graphic by Nakya Castille
Bella.
Looking back now, like most people I guess, I was almost one-hundred percent sure that after they let us out for spring break, we would come back to school and everything would be as it was. How wrong was I? I quickly realized after they started progressively adding weeks onto our “break” that things may have been worse than I thought. I remember sitting in my fourth-period newspaper class looking up coronavirus cases in Colorado, not fully grasping what was going on. I guess I didn’t really realize how much I loved school until I couldn’t go in person anymore.
For me, like many people I suppose, school has always been a big part of my life. There were some days I was excited to go because I knew I would see my friends or I was excited about a certain class, but there were also some days I wished I could fake sick because I was dreading a presentation or test that day. Fast forward almost a year into the pandemic, I’ve been kind of stuck in the latter part of that statement.
From the people I have asked, almost everyone hates this online learning situation. Emphasis on almost. Out of the many people I asked, there were a handful of people who said they prefer online learning. I just don’t see it. Sure you can wear pajamas every day if you want, eat during class, do whatever you want and no one says anything, but I would give that up in a heartbeat if it meant going back in person (safely of course). Not just for the people, but I think it is much easier to learn in person than online. But hey, that’s just me. Of course, it is understandable as to why everyone was forced online. With so many COVID-19 cases in Colorado, it would make it difficult to try and keep everyone in person. But I think I can speak for everyone when I say, this sucks.
I know there were many people who had their hearts set on doing so many things and couldn’t because of the pandemic. I too was one of those people. I had lined up my first job as a swim instructor at a local recreation center near my house. There I was ready to teach little kids to swim, only to have a global pandemic slap me in the face and walk away laughing. Not only that, but my family and I recently had to move to a new house, and this forced me to change schools three weeks before finals. Although, I can’t say this part is a total bummer. I had come to TJ my freshman year, and there were definitely some things that I missed, and the community was one of them. This whole thing may sound like a huge rant, but it’s not. It’s me realizing how much everyone, including myself, took life for granted before the pandemic.
Honestly, I don’t think this is going to end anytime soon, but let’s look on the bright side: now we all have some extra free time we could probably use to do things we never had time to do before. And it’s not all bad, I suppose. With everything being moved online (not just school), I have noticed that many famous artists have been coming out with new music and a lot of amazing new TV shows and movies have been popping up too. Long story short, this year has been a mess and the pandemic has been unkind to the entire world, literally. Even if this doesn’t end any time soon, we all just have to make the best of it and try and appreciate the things we have, because some people in the world don’t have as much as some of us do. Being healthy and with my family is something I’m not taking for granted anymore. Trying to change my attitude about this year is definitely something that I need to spend some time on improving, but hey, all we have is time at this point, right?
