Items

• 2021-01-14

  Remote Learning

  The year started out like any other. We were all in class together enjoying to company of friends and teachers. We had hear of a disease spreading on China but nobody was even worried about it. The disease began to spread more and more into the world, and eventually, in the the USA. One the Corona Virus had reached the United States it started to become a more serious problem. But it wasn't untill we had our own cases in LA and Vetura county that things really changed. On March 15, 2020 we started our romote learning. It was a big change we had to get used to. It was mostly downsides but there were some upsides aswell. One of the upsides was we had more freedome in what we could do durring our breaks. When we were in school we only had a selection of activities to do, but since we were home we could do many different things that weren't at school. Another upside is that we didn't have to spend the time driving so we could wake up later and get to doing our activities earlier after the school day ended. That was pretty much it for the upsides however and now we must talk of the downsides. W weren't able to see any of our friends from school anymore! That was a bummer because it made me feel distant and disconected fro the society at school. Another downside was that it was alot harder to understand things in class. We had to make sure we found the assignments online instead of just being handed then=m in class with direct instruction. This factor made it hard for me sometimes to understand what was due the next day and what we had to do for homework. These are the biggest downsides, but there are many more I haven't mentioned in this single article.
• 2021-01-11

  The Origin of COVID-19

  When the Corona Virus was just starting, my family and I were in Mammoth for our Winter Vacation. We started to hear stories on the news about a deadly deseise spreading throughout China. Back then we weren't really discussing where it came from, we just thought of it as something that was happening in a far away country that didn't concern us. Once we wen't back to school the virus had started to spead all throughout Europe and Asia and it was becoming more of a concern. Because of this there was an exponential growth in interest in the facts of what the Corona Virus is and where it came from. At first it was thought amoungst our group that it was created in a lab and escaped (much like the killer bee). This was later proven to be false by science studies. The next belief was that it came from bats! That stuck for a few months. Then, right before summer we stumbled on what we still believe to this doay to be the cause of the Corona Virus pandemic. The research of many scientists found that the virus come from an animal called a pangolin being sold at black market traders in China. There were may of these black markets all around the country. They all eventually got closed down, but not soon enough. COVID-19 had already spread to the entire planet and is now one of the most deadly pandemics of all time.
• 2021-01-06

  A Christmas Durring the COVID-19 Pandemic

  The COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything for all of us. Christmas Vacation was especially different for me and my family this year. I'll start by describing our normal Christmas Vacation. The first week after we are out of school, my family and I normally head up to Mammoth Lakes CA to snownoard and ski. We go up there for about one week to geet us in the Christmas mood. We always stay at our Aunt's place in the village. It's really fun to go exploring and finding a bunch of new things. Once we come back from Mammoth we pick up our christmas tree from a lot in Thousand Oaks CA called Christmas Ranch Tree Farm. When we get home we decorate the tree while watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. The next day is Christmas Eve. On that day we decorate and bake cookies. That night we read the story of Jesus' birth and T'was the Night Before Christmas. Our Grandma also comes over almost every Christmas Eve. On Christmas day we wakeup at seven, open our stockings and presents while my mom records it all on a device. After the opening of the presents we eat cinamon rolls. The rest of the day we hang out with out friends/neighbors looking at our new stuff. After that we head over to a big parter over at our Aun't house with all our extended family. That is our normal Christmas. This year however we didn't go to Mammoth. So we had nothing to do for the first week. I ended up doing a ton of mountain biking. On Christmas Eve we baked and decorated cookies like normal bu tour Grandma didn't come over so it felt odly emty. On Christmas day everything was normal the first part of the day (other than our Grandma not being there). However, we had no party later in the day so the whole Christmas was just our household which make it feel vary lonely. This Christmas was very different than the last few years.
• 2020-12-10

  2020 in a Nutshell!

  At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 was nothing but a distant problem. Something to pitty other countries for having. Then one day, we found out that the Corona Virus was here, amoungst us in the United States, even in our own local comunity. When that happened I was very worried because my mom was going to a club with some people whom originally came from China to the US. My entire family was wonderig if we were safe. My parents were on the verge of taking me out of school right when the schools shut down for good. After that happened my family shut ourselves off from the world, we weren't allowed to see even our neighbors or our closest friends. I was racing mountain bikes competitively for the Newbury Park Mountain Bike Team, and at the time that was my only form of interraction what so ever. When that shut down, I didn't know what to do. I was so bored! We stayed in isolation for another month and a halfe. We decided to pass the time by build big mountain bike jumps in our backyard, but even that got old after a while. Then, finally, we were allowed to go outside of our house/backyard. The first thing we did was go reconnect with our friends whom are all mountain bikers. We were all just getting back in to it, but things were relaxing little by little. Untill things finally started to open back up. As soon as Mammoth opened we rushed up there for a week. The mountain bike park was crazy. There was almost nobody there, and we were required to load our own bikes and had to keep masks on the whole time. We loved it so much that we came back just 3 weeks later. The second time things were a little more relaxed. We were still required to wear a mask in line, but not while riding. We were aslo not required to load our own bikes. After that we came back home. We only had a few days untill school was going to go back online. When school started everything was pretty similar to last year when we were on ZOOM. I was fine untill the end of November when Thanks Giving happened and there were lots of people traveling. COVID-19 started to spike again and my family started to take things more seriously. Up untill this point when i am writing this, nothing has chaged from then. I'm hoping this will all be over soon.