When this pandemic began, I thought nothing of it. I would just go to school regularly, go out to eat, watch movies etc. Fast forward to now, January 6th, 2021, and we are all quarantining at home still. Thanksgiving, and Christmas did not feel like a regular holiday. Though going out to some places, felt more at ease as if this was the new normal. Going on vacation, rules are very strict, and there is not many things to do. Though everything ended up fun as expected. Now there is a vaccine and everything can only get better from here.

On December 23, I received an email from my youth group leader, saying that her daughter had just tested positive for COVID-19. I had been displaying no symptoms, but my mom and twelve-year-old brother had been feeling a little sick, so they were tested the next day. A man came to our house with full protective gear and used a mouth swab instead of the more common one in the nose. Since we were trying to be responsible, when we went to Christmas Eve mass, we sat in our car in the church parking lot and listened to the sound using the radio. My youngest brother, at age five, was quickly bored. When we went home we had dinner. It was Mexican food. My mom had set out all of our nice silverware and china. Over dinner we received the results of the tests taken earlier that day, which were positive. My mom began calling people and friends we had been in contact with and later went to bed. My brother tried to wake me up several times in the early morning, but I was actually sleeping well for the first time on Christmas Eve and told him to go away. When I finally did get up we went into our living room and I saw that I had gotten a new bike. It was a really nice one too! Later we picked up gifts from our grandparents. It was a sad sort of Christmas; our Christmas dinner was eaten in the living room in front of the movie Soul. It had just come out on Disney+.

In the year of the plague, Christmas celebrations were different. Less fun, less social, and less exciting. Every year for Christmas, my family and I usually eat dinner at Buca di Beppo with family and friends. Not only would we be unable to invite family and friends, we also were not able to eat at the restaurant because all restaurants had closed recently before the holidays. Fortunately, we ate a delicious Christmas dinner that my mom made for my family and I. My mom usually never makes Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner because of our usual annual traditions, but she got the opportunity to this year because of COVID. We were still able to see my uncle, aunt, and cousins for the holidays and play white elephant with family friends. Christmas Day was very similar to last year - opening presents, eating Christmas dinner, and spending time with family. Conclusively, Christmas celebrations were different, but it wasn't too bad after all, considering my family's Christmas traditions aren't all that festive anyways.

Christmas day was different for me because we didn't have any extended family over. Our extended family usually brings food and we play board games and stuff. I always just hang out with my cousins too. My mom says they love spending time with me so I decided that I wanna spend even more time with them than i already have been, except not recently due to covid.. This time, most of what I did was just boring stuff. I did still hang out with my family but it was just less festive and we all felt a little more exhausted. I did grill short ribs though, they were really good and I'm actually really glad I did that. But I really burnt some to a crisp and they just crumbled apart if I tried to pick them up. I couldnt see if they were cooked well or not because the fire was too big. I also built a robot which was one of my Christmas presents and it took me about 3-4 hours to do, I still have to try and program it though and assign which buttons do what on the remote controller it came with. I think I'll do that this weekend since I really wanna figure it out, I've just been a bit too lazy with it and never got to programming. But other than that i just talked about football and food with basically everyone. Although it was exhausting, it was still fun to do since it was different.

This year's Christmas was pretty similar to a regular year Christmas. We always spend Christmas Eve with my mom's mom, sister, and her husband and daughter so my aunt, uncle, and cousins are Sam who is 19 years old, and Sarah who is 17. Every year we switch off whos house we have Christmas Eve at this year we had it at my aunt's house. We always get all dressed up and eat prime rib for dinner then open our presents from each other but not our presents from our immediate family. We also always bring our dogs so this year we had 4 dogs on Christmas eve my dog Elli, my cousin's dog Sadie, my nanas dog Max, and Snorkel who was a dog my cousins were puppy sitting. We also always go to the Christmas Eve church service which we did not go to because the churches were closed because of the virus. We did not social distance or wear masks and we have been with each other a lot over the quarantine. Then we left at around 1:00 am and went home. Next on Christmas morning we woke up at about 9:45 and went downstairs to open presents and eat breakfast. Halfway through opening presents, we stopped for Breakfast and we always eat cinnamon rolls and bacon. Then we continue to open presents and chilled until 5:00 when my nana, cousins, aunt, and uncle came over with the dogs. My nana made her clam chowder like she does every year and we ate dinner and hanged out. They left around 10:00 and we went to bed. This year's Christmas was very similar to a normal year's Christmas.

Christmas was really differentiations for me this year because usually my family and I would be in Mammoth. Mammoth is a great skiing mountain. I am a skier and a snowboarder I love to do both because they are both so much fun. I am very skilled in both. I am a black diamond in both so that means I can do any trail there is, like runs in the trees, icee runs, and rocks. This year I just stayed inside because we were not allowed out of the house. being stuck in a closed place for over a year really is not good for your health.

My family did what we always do for Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we all went to church. Our church, Calvary, in Westlake Village, California, had 2 in person service so we went to the one at 3. We had to wear masks and social distance, but you had to do that everywhere. Being inside a church was a weird feeling because we haven't been in the church for about 10 months due to Covid-19. Then my grandma, mom, aunt, uncle and sisters, went to my aunt and uncles house for dinner. We were suppose to get beef Wellington but the butcher messed up and gave us steak, which defiantly worked for me. We played games like scene it and 80's music trivia. Then my sisters, mom, grandma and I left because to was 10 pm. My grandma slept over on Christmas Eve like she used to when we were littler. We woke up the next day and my sisters and I opened gifts from "santa" and my mom. We then went over to my aunts and uncles for a brunch and opened gifts from each other. It felt pretty normal all together but when we go out into public it is not by far.

for Christmas the year, it was definitely different. Since I have divorced parents, I was spending this year with my mom. On Christmas Day, we would usually wake up at 8 or 8:30. but this year we ended up waking up at 9:30. it went by very fast. we went in the living room and opened our presents. then we had bacon and eggs while we watched the grinch. the day went by very fast and before we knew it, it was already 6:00. we had our Christmas dinner, which was, steak, mashed potatoes, green beans and cranberries. just a standard traditional Christmas dinner. then, I FaceTimed my friends to show them what I got. I would usually go over to my cousins house but this year we stayed home and didn't see anyone. I ended up taking a shower and then going tom bed at around 11:15.

My Christmas was hardly affected at all by COVID-19. The only difference was that I did not get to see my mom's sister's family. The only reason I did not see them was because they were extremely paranoid about the virus.

My Thanksgiving this year was different in many ways. First it was a lot shorter and we ate outside instead of inside. We were all at separate tables based on our household. It was not as fun being separated but we were still able to talk. There were less family members this year than we have had in the past. Sometimes my moms side of the family comes for Thanksgiving but they couldn’t this year because of Covid. We usually all serve our own food from big platters in the kitchen but this year my mom and dad served everyone their plates full of food and brought them outside to everyone at their tables. It was so cold outside and very windy which was hard and normally we would be inside at our dining room table, where it’s warm. Thanksgiving this year was the same because we made the same kinds of food and had a ton of leftovers but there were a lot of things that were different too.

This year my Thanksgiving was drastically changed from what it usually is. I am used to either traveling for Thanksgiving or having relatives travel to me. My family and I were trapped inside in our own house and we were unable to cook a turkey since we did not have the stuff needed to cook a turkey on hand, so instead we ordered. While it was not that bad and we were not scarred for life or anything like that, it still sucked not being able to see my family.

This year's Thanksgiving was like no other. What is usually a day full of family and friends, became a day of distancing. I was not able to see all of my family, but thankfully my mom, dad, and brother were still there. We tried to keep our traditions, like making the turkey, baking pies...etc, but covid was really wrecking my parade. During dinner we tried to space ourselves out, but it didn't last for long. We decided that we had to take a break and just give one another something as simple as a hug. Even though my whole family wasn't there, we still ended up having a great time. At first it was hard to find things to be grateful for, just because of this hectic year, but by the end, I had a whole list put together. Even throughout this...interesting day, me and my family still found the joys in being together, and staying healthy.

After a long day of school, I check my phone to see news of a sickness spreading worldwide, Covid-19. I thought nothing of it and continued with my day. However, later that night, I would soon realize the severity. The next day after school, this virus that didn’t seem like a massive deal at the time put a sharp end to school with little to no warning. However, I soon realized this wasn’t the only thing that would come to an end football and all social events would be canceled, meaning I couldn’t even hang out with my friends during summer break without the fear of contracting the sickness to myself and my loved ones. During the first week, although this was bringing me into a sort of depression, I learned to truly take advantage of the situation with no school and nothing but time and forever be thankful for the time given to me to grow and mature independently.

The coming of Covid-19 had a huge impact on not only me but everyone else. During Covid-19 Lockdown I wasn't able to go places and see and visit friends without being six feet or wearing a mask. I wasn't able to train for sports or have practices. I am still not able to go to school to get an education or even just see my best friends that I am used to seeing every day. I had to adapt to this strange way of life and had to figure out ways to do my everyday things. These are ways Covid-19 has impacted my life and ways I have adapted to it.

Covid-19 coming into this world had a strong impact on me and a strong impact on the world. This is because I was not able to go outside to my favorite restaurants or around friends without staying 6 feet apart. I wasn't able to work out and train for sports. My learning ability got harder and harder every day because I wasn't able to go to school. During this hard time, I had to adapt to these struggles and figure different ways to do these things during these times.

My Thanksgiving was mostly good and not good this year. I felt this way about my thanksgiving that way because I got to hangout with my family, aunt family, and my pets. The reason because it wasn’t good it’s because we couldn’t go to some fun places because of this pandemic and it’s issues. But over all I think God just wanted it that way and that I wasn’t alone in this season. I’m happy that I got to have a thanksgiving in a different perspective of life.

My Covid-19 experiences were surely pleasant because I have never experience a pandemic until now, but at the same time were a little sad because I couldn’t go to fun places like paint balling, friends houses, restaurants, and more. I still liked when we could go to some places that weren’t exposed to coronavirus, like when I went to Temecula with my family and aunt family, also when I went to my grandparents ranch house, when I could go to my Nana’s house and Aunty house. So that are some things that I got to experience this year.

My Thanksgiving this year was barely changed. Ignoring guidelines by Democratic governor Newsom, who doesn't even seem to be able to follow his own rules, I celebrated a great thanksgiving. My family gathered together at my house and my mother made the meal. We had multiple pies and a large turkey to separate between all family members that could come. I had a great time celebrating, and no one in my family has got sick from the gathering.

My Thanksgiving did not serve the right potatoes. They were not their because my grandma could not come. The Cowboys lost which was different. We all had to socially distance. This year's Thanksgiving was different.

My Thanksgiving was different in the sense that we could not leave the house of even see anybody. It was the same because of the food and traditions but besides that last year was very different from this year. I had Thanksgiving with my family of 4. It was a small gathering which is what we are used to by now. My mom cooked food for all of us and made things from scratch. My parents and brother had turkey but I don’t eat turkey so I just ate salad and chicken. It was still a good thanksgiving but definitely felt somewhat trapped or restricted. The thought that If I left the house without a mask I might come home infecting my whole family lingered in the back of my mind.

Our church stayed open during Covid, even though they were not supposed to. Nobody wore masks, social distanced, it was just like normal. Only about 1 out of every 100 people were wearing a mask. There were about 4000 people at our church. The government tried to shut it down, but the court trial was going to be in 2021. Everywhere in a mile radius of the church had a bunch of signs saying to wear a mask, but of course those signs were ignored.

A lot of things have changed in the past few months. Sports and school have all gotten canceled and we have been trapped in our houses. I have used this situation to start new hobbies like art and scrapbooking. But this also has me missing my friends and family a lot of the time.

January 2020 is when I first got knowledge of some pandemic in the world. My school at the time didn't give a Honors Science class for 7th grade so I was stuck with people who messed around a lot. They would always talk about themselves passing on what they called Covid. It wasn't though until 3-5 weeks later when my entire district was pulled out of school because of Covid, they thought it would only last a few weeks, but me and my friends already knew it would last much longer. 2 weeks went by of no knowledge at all being given for me to learn and being bored with my entire family in the house. We are very fortunate so far, as my parents worked at companies that were benefiting from Covid. My Dad's company benefited from more people using Wi-Fi and my Mom because she worked at a Drug Company where she right now is releasing a treatment for Lung Cancer. Eventually School went into remote learning, we almost learned nothing as the entire system was wack. We always talked about how when the election came, it would get better, it did, for a week. When it came to Summer my parents made the smart and expensive decision to move me and my brother to a private school, after getting into it we started finally relaxing as some loose end were getting tied, we also got a puppy mini labradoodle the is black, we call him Leo and he is our 'Covid baby'. With Covid regulations changing all the time we had to not only learn new rules, but even sometimes had to get certain masks and coverings. Like when you pick up food, or when you dine out, it was all changed, and will still change. Everyone I meet believes that we (U.S. government) could have done better, I agree, but the past is the past and we just have to live with those decisions. Finally we might go back to school again in January after Winter Break, I hope we do. That is how so far my life had went with a Virus that encroached us from all possible angles.

Thanksgiving was alright. I was glad to get off of online school for a week. Staring at a computer screen for 6 hours and having 80 minute periods is tiring. My cousins arrived for Thanksgiving. Although the break was nice, it didn't feel like Thanksgiving. Even when we had the Thanksgiving meal, it didn't feel right. Even though it didn't feel like Thanksgiving, it still was some good food. My dad decided to give every person a massive turkey leg so that was fun. We continued our Thanksgiving tradition of playing bingo after the big meal. That was also fun. Thanksgiving was overall good but didn't feel normal but that's expected when a pandemic is happening

This thanksgiving was not like another. For the first time in a while, we spent this THanksgiving under a lockdown due to Covid-19. Although we were locked down my family and I traveled to Florida to visit our grandparents because everything gets worse. Since we traveled it made it feel a little bit more like Thanksgiving but not entirely. We had a lot of delicious food that everyone helped make. Everything tasted so good and I was so full after. After we ate we all sat around and talked for a while. But, my siblings and I had to clean up and do all the dishes because the adult’s job was cooking and we had to clean. Later after some time had passed everyone started to go home, but my siblings and I really wanted to get an early start on the Black Friday deals. We all got in the car and drove to target. When we showed up at target we were shocked to find that it was closed. All the shops had closed early because of the curfew. We all thought this was crazy. Since target was closed we all just decided to go home and go to bed. It was a great Thanksgiving but everything still felt very weird.

It was about mid February when I first hear about Covid. I didn't think much of it because all it was to me was a disease in another country. I remember seeing classmates Instagram stories making jokes about it. I wasn't worried even if it did effect America it would be like the flu. I could never had imaged what state the whole world would be like. There was this time in science class when my friend coughed I laughed and said "wow you probably have covid". It was a joke and nothing more. A few of my Friends where on the schools Italy trip at that time. I was still talking with them so I figured the county was okay. But when they got back everybody was nervous and Italy shut down. None of them had Covid so I took it as a false alarm. A lot of the middle school became more worried and I didn't understand why the adults didn't care as much. I still don't know exactly why but my best guess is because it was on social media before the news.

This years thanksgiving was very different than the norm. Due to COVID-19 we where not able to celebrate Thanksgiving the same. We prepared the dinner alone instead of preparing the food with my grandpa on my moms side. Also, instead of having many family members we only had both pairs of grandparents over. We were not afraid of dying from COVID-19 but we where afraid for our grandparents. I was allowed to go to school at the time with eight or so other eight graders, but I was worried to get COVID-19 from somewhere that wasn't school because I wouldn't be able to go to school in person for 14 days. Our Thanksgiving was the same in someways though like that our grandparents came over and that we ate dinner. Due to COVID-19 though, my mom and dad prepared dinner themselves. I ate some good food, even in a pandemic, I don't like turkey that much so I had a small slice but a lot of ice cream and pie, which I discovered I liked. The pie was brought over by my grandpa who was given the pie by my uncle who made the pie.

My Thanksgiving was different from other years for many reasons. For example in previous years all of my family will meet at someones house and we would have thanksgiving there. While this year I was only able to have thanksgiving with my mom and dad.

It was a very weird day and it did not feel like thanksgiving. I woke up and there I was in Hawaii I think to myself what day is it. Then I realize its Thursday and were going surfing. We packed up the car and went surfing. while we were surfing, a massive rainbow came over us and this is when I realized it was thanksgiving. I gave my thanks to God and my family and we went home to eat dinner. The End

For this Thanksgiving it was different from others because this year I couldn't have any friends over or my grandparents either. Usually on a normal Thanksgiving my friends, my parents' friends and my family would come over for dinner but this year because of covid that didn't happen. Something the same from the other years that happen would be the food, we had the same food we had last year, turkey, mashed potatoes, and more. I really didn't have to prep this year because we had no one over but I still had to help buy the supplies. This year was very different it wasn't as fun but I still got to spend time with my family.

For this Thanksgiving it was different from others because this year I couldn't have any friends over or my grandparents either. Usually on a normal Thanksgiving my friends, my parents' friends and my family would come over for dinner but this year because of covid that didn't happen. Something the same from the other years that happen would be the food, we had the same food we had last year, turkey, mashed potatoes, and more. I really didn't have to prep this year because we had no one over but I still had to help buy the supplies. This year was very different it wasn't as fun but I still got to spend time with my family.

I honestly can't remember a time without the virus. A time when things felt normal or ordinary. Life before the pandemic, it wasn't perfect, not even close, but I didn't ever feel like I was being strangled, gasping for air. The month of February, only 10 months ago, but feels more like a lifetime since then. I was a 7th grader then, thinking about things like schoolwork and friends and soccer; normal things. I remember I was so happy, so happy that I had such amazing friends, and such a normal life. But, I wanted school to end. I mean, what 13 year old doesn't? Now, I realize how much that wish has effected my life. The day I found out about COVID was a day like any other; I was at school that day, you know, normal things. After school, I checked TikTok and saw all these random videos about some virus that had popped up. At first, I thought nothing of it. When the district announced that school was shutting down, I was told it would only be 2 weeks; just 2 weeks! I thought it would be like a short break from the day-to-day school life, so if anything, I was happy. As the weeks went by, though, I started to panic. What was this coronavirus and why was it ruining my life? I thought eventually it would end, but then we got the alert we were out for the rest of the school year, then the alert that COVID cases were rising once again, then we got the alert that there was no chance of us going back to school in the Fall, and during all of this, as you can imagine, I was going crazy, wondering if life would ever go back to normal. Life right now is bizarre, but we just have to keep pushing because nothing lasts forever. When I think back to February, oh so long ago, I realize how much has happened throughout this pandemic; the rallies, BLM, the election, and above all, change. I have changed as a person, everyone has. Now if that change is good or bad is questionable, but whatever the case, we need to embrace it because we can't change reality; all we can do is hope for the best and keep pushing on.

My family’s thanksgiving dinner wasn’t that much different than our other thanksgiving dinners. My family isn’t a big believer in COVID 19 because honestly it's just a flu. So, we envied our family, only one part of the family didn’t come because they are crazy COVID cautious. Other than that it was realistically normal. It was more relaxed than usual but it was nice. Covid is real but the response to it is worse than the sickness. I hope the other generations don’t have to deal with the government we have right now in California.

This year has been really crazy and hectic for everyone. With Covid-19 going on, the holidays sadly have to be downscaled. So this year I had Thanksgiving with just my household. For dinner we had chicken instead of turkey because of late planning hoping for a change to be with our entire family. I spent most of Thanksgiving alone in my room just playing video games by myself because I was sad that my younger cousins and the rest of family. Overall we still had a great Thanksgiving and had a delicious feast.

The thanksgiving of 2020 is far different from every year. Due to the COVID 19 outbreak, I was not able to see my family over seas or my cousins. Spending Thanksgiving with my cousins and grandparents is one of my favorite things but I could not do that this year. So this year I stayed home and had thanksgiving with just my family. My mom, dad, brother, my other brother, and sister were all their. All the food was the same. We had turkey, ham, masked potatoes, gravey, green beans, mac n cheese, stuffing, corn, rolls, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and vanilla ice cream. After we ate food, we played board games and then went in my pool and lastly played basketball on the court in my backyard. Which was really fun. Overall, I think that I had a great COVID thanksgiving at home even though it was not the same as past years.

In March of 2020, My school Oaks christian was shut down and moved to online because of Covid-19. At first I was extremely excited for this and thought it would be just an easy two weeks of doing online work. It was very nice and a good break to have for the time being and I did really enjoy it, I was so relaxed by it and took off a lot of stress. After 2 months that changed fast. It went from all fun and easy then to more work than I have ever done, I was extremely overwhelmed and had to do so many things and I hated it. Lucky summer break came along and I was finally stress free, That was until the school year of 2020 came up and now I am more stressed than ever. I am a eighth grader that's getting assigned high school level work at a much higher than average work load, I do hope this gets better but this is truly hard to get through.

The year 2020 has been a very strange year, and my families Thanksgiving experience was an odd one. Since we couldn't have a large family dinner, we ended up bringing food to both of my grandparents. I was really bummed to not be able to spend quality time with them, but I was still glad to get the opportunity to see them. After we left our grandparents, we went to our cousin's beach house. We were scrambling throughout the city trying to find an open restaurant for our Thanksgiving dinner. None of the restaurants were open, but we luckily got a call from our friend to have our Thanksgiving meal with them. The lesson I learned from this day was that having close family and friends really matters and that they can get you out of any tough situation. Overall, my Thanksgiving during the pandemic was not an ideal one, but it was still a blessing to be able to be with my family and friends nonetheless.

My thanksgiving was very different because we didn't have a lot of people over. The thing that was the same was we went to my grandparent's house. The preparation was fine we ate mac and cheese, mash potatoes and turkey and a lot of pie. I had thanksgiving with my family. We don't travel for Thanksgiving.

Never would I have thought that my Thanksgiving would be like this. My Thanksgiving usually is with my whole family. But this year it wasn’t. My grandparents are scared of covid and did not come over. My other family, like my uncle, were scared to put my grandparents in danger. It was weird not looking forward to seeing my grandparents. My parents and sister decided to just eat at home together. Usually when we go to the market. It is crowded but now, no one was there due to covid. It felt like a ghost town. We enjoyed our meal and it felt like a regular Thanksgiving meal but I still had that lonely feel of my other family. It wasn’t an awful Thanksgiving, it just wasn’t the same.

This year's thanksgiving was not very different from other years. The only difference was that my mom's sister and her family did not come due to COVID-19. Everything else was the same. We had turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and Martinelli's. It didn't seem all that different this year.

This year 2020 is the year of the pandemic. Many people are traveling to other states to be with their family, which I feel is foolish of them, because not only are they endangering themselves, but their relatives. However, I do understand they want to be with their family for the holiday. I can't relate with those people because I never celebrate Thanksgiving with my entire family. I have relatives whom I never even met on the other side of the world. My Thanksgiving did not feel different from any typical year because my family did not follow common traditions, since we are Chinese. My mom just bought a plain turkey from Sprouts, which my grandparents turned into a spicy dish. But the main course wasn't the turkey, it was the delicious fish and tomato soup I helped prepare with my grandparents. The day felt normal because we never had an extravagant dinner. We only had three dishes. None of my parents cooked, instead, my grandparents did. Although my Thanksgiving was still the same, I believe some other people's thanksgiving changed. At the dinner table, we could have three or six people present, so the Covid-19 indoor capacity limitations didn't affect us at all. I didn't care much about Thanksgiving, since it wasn't my number one favorite holiday. It just felt like a regular dinner with dessert. However, I'm glad the pandemic hasn't changed everything.

The Thanksgiving that I had in 2020 was in some ways different, and some ways the same. I would normally go to my Grandparents house, and they would invite family and friends over too. But this year, only my family was invited. My grandfather had also passed away in October, so only my grandmother was there. The food was the same, but the company was very different. It felt more lonely this year, because of the lockdown. My Thanksgiving was different in some ways, but familiar in other ways. Overall, it was a fine experience, but obviously not as good as previous years.

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It was a Saturday night on December 12th 2020. Since about 10 months ago I, and most of the world have been experiencing the Covid-19 pandemic one way or another. I was reminiscing on what I have done in the last 10 months and sure, I have done lots of stuff. But none of it had any real value. I was just going through the motions. I can say that I think most of humanity is doing the same things I have been doing in the last 10 months. It is sad the times we are living but I still think humanity as a whole shouldn't just get lazy or bored. We should think about ways to invest in our time so we don't waste it. When we look back at this pandemic we should think "Wow! I was so productive in that time!" not "I did stuff I guess. I just wanted it to end." So I think humanity as a whole should look at ourselves and think, is this really what I want my grandchildren to remember? Us being lazy? The bottom line is that we should try to be productive and not just, going through the motions.

It was the night before March 13, 2020, and I was in my room listening to music; when my mom got an email saying that we were going to be doing online school for two weeks. I was really excited to not have to go to school, and that I got to stay at home. I wasn't shocked because people at my school had been talking about us having to stay at home, but I definitely can say that I wasn't really aware of what about to happen. The next day at school we were just going over how online school was gonna work, and our new schedule and whatnot. The following week was our first week of online school, and I'd say most people like myself enjoyed it. I was glad that I didn't have to wake up early, and I got to stay in sweatpants all day. The funny thing about lockdown is that nobody really knew how long we were going to be doing it. We thought it was really only going to be about 2 weeks. Soon after we finished our second week of online school, we got another email saying that we would be doing school from home for longer than we expected. Throughout April, everyone started to become really bored at home, and nobody could go out because all the stores were closed. Most people rarely even went to the supermarket. I was extremely bored, and spent most days doing nothing after school was over. Lots of people also started to get sick of zoom and I'd say about more than half the school was started to get annoyed with online school, including me. The only interesting thing to do was watch tv, and the amount of quarantine memes was getting to be a lot. Soon after April, everyone thought that we'd be going back in may, but sadly we didn't and the following month of quarantine was really when people started losing their minds. Everyone was so sick of lockdown, and literally did nothing all day long. I found myself just watching tiktok's and YouTube 24/7. The following month of June people were even more bored but luckily things started to open up again like clothing stores, restaurants, even the mall. I just assumed that quarantine was over, and that things would go back to normal. Until, a few weeks later when they started closing things back up in L.A.(which is where I live). The worst part is that we were supposed to be going back to school in August, and now everyone was concerned that it wasn't going to happen. A few days before school started we were notified that we sadly weren't going back on campus. We all were sad, but we just assumed that we'd be going back after halloween, or the election (neither of them happened). I was so incredibly bored and honestly really confused about life in general. In the first 3 months of school. I hated online learning, and I had lost all of my social skills, and I had literally run out of things to watch on tv. Finally, a few days after the election my mom got an email that we were going back to school. I was excited to be going back, but also nervous. My school had started thing about a month earlier called wellness camps where we would go on Wednesday with our class and so some activities with our classmates just for an hour. Even just then, it felt super awkward to be back at school, so at this point nobody even knew how to talk to each other since it had been so long since we'd seen people from school. It's currently mid-december and we are going back soon. I hope things will get better soon:)

In January of 2020, life was normal. No masks, no constant hand sanitizer and no social distancing. Everyone had regular schedules. Mine consisted of school, soccer and seeing friends on the weekends. It was not until I was on a family vacation that I found out about the virus. It didn't really sink in until the day our school announced a two week quarantine. I expected it to be a short two week break and then life would go back to our normal routines. As quarantine kept getting extended, I knew that Covid was not going anywhere for a while.

February 2020 was the last month before everything would change. Then, I went to comfortably to school, played with my friends, went to public places, and much more. I remember thinking about how much I used to dislike going to school and classes but now, I would give anything to go back there. Toward the end of that month, news was spreading about a new virus going around and I never thought much about it. In March, the virus began rapidly spreading and businesses and schools began to close. This included mine. It was exciting to begin a new experience at first but I hope I can go back and make more memories at school.

This Thanksgiving was a little weird, because my family was supposed to have Thanksgiving dinner with my grandparents on my mother's side on Wednesday, and then go up to my other grandparents afterwards to have another Thanksgiving dinner with them on Thanksgiving day, but they were not feeling well, so we canceled, and moved the Wednesday dinner to Thursday. My cousin, aunt and uncle (all on my mother's side) usually come, but my aunt and uncle were scared of getting Covid 19, so they did not come. Fast forward to Thanksgiving day, my dad starts preparing the turkey at around 12:00 p.m., and finished it at around 2:00 p.m., so we went to our grandparents' house soon after. My mom, dad, and some others prepared the rest of the food, and while they did that I was tasked with the job of setting the table and putting food in the appropriate spots when said food was finished being made. Then we ate the dinner, and that went normally, with the exception of there being less people. Then we packed up the left over food, said our good-byes and went back home, where we rested for a while, then ate a "dinner" of something-that-is-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue-but-I-can-not-remember while watching something if I remember correctly (It wasn't the Mandalorian®, because the next episode would have come out Friday...). Then we all went to bed and slept.

Life was normal. I would go to school in the morning, at school nothing was out of the ordinary. Before class started everyone would be gathered together talking to their friends without any concern for a disease to be spreading. I swim as a sport and also play soccer. So, on weekends competitions happened regularly. I had a swim meet in February of 2020, it was an indoor meet and there were many people there. It was a normal swim meet and it was great. Then, weeks later on the last day of in person school everything was different. Some people still congregated into groups to talk, however others like myself had heard on the news of a spreading virus and tried to maintain what was a new term at the time "social distancing." This small change indicated many new changes to come.

My day began like any other, I got up at 6:30 on a beautiful morning. I got up and grabbed my glasses off my desk. Then I went to the bathroom and dropped off my retainer. After that I went downstairs and ate some scrambled eggs and prepared my backpack and made my water. We left the house, my mom and I, at 7:40 like usual and arrived at Oaks Christian Middle School at 7:50. I said goodbye to my mom and walked to the cafeteria. There were my friends waiting for me playing games on their phones. When it was time to go to class at 8:00 I ran to my locker number 7068, on the upper floor, I opened it up. Inside were my binders and books lined up just how I had left them on Friday. I grabbed my math binder and my pencil pouch and I was off to class. It was a normal class we were going over the lesson like usual. When I got out of class I quickly grabbed my things from my locker and ran straight for the Bible room, I made it. We talked about how Jesus loves us and wrote down words in our journals and were assigned a little homework just like math. Then I went to break. I went to the usual spot with my friends the Gaga pit which is my favorite thing to play at recess. I won a couple games as did my other friends. When the recess bell called us in I was off to English. As fast as I could I grabbed a mountain of books from my locker and dashed for the room. The lesson was the same we started out with a little grammar and then moved into a little vocabulary and then had a writing section. By that time I could tell that something was going on, but I thought nothing of it a moved on. I went to my next class, rocketry which I really enjoyed we were making some cool model rockets and testing them out. That helped me stop thinking about the awkward looks on people's faces. It was after that class that I noticed that hand sanitizer machines had been put up, and lots of people were using them. I moved on to history. We were talking about awesome and successful civilizations. After that I went to lunch and got a burger like usual. I went and played Gaga with my friends again and when the bell rang. I ran upstairs and got my stuff. Then I went to science where it all changed. In the beginning of class I overheard someone talking about something spreading and everyone seemed distracted throughout the period. At the end of class it got t me and I asked what was up. He said there is a disease going around and China and it is spreading to Italy, and the rest of the world. I smiled and thought no way I finished my last class which was Spanish and finished a little work in academic help but what that kid said was still in the back of my mind. The bell rang and I went down to the lunch room to see my friends and hangout. I went home wondering what had happened and went to bed. A few weeks later I went to math class and our teacher looked sad she told us that the school was moving to online and that we would have to do it from home. I was pumped I get to wake up later and watch T.V the second that I get out of school. That same day my Dad and I went out to find some supplies. Their was none. The shelves had been wiped clean of all wipes, paper towels, toilet paper, pasta, canned food, masks, eggs, rice, and milk, even all the meat was gone. People went insane. At the time my family still wasn't wearing masks even though everyone in the store had them on. We went to home depot to get some supplies to finish a project on the house and all of the gloves and masks and hand sanitizer was gone. So we went home. We weren't affected too much because right before we heard about this we had filled up on toilet paper and paper towels which was a stroke of luck. And as the days go on I haven't been bothered by this and am still happy to be out of school but hopeful that we can go back soon.