“I usually am a very happy person but this year, due to the constant routine of school without seeing friends or leaving my environment, I felt small stints of sadness and even depression. It wasn’t major or anything, but enough to make me realize the effect quarantine had on me.”
“Everyone was being affected by the coronavirus and no one was safe. Not only were people dying of the coronavirus, but I had people in my life suffering from other things.”
“Being physically separate from others has seriously impacted the sense of community here, and I sense it will be difficult to get that back. The political divides that have become deep, and the different outlooks on COVID and societal restrictions, have pervaded too many things.”
“After a strange year of semi-isolation and worrying, I am finally getting my first dose of the vaccine and I am very excited about it. I have a wedding to attend in April 2022, in Seville (Spain), and I am hoping that most of the countries achieve the so-called herd immunization, so that I can travel without restrictions and without fear of doing it.”
“Now, all of my time has been spent waiting for something to change because I feel powerless against the situation. Everyday it feels like it’s getting worse. More people dying, less hospital space. And then there’s the constant fear in the back of my head, when will it be someone who I care about who gets COVID.”
“…the hardest thing about quarantine is not being able to see my grandma, especially not being able to hang out with her during the holidays. My grandmother lives in another state so we would probably have to do a two week quarantine before even visiting her, but my family believes it is still too much of a risk to take. We call her on facetime, but, of course it is not the same.”
“As someone who has been home bound/self quarantined for a few years to due to chronic illnesses and disabilities, the pandemic hasn’t changed my life that drastically. In terms of daily life and mental health I’ve been struggling a bit however, there is no routine set in place for me, all the days seem to fade into each other, and I’ve been too scared to go outside because of my physical health.”
“I was incredibly bored throughout the entire experience and it was hard finding things to do in my own home but I’ve managed find many things like drawing, watching movies, learning a new language, etc. I try to talk to my friends through different methods everyday and the rare occasion we see each other face-to-face we still adhere to rules as best we can.”
“I think that the hardest thing about quarantine and COVID-19 has been going to school online…This semester, I feel like some of my teachers seem to be expecting more than if we were actually in person. I am finding it more difficult to balance my life between social, personal, and school.”
“The pandemic taught me not to take anything for granted because all my junior year of high school plans and summer plans to go to France got canceled in a matter of days.”
Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.
Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA),
Stanford University
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