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”.
COVID-19
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
The Impact of Coronavirus on my Daily Life, a perspective from Poland by Patrycja Wanat, 13
The Impact of Coronavirus on my Daily Life By Patrycja Wanat, 13 So far, COVID-19 has influenced my daily life immensely, and I know for a fact that it has affected other people’s daily life tremendously as well. I now have online school, can’t gather with my family and friends, and there are queues in every shop, and additionally where I live, in Poland, starting on April 16, everybody must wear face masks whether they want to or not. I consider it a wonderful idea: whereas yes, healthy people don’t have to wear face masks, but you never know if you have the coronavirus or not–in a lot of cases, people can’t notice that they do, they recognize they have it whenever it’s too late. The changes that are beneficial are that COVID-19 has decreased air pollution levels. For example, I can observe in my city where I live the changes in the sky, it’s cleared from the smog and it’s more pure in tone than it ever was. Another change that’s positive is that as more and more people are staying at home to practice self-isolation, pet adoptions from shelters in Poland have seen a huge increase as folks look for companionship in stray cats and dogs. The disadvantages of COVID-19 are obvious–people are dying from it! No one has found a vaccine for it, people can’t visit their families and friends, and in my area where I live, one big disadvantage is that people are losing their jobs. Like most countries, Poland has closed its borders, and that’s why nobody can send any packages to another country, nor receive them. The economic crisis is going to be the biggest one yet. The thing that makes me most anxious when I think about COVID-19 is how poor countries that cannot afford all the medical equipment cope. I’m very grateful and lucky that I have a phone and I can contact my friends and family, and that I live in a country that has all the medical equipment. The thing that makes me most hopeful are the news on the TV that give signs of hope, like I heard recently that China appears to believe it’s brought its coronavirus emergency under control. News like that make me want to have a little faith and belief that the self-isolating is working, and that maybe soon we’ll see a colossal decrease of cases of COVID-19. A particular experience that represents a change to my life most recently was whenever I was at the shops with my mum, and we were in the queue waiting patiently, until one woman started yelling at an elderly lady, shouting “Move! You’re too close to me! Everyone listen up! This lady is blowing at my hair!”. That lady didn’t stand so close on purpose, she didn’t even realize. The angry woman should have said it normally to the elder woman that she’s too close, not disrespectfully shout at her so the whole shop heard her! A quick summary–coronavirus had a huge impact on everybody’s life. Patrycja Wanat, 13 Rajsko, Poland
