Dispatches from Quarantine:
Young People on Covid-19
Sam Kofman
11:11am, Saturday, May 2, 2020
I haven’t written a diary entry in a while and so much has happened in that time that I won’t be able to write it all down. I’m just going to start with today and try to write each day. Today started off pretty well. I’m pretty used to this whole quarantine thing now. Luckily for me, I live in a nice town in New York so I’ll be fine if anything happens. I’m very lucky to live where I live.
Today, I got up and watered the tree. We got a new tree in our yard recently, and it needs to be watered for one more week and then we can stop watering it. Today is Saturday so there’s no schoolwork. I’m pretty happy about that, because it’s been a long week. I had two tests yesterday and the most stressful part of doing quizzes and tests is when you have to upload them. It’s so much easier in school, where you just hand in a piece of paper but we have to do it online or print it out and then upload pictures or a PDF of it. Every single time I try to upload it, I have to do it at least twice because the Internet always crashes. We have so many people all trying to work on the same Internet. My mom and dad doing their work, and me and my brother and sister doing school. I’m really sick of this. I’ve been in quarantine for about 9 weeks. The only human interaction I have is with my family. Luckily, we haven’t been fighting that much. Earlier in this quarantine, I was going crazy because my siblings were always fighting.
There are a few things that have kept me sane during this. One is that I always have my headphones with me. I’m always listening to music. Whether it’s The Beatles, HEART, or something completely different like the soundtrack to Newsies, it calms me down all the time. The other thing is probably writing like this. I love writing poems and I’ve written many during this quarantine; some are nice and sweet, some are angry, it all depends on my mood. Right now, I’m a bit worried because one of my neighbors has tested positive for Coronavirus Covid-19, which is pretty scary. I’m being really careful by washing my hands all the time and making sure I walk six feet apart from people when I go on walks.
The other day, I was walking down a street and I saw my friend in her car outside of another friend’s house. It was her birthday and when she walked out of her house, my friend in the car held up a big sign and played happy birthday. It’s really sad that people can’t celebrate their birthdays with their friends. My birthday is coming up relatively soon, and I’m a bit worried. Mine is June 11. I’ll be turning 14.
Yesterday, Governor Cuomo announced that all NY schools would be closed for the rest of the year so I’m going to graduate from middle school online and my sister from elementary school online. I feel really bad for all the seniors. Their prom and graduation and all of the fun things they get to do at the end of the year are all cancelled. I’m really sad because camp was cancelled so I don’t know what I’m going to do all summer. If the coronavirus doesn’t get cleared up, I will probably do the same things that I’m doing now. Reading, listening to music, writing poems and journal entries, going on walks, and of course, binge-watching Netflix.
