File #206: "scsm-101-11-fall-2020-004.pdf"

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How Coronavirus and Quarantine Impacted My Life
Eight months and counting; Coronavirus has effected my life for eight full months now. I
would’ve never thought I would go through something quite like this in my lifetime. Sure, I
learned about the “Black Death” and the “Spanish Flu”, but they seemed so distant, and seemed
so improbable to happen again. Little did I know that mid-March would provide me with a
chance to live through it, a global pandemic. The Coronavirus took a lot from me. My senior
year of high school was cut short, time with friends had been lost, and it is even effecting my
early college life right now. It’s been quite a shift to get used to the “new normal”, as its called
nowadays. Wearing protective masks that go over both the mouth and nose, and being six feet
apart at the minimum has been quite the hassle in some situations. People aren’t supposed to be
cooped up by themselves for weeks and months on end. I know for me, being a socially reliant
person, it was very hard to stay inside and not be able to see my friends.
When the coronavirus started to become a big problem in mid to late March, school had
let the students know it was going to shut down for two weeks. I found this out when I was just
getting off the field from baseball practice that Friday. I remember just thinking to myself “it’ll
just be a two week vacation and we will be back in school and back to playing baseball”. Little
did I know that this “two-week vacation” would turn into something greater. Those two weeks
went by and school had let us know that they would give it another week to see if coronavirus
would get better. That was the last thing I would hear from the school regarding positive news,
everything from then on just went downhill.
Me, being a senior at the time, had many questions. I wanted to know if I was going to
be able to play my last high school baseball season, or if I was going to have prom or graduation.

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Of course the school would dodge these questions and leave us seniors in the dark. The rest of
my senior year was filled with sitting in my room, taking classes that I didn’t have to try in
because the school said they “didn’t count towards my final transcript”. I felt like I was pinned
to that room. Sure I had my family, but you can only take so much of your family before they
start to get on your nerves. I love them dearly, but quarantine was annoying to say the least. It
wasn’t all bad being in quarantine though. I may have said earlier that my family started to get on
my nerves, but the quarantine due to coronavirus definitely helped relations with my siblings and
parents. Before the coronavirus, I was always super busy and out of the house. Whether it be for
sports, friends, or training in other states, I was never home with my family. When the
coronavirus happened, and a mandatory quarantine was issued to my state of Pennsylvania, it
was a blessing in disguise. The quarantine allowed me to spend more time with my family
without any distractions. I definitely am appreciative of how much more I’ve gotten to learn
about my siblings, and see a closer connection between me and the three of them. I spent more
time with my brother, and that usually doesn’t happen because we are polar opposites of each
other. We got to bond over things he likes to do, and I owe that all to the quarantine to get me to
get out of my comfort zone and do things with my siblings I wouldn’t have done in the past.
Another thing that coronavirus effects is my college life. Since I am playing football at
Springfield College, I was supposed to come earlier than all the rest of the students that weren’t
involved with a fall sport. Coronavirus kept on pushing that date back to when I got up to
Springfield. This made me doubt that I would have camp at all for football, and I didn’t. I had to
come up with all the other students, and got my season taken away from me. Again, this was
another blessing in disguise, though. With the postponement of the season, I was given the

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opportunity to keep up with my classes, and stay on top of my grades better than if I had a
season. It also allowed me to focus on making friends up here at the college too. If I had football,
and if coronavirus wasn’t a thing, I would be too tired to get out there and be social. I would
probably be in bed resting up for another practice, or something of that nature. Coronavirus has
been effecting the way I live up here at Springfield, though. All of my classes are online, and the
way I learn is in person, so it has been a little bit of a struggle to find that motivation. Masks
have to be worn at all times, and we can’t even have more than a few people at a time in the
common room of our dorms, or I, and the people in the room, would get written up for not
following “Covid Guidelines”. The first semester of my college experience hasn’t been all that I
was hoping for, but I am managing in this world of the “new normal”. I still am making friends
just fine, and having as much fun as I would’ve under normal circumstances. It’s unfortunate, but
this is how diamonds are built, through pressure. If I keep my nose to the grindstone, and get out
of this situation, the coronaviruses, I will be better for it. I will be better as a person, and I won’t
take things for granted like I may have in the past before the pandemic.
Coronavirus definitely is as serious today as it was in mid March, but I am a lot better
now then I was. I have accepted the fact that the virus would toy with my everyday life, and I
would just have to leave it like that. I can only control what I can control, and I can’t control the
viruses next move, so why try and worry about that? If I keep doing my part, like socially
distancing and wearing a mask, I will get through this, and the world will too one day. The virus
taught me to never take a moment and things for granted, because you don’t know what the next
day has in store. I had baseball to look forward to in march, but that was taken away. I had
graduation and prom to look forward to, and they were taken away. Nothing is a guarantee, and I

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thank the virus for helping me realize that. May I live everyday like its my last, no matter the
circumstances I have to live in. Make everyday count, and thats what these last eight months
have taught me.