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: Philip, 14, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA
Within the past month, the drama and intensity of the COVID-19 Pandemic has increased manifold. COVID went from a strange virus in the news that I paid no attention to, to an international pandemic leading to an almost complete shutdown of a lot of the world, including my hometown, Mill Valley, California. While the day to day effect of COVID changes based on where you are, for me personally it has completely shut down my life and daily routines including going to school, the grocery store, having fun with friends, and more. This is my life under COVID-19.
For background, I am an ice hockey player and I have practices up to three times a week in addition to private skating lessons and strength training. As I mentioned, in my country particularly, only in this past month have things involving COVID “blown up.” Around three weeks ago, my ice hockey team (Bellarmine College Prep) decided to suspend all hockey events including practices. Shortly following that, all my other coaches decided that it would be best to suspend their training until things settle down. This has caused a huge change in my life, for two reasons. Firstly, my hockey events account for around ninety percent of my daily exercise so I am unable to have that same access to exercise anymore. In addition, hockey events give me time to spend with friends, and with them being cancelled, I am unable to have face to face communication with my buddies. This caused a huge change in my daily life and accounts for
most of the change I have experienced. In addition to hockey, my school has been shut down, which obviously causes a change in my education and takes away from time spent with friends. However, with all this change to daily life, I cannot help but to look at the positive side of things, and realize what has been given to me, not only taken away. I have spent a tremendous amount of time with my family, who has not been able to be very close with each other this year. I have had so much time with my loved ones that I cannot help to be slightly thankful. That sounds cruel considering that currently there have been nearly 34,000 deaths worldwide, but I think that the only way we can get through these times is by thinking positively, and together.
Overall, my life has changed due to COVID-19. I am no longer going to school, having real communication with friends, and must be very careful with everything I do, especially around my grandmother. There is no getting around it. However, I think that it is important to stay positive, pray, and persevere to get through these times.
A Day in my Life: Roan, 15, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA
At least four months ago the COVID-19 disease was discovered. At the time I didn’t really think much of it. I thought there was no way it would reach the USA anytime soon and even if it did it’ll never reach my state. Another month passes and the first case in the USA comes up. Then the first in California, then in Santa Clara and I still didn’t care. Eventually, the world basically went on full lockdown and I haven’t left the house is almost a month. Everything I used to do is gone and I don’t really know what to do with myself. It just doesn’t seem real you know.
Here in California, the Coronavirus crisis is pretty bad. We are the leading country for cases and the leading state for cases. Our state has been in quarantine for almost a month now and it has affected my daily life a lot. I haven’t gone anywhere other than my backyard for three weeks now and online school is way worse than regular school. Other than the fact that you can just wake up five minutes before period one there’s really no upside to it. Classes are way more confusing because they’re all online, and more homework is assigned because they assume you have more time to do it. Also, my AAU season has been canceled which is a real bummer. At least I have more time to do things that I never got around to doing before, like cleaning my bathroom and getting rid of old clothes and stuff. I’m scared I’m just going to run out of things to do and that this quarantine is going to last longer than we all expected, but at least we know what to do if an outbreak like this ever happens again.
This outbreak has really put a toll on my life and I’m sure It’s put a toll on a lot of other people’s lives as well. Working from home, online school, and a lot of extra time with limited actions. Going forward, I hope that this all blows over soon or it might eat into summer and planned vacations that people have. This virus has been a real inconvenience for a lot of people.
A Day in my Life: Robert, 15, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA
In my country the Covid-19 outbreak has caused some pandemonium, however, not as much as other countries. The most evident parts of this pandemonium are seen in the grocery stores. Depicted on online forums you see arguments and sometime physical altercations over something as simple as a roll of toilet paper or paper towels. I have experienced a few big picture changes in my life due to Covid-19. Most obviously the cancelation of school. The cancelation of school is the biggest change in my life and has affected my life significantly.
Some challenges from this situation mostly arise in mental capacities. The change has definitely messed with my sleep schedule quite a bit. Along with my sleep schedule the change has impacted my socialization. I have not been able to socialize with any of my friends for quite some time now. Along with not seeing my friends both of my sisters are away at college in their apartments and this leaves me alone with my parents. So, the house gets pretty lonely.
Some good things that have arisen from this situation is my bond with my parents. I have grown the relationship with my parents since I now spend all day with them. Also, it has been good to be home more often in some respects like having access to more food. Overall, I would rather be at school, but it could be worse, so I am grateful.
A Day in my Life: Ryan 2, 14, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA
Here in America, life has been kind of crazy. Schools have been shut down, we’ve been put in quarantine and pretty much all of group gatherings have been delayed or cancelled. School has been massively changed as we stay in our rooms/houses and do it from there. This has been a relatively large change and has been hard to adjust to.
Some challenges are just temptations in general. Using my phone or not paying attention would be a lot easier, so to try and not give in, I try to tell myself that I need to focus and get good grades and that I won’t be able to do that if I’m distracted. A gift has been that nobody I know has caught the Corona Virus and that my friends and family are safe.
I don’t know what will happen next and if it will be good or bad, I just have to hope. I think we need to learn from this, try to see an upside to this pandemic and move on. One thing is that I have spent a lot of time with my family, mostly my parents whom I recently just spent all night doing a 750-piece puzzle. I hope that this quickly passes over with little deaths.
A Day in my Life: Ryan 3, 14, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA
As the outbreak of coronavirus has continued to spread around the world, it has begun to slowly spread from something that was not take very seriously, to something that has shut down daily life as we know it. Going from the daily routine of school and baseball practice to all of a sudden being stuck inside all day every day is one that definitely shook things up for me, along with billions around the world. Through the outbreak, I believe that there is going to be much pain and suffering that comes through things such as death and economic struggles. However, I also believe that the outbreak is going to serve as an awakening for people to understand the value of their daily activities once this is all over.
Millions of people around the world probably complain about their daily routine, whether it be school or work, but I believe that after this outbreak that number will be greatly reduced, and people will be able to actually find the joy that comes in being out of the house with other people. Although the suffering that the virus is going to cause before, we get this point will be much greater, there is some good that will come out of this situation.
When the virus began to spread around the world, it was taken very lightly, and many people joked about it and thought that it was not something that was ever going to actually happen to us. As time went on, it began to become more and more serious as people in Santa Clara along with the rest of the United States began to rapidly contract it. Soon enough, the amount of cases had gotten so large that school was shut down, and within a week all daily life in California and the rest of the country soon after had been shut down. I hope that with this situation, people can find the good that comes after it is all over, and the world can be more united, and we can have more love and respect for others around the world.
A Day in my Life: Ryan B, 15, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA
The coronavirus has force everyone in the country to go into quarantine. The goal is to keep everyone safe from the disease by staying at home. People can leave their houses for essential necessities such as food, but big gatherings of people are prohibited. Another rule the coronavirus has brought it we have to stay 6 feet apart from people who don’t live in our house. These rules are all acts to slow down the rate of the disease. In California the rate of the virus keeps increasing by day and it has led to the economy to dip an as of now it is only getting worse.
These changes have impacted by daily routine by almost completely changing it. Instead of going to school I’m at home all day. Some would call it a tragedy other a miracle, but my school has planned for this and we have a great online school program. Every day I wake up same time I would for school and hop on my computer for school. This happens every weekday Monday- Friday and the schedule for now has remained the same. I cannot do water polo or swimming anymore since all the pools are closed, so I’ve resorted to dryland work. Fortunately, the weight coach at my school has emailed the water polo students a workout plan for everyday to maintain or bodies till we have access to a pool again. Another way this has impacted my life is, I cannot see my friends anymore and I am stuck in a house with everyone in my family. Once again, some people may call it a miracle, I call it a tragedy, but I live with 3 sisters and I am not happy about it.
The challenges I have come across while staying at home are first my sisters constantly bothering me, I went to an all-boys school for a reason. Second not being able to see my friends and play my sports. And third dying from boredom. However, considering this situation the gift that has come out of this is, my family has been brought closer together. This shows how the world is unprepared and it also shows how the world works in mysterious ways. I believe we will learn from this disease and be better prepared and that is the beauty of making mistakes. My hopes are the disease stops spreading and that there are as few deaths as possible.
A Day in my Life: Sean, 15, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA
When this pandemic first started, we thought it was all a joke, only could be in Wuhan, and later China, next thing we know there is a COVID 19 case in our own county. Now we are stuck in our homes, and I’m just wanting to go back to when I could leave the house and just be able to hang out with my friends. Online School is ok, but I am struggling in it, because when you don’t understand a concept, you have to go into office hours, which are very difficult to use/do when there are multiple other students in the call. Not only do I want to go back to hanging out with my friends, I want to go back to my job, and work again. While they are still open, my parents don’t want me to leave the house, because of exposure. I have felt secure though, because of our hard working and dedicated president, who is taking steps to not only limit, and end the coronavirus in the US, but also have us out of our homes soon too.
I am not worried about the coronavirus. I understand that it is deadly to old people, probably why my parents are panicking about it, and I am just hoping that we can leave our homes soon, because being home all the time sucks for me, and I know that a lot of people feel the same way on that as well. It sucks because the only way to interact with friends for me right now is to play videogames with them, and my parents don’t like videogames, and think I am “addicted to them,” when I play it a lot, just because I want to play with my friends and not do much else, because there really isn’t a lot to do right now.
A Day in my Life: Sean, 14, Bellarmine College Preparatory, USA
With the looming presence of COVID-19, my life has changed drastically. Fist off, I’d like to start with the things that I’ve lost. For me, the first thing to go was school, and my school sports along with it. For me, my freshman year had been populated with so many school activities and sports after that I would leave for school at 7 am and get back at around the same time pm. As one can imagine, without this massive block of activities, my life started to fall apart. There was a 3- or 4-day period before our online learning started, and during that time, most of which would be populated by sports, I got bored of doing the same old thing. This boredom led to lack of interest in literally everything, to the extremity that I never left two rooms in my house. One being my bedroom and the other room the living room. Without the ability to socialize with my friends because of the shelter in place, I felt no desire to do anything. That’s when online learning started, and my day was suddenly filled with so many activities. However, with my previous lethargy in accomplishing activities, it was hard to transition back into school. With the support of my teachers and family, however, I did, and I started exercising every day in order to not gain weight, too. And that’s where I am now, exercising every day, doing homework and relaxing.
Now I’d like to focus on the positives. With all my school friends living around San Jose and me living farther away, I started to reconnect with people from my middle school that live closer to me. I had never had the time to interact with them again after graduation, but now with all the time on my hands, I started to message them and chat with them over my smartphone. In addition, I realized how much school meant in my life, and decided that I would have to branch out more and find other activities and people that I love. Overall, COVID-19 has stripped away many of my daily activities that I feel define me, allowing me to reflect upon myself and what kind of person I am: the kind who complains and sulks about problems, or finds a way to adapt and learn from them. Hopefully myself and our world prove to be the latter.
