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The Stories

A.L., a teen in Murrieta, CA

“The hardest part of this has been the inability to interact and socialize with some of my friends, and then losing friends due to the distance over the pandemic.”

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C.N., a teen in Murrieta, CA

“Due to Covid-19, I have been in strict quarantine due to the fact that I live with my grandmother…Academically, this has also affected my ability to take the SAT and ACT, which is something I felt disappointed about because I spent so much time studying for them.”

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J.M., a teen in Murrieta, CA

“It’s been almost 365 days since everything took a turn for the worse, and most of us are still in shock. I could have it a lot worse but it is still pretty hard. I was getting less hours at work so it became difficult for my mom and I to pay our bills and expenses, grocery stores were almost completely empty…”

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A.B., a teen in Murrieta, CA

“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.”

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N.C., a teen in Murrieta, CA

“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.”

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I.Z., a teen in Murrieta, CA

“…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.”

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O.S., a teen in Murrieta, CA

” think I felt the virus’s presence sooner than most Americans because I have family in Taiwan. When my aunt, uncle, and little cousin came to visit for Chinese New Year in February, just a month before widespread US lockdowns, my aunt spent the entire time in self-imposed quarantine. She only smiled once during her visit: when we gave her a collection of cloth masks, gifts from Taiwanese relatives that we never needed to use in the clean California air.”

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S.S., a teen in Murrieta, CA

“This situation affects my mental health in extreme ways. My brain is longing for the social connections that school and the freedoms that turning 16 brings me. I cannot exercise the things that I have waited for so long in terms of life and friends because of the people in power and the people that cannot follow simple directions.”

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C.M., a teen in Murrieta, CA

“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.”

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C.A., a teen in Fullerton, CA

“I woke up late for school as usual and saw my phone filled with notifications about some virus. The breaking news said that there are thousands of people who are dead because of this virus. I read the news, it said that the virus is called COVID-19 or Coronavirus.”

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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.

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