It’s currently day 75 of quarantine, and the craziness of the situation that we find ourselves in is finally sinking in. I mean, there has never been a point in history where life has been put on hold like what is currently happening. To think that we are no longer allowed to safely shake another person’s hand or purchase groceries without protective gear is bizarre!
In fact, what is happening right now is so unbelievable that it made me wonder how I’m going to try to explain to my future kids what life was really like during the 2020 lockdown. I figured that the best way to remember what life was like during the quarantine was to take a sort of “snapshot,” So, I decided to document what I did for an entire self-isolated school day.
This is what a day in the life of a quarantined teen, or “quaran-teen,” is really like.
» 8:30 a.m. — I woke up (reluctantly).
» 8:45 a.m. — Can’t go wrong with some Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast.
» 9-10:20 a.m. — I logged on for AP physics Zoom class.
» 10:30-11:15 a.m. — Then I Zoomed over to my Engineering Academy class.
» 11:15 a.m.-1 p.m. — I proceeded to sit on my phone watching Netflix for a while. (I would absolutely recommend the Netflix show “Outer Banks.” It has really kept me going these last couple of days.)
» 1 p.m. — We made homemade pizzas and cheesy bread for lunch. (And by “we” I mean my brothers. However, I definitely did help eat the pizzas.)
» 1:45 p.m. — After lunch, I drove my Mom downtown to pick up some groceries.
» 2:30 p.m. — When we came back home, my brothers and I played a little basketball in the backyard.
» 3:15 p.m. — Snack time! A nutritious bag of Doritos chips, of course.
» 3:30-4:15 p.m. — I Zoomed some classmates for our collaborative English project.
» 4:15-4:45 p.m. — Study session for my upcoming Pre-Calc test.
» 5-6:30 p.m. — I closed the textbooks and set up my new table saw. I finally got to design, cut, glue, plane and sand some new cutting boards!
» 6:45 p.m. — Sticking with the Italian theme, we had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Delizioso!
» 7:45 p.m. — My family and I took a walk around the neighborhood as the sun was setting.
» 8:45 p.m. — I did some homework for the U.S. History class that I’m taking online through SBCC.
» 10 p.m. — Late-night Oreo snack.
» 10:10 p.m. — I got mostly ready for bed.
» 10:20 p.m. — Then I decided that I was still hungry and went back downstairs for late-night snack No. 2: Peanut Butter Spoons. (Literally, as it sounds, spoons full of peanut butter. I can’t explain why, but they are very good.)
» 10:30 p.m. — I went back upstairs and got the rest of the way ready for bed.
» 10:30 p.m. — I continued watching Netflix until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.
» 12 a.m. — And then finally, I fell asleep.
And that’s about it. It’s so crazy to think that almost all of my days end up looking exactly like this — hit or miss productivity, almost never leaving my house, and no human interaction outside of my family. If you would have told me that this is what my life would have looked like a few months ago, I would have laughed at you.
With all that being said, I do feel as if I’ve done a pretty good job at adapting to this quarantine life. I’ve been able to find activities and set goals for myself that have kept me focused and have allowed me to stay busy. But life in quarantine is full of ups and downs. Some days I feel more motivated than I ever have, and other days I struggle to get out of bed.
When the coronavirus thwarted my original plans to get a job over the summer, my brothers and I decided to pool our money to purchase a table saw and start up our own woodworking business. With the uncertainty of the schooling situation for next year, I decided to take some summer school classes at SBCC. Since my summer baseball was canceled, I decided to take up road biking with my Dad.
Although corona has canceled almost all of my summer plans, I have found it very helpful to continue to try to keep myself busy. Whether that means starting Brennan Brothers Woodworking, learning how to cook a new recipe, or even just trying to learn how to spin a basketball on my finger, I have found that the more that I keep my mind occupied, the more it feels like I have accomplished. And as long as I feel accomplished at the end of a day, that day, in my opinion, was a great day.
The socially isolated life definitely isn’t easy. And unfortunately, the virus doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. So, we just need to make the most of this bad situation as we possibly can, one day at a time.
Seeing a friend’s face over a Zoom call or FaceTime just isn’t the same as seeing them in real life. I miss my friends, I miss my classrooms, and I miss my sports like crazy! I think that I speak for everyone when I say that I cannot wait for life to go back to normal.
— Josh Brennan is a 10th-grader at Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta who is documenting life during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of a teenager.