“With such a large commute everyday in order to get to work, it is less expensive, more efficient, and more enjoyable to work from home instead. I think quarantine has opened a different way of thinking, and a new approach to my work for me.”
“Now, that may seem selfish considering thousands of people are dying, and what I care about is the ‘high school experience,’ but look it from my perspective. Isn’t it scary enough, that in four years I have to decide what to do with my life, and now I have to find out whether I’ll get a chance to do anything? “
“Netflix became my best friend, and I spent all day staring at some screen. After weeks and weeks of wallowing in self-pity and boredom, I decided to be productive. So after, a few days of minimal planning, I decided to start a blog!”
“Quarantine is not anymore an entertaining new activity, but a lifestyle. As for me, I can’t complain, I’ve been coping with it pretty well. Reading adventure books has helped me as a way of evading reality and feeling as if I had gone for a walk at least, and having the school routine as usual tricks my mind into thinking I actually went outside of my home.”
“The anger and frustration brought by a global pandemic has subsided and I have gotten used to the ways in which this is our new normal. I’ve gotten closer to many friends i didn’t expect to and have found myself becoming more and more family oriented. While I was used to always looking for the next location or opportunity that could come my way, this pandemic has given me the space and time to slowdown and really consider what I plan to do with my time and in the future.”
“If we are ever fortunate enough to get out of the current situation…what will the post-Covid world look like? A world with more power and control in the State. Sure, but that is almost a given…Well sure, this is 2020, what do you expect…”
“I was 8 months into cancer treatment when the pandemic became a headline. Suddenly, everyone else started seeing the world as I did: as a minefield of germs, a series of public interactions requiring masks and hand sanitizer, a reason to take meetings online and have groceries delivered. Fun fact: a visit to the cancer center, in the midst of COVID-19, looks pretty much the same as it did 6 months ago…”
“Another fascinating personal revelation I’ve had during quarantine surrounds my lack of hobbies. […] I am slightly saddened that I can’t take an interest in books, piano, or other hobbies I used to have like I did when I was a kid. There are also lots of new skills I am eager to learn such as skateboarding but I can’t find the energy to go out and get started and even when I do it’s inconsistent and half-hearted at best. I don’t know if this stems from exhaustion so much as a fear of failure I feel is much more present in my generation surrounding new things even at the young age of 20…”
“…a few weeks into quarantine, I went down to the kitchen for a late night snack, and saw my dad sitting there alone. He just started apologizing for how I couldn’t be in college and how everything was so upside down. Then he said, ‘After communism, I never thought I’d see the day we’d have to wait in lines to go to the grocery store with empty shelves again.’”
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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