Hi everyone! I haven’t written on here since early September when I first started sophomore year, virtually, so I decided I’d do a little update on life.
I’m still in virtual school and I’ve gotten pretty used to it to be honest, though I really miss the old high school days where COVID wasn’t even a thing and we could hang with friends all day. I remember the first time we talked about COVID was about a year ago at the end of January, in Algebra, when our teacher used it as an example of exponential growth charts. It’s crazy how much can change in a year.
It’s almost the end of our semester and exam week is looming but the administration gave us a break and we’re doing small projects and tests instead of course cumulative exams like usual. In addition, it’s not going to count for as much of our grade which is great.
I’ve been rereading some of my old posts on here from the beginning of the pandemic, and it’s pretty crazy how much has changed both on a worldly scale and just in my own life. Like I mentioned in the start of sophomore year post, we started doing all synchronous learning, unlike last year where we just worked asynchronously. There are parts of asynchronous I miss, like being able to wake up whenever and do my work whenever I wanted, but I also feel like, in certain classes, such as French and some of my harder subjects, it’s more beneficial to have a teacher actually teaching you instead of just reading something about a topic off the internet. In addition, I’ve been able to start learning to drive now that I got my permit which has been exciting.
As for on the world scale, so much has happened. Whereas 20 COVID cases in our state seemed like an insane number, nowadays it would be a miracle. A lot of really terrible things happened in 2020, but there were some bright spots in all of it. I personally felt like we were able to bring more attention to issues like racism in our society this year with the protests that occurred over this summer for George Floyd, though we definitely still have a very long way to go. Below is one of my favourite poems that went viral earlier on last year, and I think it perfectly sums up 2020:
“What if 2020 isn’t cancelled?
What if 2020 is the year we’ve been waiting for?
A year so uncomfortable, so painful, so scary, so raw –
that it finally forces us to grow.
A year that screams so loud, finally awakening us
from our ignorant slumber.”
~ Leslie Dwight
What were some bright spots in your 2020? Comment below!