Enlight21

Author: Victor Wan | Category: Health | Date: 03-31-2020

The Coronavirus is a novel pandemic that had rapidly spread across the world since February 2020. The virus originated in Wuhan, China, and as many Chinese people were traveling during Lunar New Year, various countries have been greatly affected, like Italy, Spain, and the US. I noticed that China began lockdown in various cities, and this pandemic situation became so serious that even Bay Area schools shut down until May 1st. In addition to schools closing, restaurants only close or do takeout, and gatherings and standardized testings all have been canceled.

Students like me will be quarantined and sheltered at home for 7 weeks, as Governor Newsom states. I can already tell that this will be a dreadful experience. So far, my family, friends, and I have been quarantined for two weeks, and we feel like we are starting to become bored and stressed, as we don’t have much to do and can’t be near each other until this virus stops spreading. Most of us feel very unproductive as our assignments become optional, our extracurriculars are canceled, and our standardized testing is postponed (but most likely canceled as well).

On a more personal note, I am still trying to be as productive as possible. Although all of my teachers have made graded assignments optional and ungraded, I still do as much practice as I can to keep myself working and retain the knowledge in my head for as long as I can. I even do some Khan Academy SAT practice to maintain my skills. Even though we were encouraged to stay home, I still go out myself and exercise by going on runs and playing basketball. I promised myself to run every day during this quarantine, and I try to keep a distance among other pedestrians. 

A challenge I faced during this quarantine is procrastination. To begin with, I view my home as a place to just relax and chill after all the hard work I’ve exercised during normal school days. I usually try to get as much work done and study as much as I can at school or in libraries before going home. Now, with the shelter-in-place in effect, I have to complete all my work at home. Every 30 minutes or so, I “take a break” and begin my endless procrastination. Sometimes I browse social media and play some video games during this break, and I end up taking breaks much longer than intended, and I regret not completing all my work before starting these addictive activities. It’s been hard to battle procrastination, since social media and the internet is readily available to one at any time, and people can browse whenever they have free time (which is now all the time). Now, I try my best to complete all my work for the day, take shorter occasional breaks, and leave all the browsing and internet for last, when I complete all my work for that day.

About: Victor Wan