How COVID-19 Has Affected Me By SierraRose Gibson, 12 Covid-19 has really affected my everyday life. As a student, I now have to stay home for classes. As a student of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is one of the largest school districts in the country, online school will not even fully begin until next Monday as of the writing of this ‘blog’ (4/6/2020). I am still working on packets given to us by our teachers about 3 weeks ago (and it feels so long ago now), back when we thought we would be back in 2 weeks (so I wouldn’t have gotten them in in time–oops). Now we are looking at around the end of April or even the rest of the semester as an end date–and if the quarantine ends when summer break begins, I most likely won’t see some of my friends in person until we’re 8th graders! (I’m in 7th). Anyway, staying home all day isn’t so bad for me, as someone who prefers staying inside for the most part. I enjoy playing video games, drawing, writing and browsing Reddit and YouTube, and those don’t require anything outdoors. What really worries me about Covid-19 is not that I might get it personally, but that important people in my life such as my mom and my grandmother might get it, as they are more susceptible than I am. What makes me most hopeful is that we will still get to continue school, but at home so at least I will still be able to return to some normalcy. My gym teacher posted a video of herself running around the school track. She told us that all of the teachers were allowed to go back one day to gather supplies, and were getting trained on how to use video calling services and use online learning resources. At that point, though we had already been told about the lengthened break from school, it really set in that we weren’t going back for a while, that my teacher was doing this to let us see that our school, which we had gone to every weekday for 1½ years, was closed for us, the 7th graders. I realized that I wouldn’t run to and from classes and rush to get to my locker before they close the halls for lunch for a long time. That was a true realization point. Overall, quarantine is greatly affecting my life, but there have been some silver linings. I played (at home) a 100% online VR game with my friend. I figured out how to play Minecraft online with a friend who used to come over every weekend to play with me, so we can continue even when we’re in our own homes. I go on long Discord calls in which we don’t need to talk very much to enjoy each other’s company. Quarantine is hard, but I think that we can all figure it out for the time being. Life must go on, one way or another. SierraRose Gibson, 12 Los Angeles, CA
Diary of a Locked Kid, journal entries by Alice Pak, 10
Diary Of A Locked Kid By Alice Pak, 10 It all started on Thursday, March 12th. At my Jungle Book Musical practice, my teacher, Mrs. Frost, had some news to share. She looked around, a very sorrowful expression on her face, and then murmured something to another teacher. The other teacher’s face also fell into a frown, but she called us to gather around. As we gathered around Mrs. Frost, she took a deep breath and said, “Students, I know this is going to shock you, and you are probably going to be VERY sad, but I have to tell this to you now. We are going to have a school lockdown for three weeks, and it starts tomorrow.” There was a stunned silence. Then one of the students nervously raised her hand, and asked what a lockdown was. It was obvious that Mrs. Frost was not very comfortable with the topic, but she explained that a lockdown was when a social place was closed, for example, our school, and nobody attended it for a few weeks. In our case, three weeks. She also said that we would have online learning, on our chromebooks. Now, everyone was thinking about another thing; they would not be able to see their friends! Some people burst into tears. Some had sad expressions engraved on their faces. Others still looked confused and puzzled. But nobody was happy, even though that meant missing school. Thursday, March 12th, evening When I came home from school that day, I burst into tears. I didn’t want school to end, even if it was temporary! It was so fun at school! All the crafts, books, projects, and other fun activities would have to end. All because that cruel little virus! All because of him, school had to end! I was very upset, so it took my parents a couple of minutes to calm me down. I was very unhappy about the school lockdown, and even if it was not forever. Tonight I went to bed, thinking about what I should tell our friends, because they didn’t know yet. Friday, March 13th Today at school we had our Jungle Book Musical. It turned out to be quite magnificent; the audience was constantly laughing and commenting. The cast was also amused sometimes, and they chuckled lightly. The staff loved it also. I was having so much fun, I even forgot about the lockdown… for a while. But when we were back in our classes, and my math teacher handed me a pack of homework, I remembered about it, and went back to my gloomy self. When school ended, and I was saying bye to my friends, I realized how much the coronavirus has changed in this world… even if it wasn’t a good thing. Saturday, March 14th I woke up, and remembered what day it was. The first day of Break! That thought stirred some sadness and excitement in me. My mom went around the corner, and smiling at me she said, “ here you are! Happy first day of Break! I have something for you.” She handed me a suitcase-like box. I opened it and saw that it contained a machine that seemed to be able to do something. After a minute of further inspection, I found out that it was called a KumiKreator, and that it braided bracelets. Now that was something! I quickly mastered the KumiKreator, and started making bracelets. The machine would quickly make the threads trade places in a specific order; then, when the bracelet was done, the machine clicked three red lines together, and you had to take off the finished bracelet and put on the clips and… Magnifique! I made four, and they came out fantastically! My break seemed not to be that bad, so far. Sunday, March 15th Today, I was ready to have a fresh start on my day. Now, my sadness was slowly melting into eagerness and possibilities. I ate up my breakfast and then we decided to go to a Turkish Marketplace called U.S International Foods, which also contained Russian food, which we loved. We bought a lot of Russian and Turkish food like sausages called “Kolbasa”, different fish, Russian saltless pretzels called “Bubliki”, Turkish bread called “Lavash”, candy, chocolates, and mouth-watering Russian ice cream. As soon as we were out of the shop, we each took an ice cream and ate it all up. Then when we arrived home, we took on the hard job of loading up our refrigerator. Then we ate our soup, and went to Gerspacher Park. We played there for a while, and then went back to our house, and went to sleep. What a great day it was! Monday, March 16th Today I felt a bit unsure about staying at home. Even though I knew that we were having a lockdown, I was so used to going to school. Instead, I decided to play the piano. I sat down at our beautiful black “ Pearl River” and started to play all I knew. First I played my small jazz program, then I played “Lady green Sleeves”, followed by Ronda, Minuet, and my Sonatina. I managed to play all 5 pages of the Sonatina! It was very pleasant. My mom is my music teacher: she taught me all of that. My dad played the piano too, so after I finished playing, he sat down and played his music; two of his Waltzes, Nocturne in E flat, another Nocturne by Chopin, Mazurka in A minor, and a French Tango to rival me. Of course, neither was better than the other, so we gave up on our music competition. But my mom enjoyed telling us, especially my dad, that we were playing the wrong note. Tuesday, March 17th Today I already got used to the fact that I was not going to school for a few weeks. Instead, I busied myself with the opportunity to make so many arts and crafts during this “off school time”.
The Virus, a graphic art story by Annabelle Garner-Tamayo, 10
The Virus By Annabelle Garner-Tamayo, 10 All of the viruses in the world gather together in one big, white and light blue lab. The viruses are green and red and orange. There are a lot of viruses there: the Spanish flu, the swine flu, the coronavirus and more. The viruses are all sitting in the lab and deciding what to do next. Majority votes always wins, so they all decide that each one will attack the world at a different time. They want to destroy the world. The Coronavirus chose the end of 2019. It seemed like the perfect time. The coronavirus is a big one, too. Things are getting bad! This virus could kill people. Our world can’t fight this one alone, its too weak because it’s just a baby to the viruses. We have to save our world! We can save it by: 1- no littering; 2-saving toilet paper;… … and 3- the biggest of all, coming up with a cure! If we can do these things… …the world will be saved. So, we try, but some people don’t listen and take all of the toilet paper! Those people are known as the “corona crazies”. The government gave us a scare. They have us all meet up. They bring a microphone and they tell us: “If we don’t stop, we will all die and our world will die”. So everyone stopped and the virus stopped and we all lived happily ever after. THE END. Annabelle Garner-Tamayo, 10 Omaha, NE
