Student Reflections Part 10 – Bellarmine College Preparatory

My students are sharing more stories as part of the global project “A Day in my Life: living under the Covid-19 Pandemic.” We hope you and your students enjoy reading them!

To see all reflections shared so far go to the Educate Magis Covid-19 page

A Day in my Life: Ethan, 15, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA

« The Corona Virus aka Covid-19 has taken the world by storm. A respiratory virus originating in China that has now become an International Pandemic. We have seen the effects it has had on the world; stock market at an all-time low, Schools, Graduation, festivals, holidays major sports events and seasons all cancelled. For the kids our age this is the first time we have seen something this large have such an effect on our country and world.

California was one of the first states in the united states to declare a shelter in place order. This sent kids home from school and parents’ home. this happened on March 16th. My school was shut down the previous Wednesday, March 11th. All schools were shut by the Friday the 13th. My county in particular had one of the highest number of cases in the state. We are now two weeks into shelter in place. Grocery stores and some restaurants are still open and are taking precautions, like all restaurants are takeout.

Personally, my school is into its second week of online school which we are fortunate to have. We have also switched to an alternative schedule to reduce screen time and keep us healthy. The social events have really slowed down with not a single party in two weeks. I have switched to face timing my friends. It has made spend more time with my family which is nice to slow down and enjoy myself during this stressful time. »

 

A Day in my Life: Ethan, 14, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA

« During the quarantine, I have felt bored a lot. The only way I have been socializing with friends is through videogames. This is not good because I get bored of videogames fast, so it limits my social ability. I have a lot of free time throughout the days, so I have been trying to learn how to play the ukulele. I found my brothers old one when he moved out and I am trying to learn the basics. My sleep schedule is constantly messed up, and I have been getting bare minimum sleep. That is my fault, but every day feels like a weekend, and I watch a lot of TV at night. One concern that I have is that this pandemic lasts for the rest of the school year, because my freshman experience would be ruined. Another concern that I have is that the virus mutates and becomes ten times more deadly. That seems very unlikely, but this is how all apocalypse movies start. Somethings the world from this pandemic is basic hygiene. Things like washing hands and staying clean is something that some people do not do. Another worrisome topic is how people are stockpiling goods that many people need as the bare minimum. »

 

A Day in my Life: Francis, 14, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA

« A typical day for me since the outbreak of COVID-19 has not been the same since the last time I got to leave the house. Each day I see the coronavirus cases getting larger and larger which makes me very worried. My school was supposed to come back March 31st, then April 20th, and now May 4th. Who knows, this virus might get worse and we might not get back to school this year.

I live in the United States where the coronavirus is where we have the most confirmed cases in the world. However, we have been controlling the virus and we do not have as many deaths as China or Italy. These changes have impacted my daily routine because in the morning, I usually do not eat breakfast or eat very little, and now I suddenly have the time to do so. Some challenges for this situation is that we have to limit going outside and getting groceries. This is because the virus spreads very easily and some people don’t know they have it.

Our society should learn from this crisis and how it has affected us globally. For example, governments should learn to protect the citizens from these pandemics like providing ventilators, masks, and more to protect the citizens. Some concerns and hopes for me is that I won’t be able to exercise in the short term, so I’ll need to get fit after the virus has been washed. I hope that the virus will stop affecting so much people so that people can go back to their daily routines, school, and work. »

 

A Day in my Life: Heaven, 15, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA

« The corona epidemic has made my country go into shut down. We are advised to stay inside our houses. This has impacted my daily routines in many ways. One of them is my education. Instead of having a face to face learning with our educators, we are learning from our own homes. These have many pros and cons. A pro for us students is that we can do whatever we want, however, this is a con for the teachers. The teachers have been given a huge responsibility and that is for us to learn. A pro is that this remote learning activity has reduced stress for me. As I am now restricted to go outside, I cannot run.

Running is a basic and important part of exercising, for me that is. Another con is that I am not able to meet my friends face to face and talk to them. Another pro is that I and my family have been able to bond during these times. We decided to jog in place and do Zumba. Our society should learn to always wash your hands and when you cough or sneeze, you should have your distal bicep tendon or your elbow near your mouth. »

 

A Day in my Life: Henry, 15, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA

« Now that I have some what gotten used to the shelter in place my daily schedule goes something like this, every morning I wake up warm in my bed and I am grateful for all that I have. I am grateful that I have food to eat for breakfast and that I have hot water to shower with. I am especially grateful that despite our current living state of shelter in place I can still attend school virtually. After school my life is quite normal, I do homework, I spend time with my family, and I use technology.

Some things I didn’t expect from the virus is the challenges it has cause me and my family. When the covid-19 outbreak began I wasn’t worried because I understood that the mortality rate was very low for people my age. What I didn’t consider was how difficult it would be to spend time away from my grandparents I would normally see on a weekly basis. Another challenge that my family and I have faced is not going out to restaurants or the movies on the weekends. Which sounds a lot like a first world problem but that’s mostly how my family spends time together. We bond over those experiences and to have them suddenly taken away has been difficult.

My family has had to work hard to find ways to overcome these challenges. The way we overcame the lack of time spent with family is that every week my mom’s side of the family has a zoom call which is great because we can see all are relatives and know they are okay. We also call my grandparents on my dad’s side once a week. The way we overcame not being able to go out on the weekends was by playing board games every night after dinner. At least one game of dominoes and one game of Uno.

Those were my family’s challenges and solutions to what the outbreak of COVID-19 has thrown at us. I feel we will end up closer than we already afterwards and although I understand how severe the Virus is I look forward to being able to spend more time with my family. No matter the circumstances. »

 

A Day in my Life: Ian, 15, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA

« Only half of my day has changed. Each night when I go to bed it all goes away. I dream of waking up to go to school in the morning or rushing to band in the morning. I dream of seeing all of my friends at school and joking about silly things in class and stuff we did over the weekend. I dream of being a student in a classroom. Then I wake up. It’s like I’m in a whole new world, a different reality. All those memories I had were of a long-ago dream, of another world, of another life. Once I get oriented from sleeping go immediately to the routine. Put in my contacts and stroll into the kitchen to see what is for breakfast, probably oatmeal. Keep in mind that all I have to do is open my computer and I am in class. So, every day when I wake up it is 7:30 instead of 6am instead maybe even 8:30 if I don’t have class first thing. I go through the whole day in virtual classroom sometimes staring out the window when the teacher chatters on and on or maybe playing practicing my harmonica, if there’s anything this whole experience has given me it’s time. Less time in the car driving to and from school means more time to sleep, practice all of instruments: harmonica, clarinet, and piano, and even start a garden in the back. So, after I finish all my virtual classes I finally start my day.

And you might ask “how can you be awake for 7 hours without even starting your day?” yet here’s how: I’m still in my pajamas. I don’t think that I am alone when I say this. When we go on to Microsoft teams to do the class discussion, I’ll see all of my virtual classmates with messy hair and rings under their eyes as if they rolled over and opened up there computer a minute before class (which is probably what they did.) After changing out of pajamas (starting my day), I go for a run to continue to train for track and come back by about 5 to shower start and finish my homework, play all of my instruments, check on all of my plants, eat dinner, brush my teeth, go to bed, and repeat (for four more days.) Through all of this, I have no idea what is going to happen in the future, but I have learned to take things one day at a time and remember that everything is in good hands because it is in God’s hands. »

A Day in my Life: Isaac, 15, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA

« In my country, we have the corona virus, and its greatly affecting us very terrible because our elders are dying from it, which is causing thousands of deaths. My grandma fears the corona virus and I tell her not to fear a virus because our immune system will fight it and we will be very sanitized. Our streets are very isolated, we don’t see anyone waling and going for a jog anymore, yet we see a mail man occasionally covered up to not get the virus. Also, in my house we take the virus seriously because my grandma is 71 years old and its very easy for her to get the virus if she isn’t sanitized well. Therefore, my family and I cleaned every room with alcohol, mopping, sweeping, window cleaning, and steaming the floors. My aunt would clean the bathroom every day in the morning, while my cousins and I clean our birds and quickly put them in and help clean if we need to.

In my daily routine it has impacted me a lot because I am usually outside hanging around or with one of my friends to play soccer., but when the virus hit our city it changed everything. I can’t even go outside and by something from a store that I liked because its closed (doughnuts). Then my routine changed by staying inside all day in front of a computer screen and begin learning, and it’s boring. Also, the worst thing of my routine is that I can’t sleep because of the computer screen and now I sleep about 12:00 p.m. or later. I become less active because of this epidemic and more bored because there are no board games to play at my house and I don’t like to watch things on my electronics as I have been sitting on my chair for straight 8 hours learning out of a screen and it hurts my eyes. Also, with so much computer screen I came absent and tardy of my first period class, and I felt very ashamed of not learning even though class is in screen and close to me now.

In the other hand, I am starting to be more active by doing some exercises I have thought that would keep away from being bored as always. I started to do push-ups and it ups every morning every morning before school and when I go to sleep. I hope that I won’t be marked absent or late anymore. Some gifts that I have right now is family bonding because we talk about memories from the past that were either scary or hilarious, and we now eat together, which is rare because of work and homework. Moreover, some hopes that I have is the epidemic to stop spreading and to come to an end before summer because I love summer, and my concerns is that how many people are going to die because of this virus. Yet, our society should learn from this by being more sanitized, stop littering, drugs, and dirty water. »

A Day in my Life: Isaiah, 15, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA

« Just around the beginning of March, my school announced closure that was stated to only remain for a few weeks.  It wasn’t until the county announced a shelter-in-place, in addition to immediate closure for ALL schools in the county.  For weeks, the spread of COVID-19 has broadened to where the shelter-in-place must be extended—even with millions of students falling behind in school.

Since the Coronavirus pandemic, there has been a loss in maintaining my daily ordinary routine.  In other words, I tend to halt my healthy sleeping habit; whatnot, barely waking up just a few minutes before the beginning of my school’s online “remote learning” class, and of course, sleeping later. But on the positive side, I notice that people in my neighborhood, including me, frequently exercise outside much more often. For instance, the trail behind my house tends to have more families walking along the hills while relishing their time together which isn’t seen so often anymore.

At the end of the day, maybe this pandemic was a “wake-up call” from God; maybe we need to better advance ourselves.  With my country’s hard-working administration, I hope in the future that us Americans can better prepare ourselves when or if we encounter another pandemic. »