All I can think of when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic is how America is shut down. Literally, shut down. A majority of the school systems in the country are closed due to the rapid spread of the virus. Students are required to sit at home, at their kitchen table, to do school work by themselves or possibly with their parents or siblings. Teacher’s emails are flooding with “class” work being turned in by their students. Teachers also have to worry about providing their students with work while also worrying about their own children, and the work that their kids must do. State governors and the federal government have shut down many businesses because that is what is best to stop the virus’ spread, but people aren’t making money unless their job pays for the shifts that they are supposed to be working. The country is on lockdown.

The government recommends social distancing. Social distancing is when people maintain physical distance between other people to prevent the spread of something contagious. It reduces how many times people come in contact with each other. Do people follow that protocol? Not really, hence the reason why COVID-19 is still spreading like wildfire. My social distancing experience has been going somewhat well. One thing that I’ve taken advantage of during this quarantine is spending time with my family. My family means the most to me. It’s hard to do some nice family things with my parents when they are busy and tired because of work. I feel awful that both of them are currently out of their jobs, but they are both taking this time to be with my siblings and me. So far, we did a family movie night with ice cream and brownies, we’ve made a lot of chocolate chip cookies over the last one and a half weeks and have had a few nice family dinners. There is much more to come, but I’m glad this time is giving me fun in-home activities with my family.

I’ve also done a lot of arts and crafts with my sister. I’m really big into art and love DIY crafts. So far, I’ve done a few landscape paintings, my favorite to paint. I’ve also gotten back into making friendship bracelets, which I originally stopped doing because they take a while to make, but since we have all the time in the world now, I decided to get back into that. My sister Kiki, started to take up customizing shoes. So far, she painted a pair of Nike slides and an old pair of Air Forces she had sitting in the closet. She’s hoping to do more soon and even wants to customize her friend’s shoes. Drawing is another big thing I like to do. I’m not that great at drawing people so I’m using this time as an advantage to get better at it.

Working out is another big thing I’ve taken part in during the quarantine. I already do small workouts because of softball, but we might not have a softball season at school, so I would definitely like to stay in shape and practice on my own, so I’m ready for the competitive season in the summer. I created a workout routine to do for a few weeks then will switch it up to a different routine after those few weeks are up. Also, running. I love to run during my free time. It is a huge stress reliever for me and really helps me vent after a bad day. Or if I’m bored, I’ll just do a quick 1-2 mile. Working out and staying healthy is really important during this chaos we are in.

Staying caught up with my school work, reading and doing the other few things to keep me occupied is good enough for me as my methods of social distancing. The most that we can do as a school system, citizens, friends, and family is to keep our heads up and have hope that this will all blow over soon. One day, we will be telling our children about how we made it through a pandemic and what we did during it.

Iyana Kirvan, Staff Writer

Sophmore Iyana Kirvan is a staff writer for the 2019-2020 Colonel. She played softball for the CT Bombers travel association and recently ended her competitive career this past summer. One day, she hopes to work for the government’s Central Intelligence Agency, or to work in the medical field as a midwife or for childcare.