My Quarantine Experience
Since March of 2020, quarantine has posed a massive challenge for people across the globe. It forced people to change every aspect of their lives in a mere blink of an eye. I was immediately sent home from school, isolated, and scared like many other of my fellow students and friends as classes shifted online. Although the pandemic made me realize some things are completely out of my control, I discovered that I can always improve myself. While under lockdown, I took the time to reflect deeply on what I wanted out of life, myself, and the goals I would need to set to excel. Once summer came along, I had already created a list of goals I wanted to achieve. Some were big such as learning a new computer program and some were small like avoiding too much screen time, but keeping a variety of goals made me feel that it was possible to improve myself even when the world around me seemed paralyzed. Many of my friends that I stayed connected with over the duration of the lockdown also struggled to continue to find motivation during such trying times. However, we created a system where we checked-in with one another weekly and held each other accountable for our actions or accomplishments.
I realized perfection doesn’t exist, but instead that I could improve myself in different facets. In terms of academics, I focused on my love of computer programming and political science. I didn't just learn a new coding language (Python), but I also learned more about myself and my many values. I became more aware about how The Constitution places a role in US businesses and business trajectories Living though such a historic time, it was hard not to see such parallels between my current studies and the relationship between current events, politics, and the media. I also wanted to improve my reading comprehension skills during quarantine. I wanted to challenge my understanding of the complex American law, persuading me to work during quarantine and try understanding the Federalist Papers. I knew this would be a hard task, but a few pages each day to try and understand the difficult nature of text. Now, I am so grateful to have done that because today, as I write this, I am in a US Supreme Court class that focuses on the text of the Constitution as well as Court cases. Those cases are of difficult language as well, and I’m finally starting to pick up on it.
I overall held high standards for me and my friends, recognizing our true worth comes from how we approach obstacles. In addition to increasing my skill set and growing a bigger support system with my friends, social media. Lastly, to cope with the mental and physical struggles that the pandemic imposed on many people, I coped by developing a love for jogging outside. Each day I took a walk or ran outside to clear my head. I worked to become a stronger runner and simply clear my head each day from the stress of the pandemic. I Would constantly try to push myself to run further and faster. Every time I saw a road sign approach, I would say to myself, “Just run to that red stop sign and you can stop and walk it out”. And then, I would keep running down old neighborhood roads and tell myself, “Wait, actually that next yellow sign and then you can stop”. It was an infinite circle to keep pushing myself because, and I did it for me.