The View from Florida

Tampa, Florida, USA:

Ever since the beginning of March, covid has changed my plans. The first thing that got canceled was a trip to Seattle in Spring Break. All of the college tours I was supposed to do during spring break and after got canceled. Soon, stores closed. My summer cruise to Europe got canceled. IB exams got canceled, and AP exams got put online. It became socially unacceptable to spend time with those outside of your family in person. Beaches and other public places closed. School was put online for the rest of the year. All of the school functions (prom, graduation, senior banquet, college t-shirt day) got moved online, canceled, or postponed. Some colleges made the decision to start putting classes online for the fall semester. It’s crazy to think that something that we all thought was going to affect our live for 2 weeks is still affecting us three months later and will likely continue to affect us for even longer.

With IB exams being canceled, my workload for school immediately went down. It eventually hit a point where my only options for my summer were to get a job or take online classes. I decided to get a job, since there’s a pretty high chance that most of my classes will be online in the fall, and I didn’t want to do two semesters of online classes. During the time that I would have been talking IB exams, I got a job at Dunkin Donuts. Had it not been for the pandemic, I probably wouldn’t have gotten that job, because I probably wouldn’t have been applying to jobs in the middle of IB exams.

At the start of the pandemic, I spent a lot of time cooking, doing Pilates, online schoolwork, reading, FaceTiming/zooming with friends, and sleeping. When my Pilates studio closed for a month and a half, I just went on daily walks instead. Now that my Pilates studio is back open, I’m back to doing Pilates classes.

At the very start of the pandemic, I went vegan because I watched a documentary all about the production of meat and dairy. I ended up being vegan for about a month and a half (which is way longer than I would have lasted if we weren’t in lockdown, because in lockdown there are no outside temptations). I eventually stopped being vegan, because I couldn’t see myself continuing to be vegan once I went off to college. However, a lot of the recipes that I learned I continue to use regularly.

I finished up my online schoolwork in the middle of May, and I also started work in the middle of May. I’m an only child, so I honestly haven’t been bored for long periods of time during this pandemic, because I’m used to entertaining myself (like I’ll get bored for 20 minutes but never longer than that). I miss my friends and hope that things can go back to normal soon.