My reflection of quarantine

So, Joy asked me to write a piece reflecting back on the 6 months we have spent in quarantine.

Well, first of all, it was a lot of plans spoiled. Summer plans, exams, internships and what not. Second of all it was a whole experience-as all of you should know. Because I have spent most of it being occupied by as many things as I can, I have hardly had time to reflect back on it and think once in a while.

I have had a lot of realisations, observed a lot of things but that's some stuff for a different post.

What should I talk about? I am kind of a private person when it comes to discussing my life and I am even worse at discussing what my emotions about certain things. So this article is a step out of my comfort zone.

Anyways, as I said I've done a bunch of stuff over the past few months ranging from fun activties to the most boring stuff. Maybe I can list out some of the major stuff I did? So, here goes:

Udemy: Udemy basically became my best friend for the first three months. I did a bunch of courses over the period of April to June. They were all related to what my resume should be and I had never thought I would actually complete them in 2020. But, I did and that made me feel accomplished each time I did one.

Sign language: One of my favourite achievements is that I started learning sign language seriously. I am not at work 9 of a 10 week course in its basics and even after that I want to continue to learn it until I am fluent. What pushed me to do this was so that I am never at a disadvantage when I go on to help people.

Home exercise: A few months before lockdown I had started regularly jogging again after a long break. Since I had nothing else to do and I desperately needed something to  ground me, I started doing exercises of a famous diver. Ultimately I have now discovered multiple fitness youtubers and enjoy doing their workouts on alternate days. It helps me get creative and feel better and also remove any frustrations I may have.

Concerts: I have attended three online concerts in quarantine- one by Liam Payne and two by BTS. I became a fan of BTS in late 2019, around the same time as another friend and we both often talk about how glad we are that we did or else lockdown wouldve been so much sadder and bleak. They held one live online concert and they held a 2 days marathon of their old concerts. Both of which I danced my head off to! They are having another online concert in october! Had it not been for the pandemic, I wouldve never had this chance because they all wouldve been on their own world tours. 

Random stuff with my sister: Having a sibling through quarantine hasnt been so bad. We made some fun recipes that we found on tiktok, we made tiktoks, she painted my hand (see the picture at the end) and so on. We got to do some fun stuff and get creative. We also started a movie night ritual!

Birthdays: You wont believe the amount of creative I have had to get for birthdays. I love all birthdays and I always go all out for them. This year we have had birthday zoom lunches(I have one today!) , I have made online treasure hunts, I have had a video message chain created and so on. I even learnt how to cut and merge music and make cute videos for this! For friendship day we both posted handwritten notes to all our friends on our spam page. It's been fun to have to use my mind so much and getting awesome results out of it.

Zoom calls: I made different rituals with many friend groups ranging from movie nights to WhatsApp calls to game nights -just to stay in touch. We play online games, we have nice chats on video call instead of our usual walks and talks, we have zoom lunches. All these have become the memories I could make with them in 2020. A little unconventional but if I cant spend this  year making physical memories, I will not let my creativity go to waste. All our pictures may be of terrible quality but it's better than nothing.

I like to think I've done more stuff that this. But, this list describes what I have done so much and how I've enjoyed and what lesson or understanding each activity gave me. Yes, it's a terrible time but small acts like this make it a little but better and make us all a little bit happier!

Signing off,

Jordyn.