwork will be sent to all of you and you will do it from home.” AWESOME! Two weeks off school !!!

January 26 2020: Cebu International Airport

Since when did everyone start wearing pollution masks? Why is my temperature getting checked at every station in the airport? We get on the airplane and a flight attendant gives us a mask to wear. I can barely breathe, good thing I just have to wear it for airplane rides. 

Feb 3 2020: Hong Kong 

First day of online school and it's so easy. I have one thing of homework that is due by the end of the week and it takes like twenty minutes to do. I get to spend the rest of the day hanging out with my friends doing nothing. But there really is nothing, restaurants and shops are all shut down, malls have been closed, some of my friends aren’t even allowed to leave their home because of this dumb cold. 

March 10 2020: Hong Kong

Well school is still online, but it's gotten harder, now we have these group phone calls called ‘zoom’. I feel like I'm still in school but it's worse because procrastination has gotten awful. I feel like I’m barely learning anything. 

April 19 2020: Hong Kong 

My sister just came home from the states from college, her school got completely shut down because this corona thing has made it to the US. There is this new thing here called quarantining, it's when you come to Hong Kong after being somewhere else and you have to stay in your house for two weeks to see if you have the virus. My parents felt bad for me, so I went to live with my friends for two weeks so I didn’t have to do this. 

May 23 2020: Hong Kong 

Hong Kong and the rest of the world is on complete lockdown and everyone is freaking out and I’m beginning to understand why, people have been dying and numbers are skyrocketing. 

June 23 2020: Hong Kong International Airport

It’s the right time to move from here, I feel like I am in a prison. 

June 25 2020: Hastings-on-Hudson

I haven’t seen my friends in almost 8 months, and I’m less than a mile away from them and I have to self quarantine for at least a week. 

July 2 2020: Hastings-on-Hudson

My best friend's family is super covid cautious. Today was the first time I got to see her. I gave her a huge hug, her dad told her to back off because it's too close of contact. 

July 9 2020: Hastings-on-Hudson

First time I got to hangout with my friend group, good thing it’s summer, no ones allowed inside each other's houses, besides if you have a bubble of around 3 or 4. Bonfires outside it is. At least I get to see them though. Got an email from my new school, school will be online the first two weeks then hybrid. 

September 30 2020: Hastings-on-Hudson

10:15 am, I was happily learning in class when my teacher said everyone stay in your seats and do not leave to go to the bathroom. The loud speaker goes off, “everyone will be evacuating from the school immediately there is a COVID case.”

oh. 

A year of hell goes by. 

October 31 2021: Hastings-on-Hudson

I haven’t seen my friends from Hong Kong in two years. Those masks I was supposed to only be wearing on airplanes, are now part of my everyday routine for school; wake up, brush my teeth, get dressed, pack my bag, get my mask. Everywhere I go it's “do you have a mask”. Things have been getting better, the vaccine came out, if only people would get it, only half of Americans have it. We are so close. I miss my friends and I miss my family. I lost family members this year, it was not because of COVID but I almost wasn’t able to say goodbye because of it. This has brought out a whole new side for me. Three years ago I would be so excited to hangout with my friends if 20 of us could all go out together. Now if I can have five or more people in my house I’m overjoyed. I’ve learned to be more grateful for the friends who I haven’t lost in the past two years. I’m grateful when I can go into a store without a mask because of this shot. I’m grateful to be able to see all my friends everyday at school instead of some of them twice a week. I’m grateful my sisters can start living at college again. I’m wanting to see my extended family more because everyone has been nervous to see each other the past two years and I’m grateful I’m able to now. Life has been tough for everyone, but this is an experience no one will ever forget, it will be a unit in history class, and an example virus in biology. Once we kick covid in the butt, my generation is going to feel like we will be able to live forever. Not all of us, but some of us are going to take the experiences we had and try to change the world so we can prevent this from happening again or if it does make it not as life changing. I’m grateful for everything I have and can do in these awful times, but how you experience the past two years depends mainly on your age. As a teenager, going through high school in these times is very difficult. I was told I needed to be just as good a student at home on my computer as I would be in school everyday. There were periods where it was so hard, but you can’t blame the teachers or our parents, they’ve never had to learn from home. It would be so stressful having to balance everything, I would lose track of time and when assignments would be due. For me and for many other people, stress and anxiety started to form from it, and most of us haven’t been able to get rid of it. No matter who you were or how much you care about school, there was never a day you wouldn’t get distracted if you were online. And that was awful, my procrastination issue got extremely worse and even when I would say to myself to just focus and to put my phone away, I could never do it. But can you blame us? We are at home in comfortable clothing, probably in our beds, half asleep from being up till 2 finishing all our late work, losing our social lives and not having anything to do after school besides more school. Life has sucked over the past two years and I’m not going to sugar coat it. We are starting to get back to normal but honestly what even is normal anymore? Because right now to me, normal is six feet apart from everyone with a mask covering my face.