Explore the Archives
A Journal of the Plague Year Arizona Collection Australia Boston Bronx Community College New York Brooklyn College New York Canada Las Americas Lockdown Staten Island New Orleans Oral Histories Philippines Sacramento Community Based Organizations Southwest Stories Teaching the Pandemic The City College of New York

Collected Item: “Fish Out of Water”

Give your story a title.

Fish Out of Water

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

photo

Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.

Since March 2020, my life has taken a complete turn. For my past high school years, I’ve constantly been in the pool playing water polo or swimming. In an odd way, I have built a connection with the water. It’s become a part of my day, a part of my life, and I took it for granted. I thought I would get to feel the adrenaline and the nervous wreak on game days when our season came, but it never did. As someone who was always in the water and active throughout the week, it was a change of scenery when we had to stay home because of the severity of the pandemic in California. Not being able to play my sports represents my high school experience as a junior because everything feels out of place. Most of my days used to revolve around practices and games, and not being able to attend these felt strange. This might be a minor inconvenience, but this little change threw me off guard. I had to find other ways to adapt to the situation and learn how to organize my days so that they could resemble one similar to before everything happened. I’m sure there are also many others who feel very unmotivated during this time of unrest. I, too, fell into a hole where I lost motivation because there was nothing to look forward to and I feared that things would never go back to normal, but I eventually adapted to this new reality because I realized that I could not predict the future. In a way, the lockdown was an opportunity for me to improve myself and take on new hobbies I have always been interested in. I started to cook more and even tried baking!

Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?

APUSH, Garden Grove High School

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

Emily Nguyen

Give this story a date.

2021-01-22
Click here to view the corresponding item.