“Days feel like they go on forever as you do the same thing every day. You finish one show and then just move onto the next. Life feels really purposeless. We spend every day trying to stay safe and protect the ones we love, but it’s like life isn’t fun or worth living if I can’t see the people I love or do the things I love.”
“I had to miss out on internships, summer programs, and my last year in high school. But it hasn’t been all bad. I’m lucky enough to have derived some good from the situation. I learned to better balance my life with school. I’m thankful that I figured this out before going to college. If I could give advice to others, it would be to sometimes set aside important things when you start to get overwhelmed.”
“My advice for others in quarantine would be to work on something. Find a hobby that will inspire you to become better. I took up speed-cubing during the quarantine and I have bumped my time down from about a 1:45 to consistently less than 45 seconds. I’m not that good, but I am getting better every day and it gives me something to focus on and destress with.”
“…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.”
“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.”
“I had a very good time in quarantine. I’ve played the computer all day, slept a lot and played guitar and piano. The only shortcoming for me was that I couldn’t meet my friends and play with my band.”
“There were no particular difficulties, but my institute, like many others, was not ready for distance learning, and some difficulties arose: for example, problems with the Internet, a poor-quality platform for conducting seminars and lectures. The hardest thing in my situation is the MacBook.”
“I removed my rings but one. Bracelets, and watchbands, anything a virus could stick to and, by some inbred
genetic need to trick me to scratch my nose that exact moment, to allow it
to enter my respiratory column,
to feed.”
“[…]the situation led to many low-spirited moments. Firstly, it felt very sad knowing that I wouldn’t see any of my university friends until October, and I had not said proper goodbye to many of them when I left […] However, I would rather reflect on the bright side of things.”
“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…”
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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