This is the final week of blogging weekly here. It’s bittersweet in a lot of ways. In a lot of other ways, though, I’m ready to be done. Since quarantine started in March, it’s felt like a weird transitionary period that hasn’t stopped transitioning. New developments continue to roll in, but the weirdness never stopped being weird. I think everyone just wants life to move on, for the most part, to get back to normality. I don’t think that will happen, though. At least not for a couple of years. If I’m being honest, I think this pandemic will have a lot more cultural impact than some people think. But maybe I’m wrong and life will go back to a completely normal structure after this summer -- who knows. But I’m expecting summer to be weird too. I won’t be able to go on all of the trips I was hoping to, so I’m going to have to find a way to make some new trips. I’m hoping to become more outdoorsy this summer, partly out of necessity, but partly out of real interest. I bought some good sandals for being a wilderness man (Chaco) and I’ve been trying to get out more. The greenhouse gig didn’t work out this summer because apparently they’re overstaffed, but the lady who manages it told me to contact her in August to work there in the fall which I may do. I think for now I might work a painting job in the summer with my friend Dexter. He lives in New York for school but had to come back home because of COVID-19 and I’m really glad he’s back here. After this summer I’ll be starting at NDSU. I’m majoring in strategic communication with a focus in advertising (most likely). I’m definitely excited for the future but I’m sad I didn’t get much closure on my years in high school. What can you do, though? My page is almost full here so I should probably wrap this up within the next few sentences. Thanks again for being such a great speech coach and teacher, Mr. Tichy. I really enjoyed getting to know you better throughout these last four years. You rock.
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I’m beginning to have trouble remembering how many weeks we’ve been in all of this. That’s actually an understatement because I can’t remember what week this blog is on. I’ll look when I post it, but it feels like probably seven or eight? I don’t know and I don’t really care anymore. It’s been a pretty eventful week on my end, though. It was Mother’s Day yesterday, and we ordered a lot of good food. I picked my mom up some Drunken Noodle as a surprise, but she only ate half and gave me the rest so that was a win-win in my book. We also had Paradiso for dinner that night, and it was yummy, but definitely not as good as the noodles. In other news, I started learning the piano yesterday. I have a little electric keyboard I can play on my lap or table, and it’s pretty nice. I learned to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and it didn’t sound half bad in my honest opinion. Hopefully, I can keep developing that skill and keep working to get better instead of just forgetting about it one day and starting something new. That’s a problem I have, but I think I’ve said that before. I’ll just get obsessed with a new hobby or project and drop everything else I have interest in to pursue it. On top of everything else that happened this week, I also got an email back from the lady at the greenhouses that are a part of NDSU. She offered me a fall position, but I think it was my wording so I have to correct her and send my resume in. But that’s about all that I can think of in terms of my quarantine happenings for the week. In the grand scheme of quarantine, though, more has probably happened this week alone than 90% of all my other quarantine weeks combined. That’s if you’re not counting Animal Crossing, I guess. I’ve been making gains in that game every day, like a grind. I’m hoping I’ll still be able to give it lots of attention after quarantine is over, though, because it’s lots of fun, but it is a life sim and can take up a lot of your time in a day. I feel like I’m just rambling on now, though. School will be wrapping up here soon and you won’t be seeing any more blog updates on here. It’s bittersweet because they’re not always fun to write, but I think I’ll appreciate looking back at them down the line. Hopefully, though, I won’t have to write many more of these, I miss normal life and I miss human interaction. A big part of my senior year was taken from me I want all that I can get going forward.
As we get even closer to summer vacation, or whatever it will end up being, all of this is feeling more like a transitionary period more than anything. It is all becoming more tolerable in numerous ways. I guess that among all of the chaos, I’m learning to live my life and do what I usually do in new and different ways. I can still get the food I like, I just can’t eat it in the place I buy it. I can still talk to my friends and play games with them, but I just can’t always do that in the same location or house as them. My life in a lot of ways is still moving and progressing, even if it doesn’t feel like that. The fact that I’ll be starting college in a few months is unbelievable, especially considering that I won’t even really have closure in terms of high school. It’s all just moving so fast. As all of this happens, I also realize that I’ll probably need to start working again before college. I always leave my job in the winter for speech but considering that’s long gone, it’s probably about time I get back to making some money. I don’t want to work in Hornbacher's anymore with everything going on right now, so I think I’m going to work at the greenhouses in NDSU to avoid contact with others while I work. That would be a great place to work because I would feel safe, thus decreasing my constant anxiety by about 1000%. We’ll see if it works out, though. I haven’t even emailed the lady who runs it yet. I’ll give some updates on here as to whether it works out or not, but I’m hoping for the best. I’m still playing a lot of video games and watching lots of movies and TV. It was Star Wars day yesterday (May 4), and I finished the Clone Wars series. It was really good. I also designed this Star Wars shirt that I’m hoping to make within the next few days. I don’t know, I guess I’m just trying to keep myself busy. I’m doing my best here, and I think I’m doing okay. Some days are harder than others, but I just keep moving forward. I don’t want to miss too much.
The weather is getting nicer and the morale is getting higher. Slowly, at least. As it gets more tolerable outside, I find that I’m having a much easier time acclimating to quarantine. When I can do things like ride bike, lay outside, or just take a walk, it doesn’t feel as much like I’m trapped. And although this seems to be the case for most people in town, I still feel some sense of dread. There’s the usual joy for spring, but it’s followed by an underlying feeling of fear. Everybody is enjoying their time outside, but it feels like we shouldn’t be. It’s a hard situation because ideally, everybody should be keeping their distance completely and only communicating with who they live with, but realistically that’s not human nature. We’re beings of social nature, and when we have the opportunity to bask and live surrounded by each other, we take it. I’ve seen a few friends and I’ve seen many other people in small groups. It’s a hard dilemma because you wonder whether or not you’re being a bad person or irresponsible, which both may be partially true -- but when you’ve been alone and trapped for so long it feels like a small escape from all of the chaos around us. As quarantine gets longer, it feels like it has become less about trying to escape it or make it stop, and more about how I can make the most of whatever I can get. It’s a hard time and whether it’s an anxiety of getting the virus or the blues of isolation, I’ve felt pretty off this entire time. Being outside helps that, though. I realize that it’s a temporary fix to my problems and that I’ll have to confront the real situation of the world eventually, but that’s okay. I’ve been dealing with that for nearly two months now in the grand scheme of things. As long as I can find some time every day to step outside and get away from the chaos. Even if it’s just for five or ten minutes each day, that’s okay. I’ll just dream up the next time I can step back out there and escape it all.
Four weeks. It has been four weeks since school was cancelled. Four weeks and it feels like everything has happened but nothing has changed. It keeps getting nicer out, which has helped, but it still feels like I can’t do much considering all of the guidelines in place. I’ve started listening to more podcasts. To push the days forward, I suppose. I’ve also been watching much more TV. I guess it just seems like the longer this goes on, the more I realize I’m not simply going to be able to just wait this out. It feels like I’m at the point where I’ll have to start getting involved in newer hobbies because this is going to become my life longer than I want it to. My family life felt like it was devolving for a moment, but it’s seemed to have stabilized since then. There was lots of fighting this week, but it’s simmered down. If I’m being honest, I’m having trouble even finishing this blog. So little has happened and I feel like I’m typing the same thing I’ve been typing last week and the week before that. I’m sure that feeling is only going to get worse in the coming weeks. There’s no way we’re going back to school and those who think we are, I think they’re properly off their rocker. It seems now at this point like summer is going to get cancelled as well. I was very excited for my summer before college, and I still am, but it is looking more and more like I’ll have to really readjust and alter those plans. I was planning on going on a lot of trips and concerts and events, but my summer might have to be more Moorhead-centric, which is alright I suppose if I’ll have the people I care about. Right now I’m just bored. Really bored without anything to do. Guess I better start my other homework now.
Easter came and Easter went. Like a small fiber in the grand scheme of time, it flew by as all things inevitably do. It didn’t feel much like Easter, but my mom did what she could. We had ribs, pie, and did a little egg hunt in my house. But besides that, it felt like another day in the never-ending slums of quarantine. I’m not sure how recent this news is, but our state’s shelter-in-place that was originally set for two weeks has been extended a month. I knew it would happen, but it’s still hard to wrap my head around the prospect of these shenanigans going on much longer than it already has. Yesterday Keegan texted a group chat we were in and said that his Dad thought he had caught the virus. He said he just had a sore throat and was getting headaches, which didn’t seem to match the symptoms for the virus. He later updated us and said his dad didn’t think he had it anymore. By the time he gave us that update, though, I was already wondering what it will be like when someone I do know gets the virus. It feels like it will inevitably happen at this rate and I don’t know exactly how I’m going to be able to prepare myself for that. In terms of everything else, I suppose I’m holding up. I started working out more and meditating when quarantine began, but my interest and motivation have dropped to about zero since then. I worked out yesterday but dropped meditating completely. I’m going to try to do both again today after I’m done with my school work. It seems to slowly be getting nicer out, but it’s hard to say when it sleets/hails/snows again every three days. The doctors and scientists keep saying that “This week is going to be the peak week for our country” but then it just keeps getting worse or the “peak week” just gets pushed to the next week. I wonder where we go from here in many ways, but more than anything I’m hoping that we just figure out exactly what we need to do and start doing such as soon as possible.
Heading into week two (technically week four), I wasn’t sure of what to expect. Would it be different? Would it be all the same? Probably the same. And for the most part, it was. As my week began, it seemed like the shifting focus in the news was the fact that the U.S. was getting closer to their peak of coronavirus cases, which is expected sometime in April. Although I’ve heard Minnesota wouldn’t be getting its peak until July or August, my mom has decided to strike down the iron hammer. I like to think I’ve been pretty good with social distancing. I was keeping in contact with a close circle outside of my house, but I suppose there were a few loose ends in that circle (Dexter, who was in New York, and Karine, who works regularly at Starbucks). It seemed like Dexter was my mom’s tipping point. After the big snowfall we had a few days ago, I was cleaning the ice outside my car when my mom confronted me. She was frustrated with my actions and felt that I was putting my household in danger. Understanding where she was coming from, I begrudgingly agreed to her wishes, which included me not being able to leave the house at all for the undisclosed future, except of course when she wants me to run and get her errands. Which is totally hypocritical, but that’s life I suppose. As lockdown gets tighter throughout the country, the same occurs right under my roof. Guess I’m stuck playing more Animal Crossing, so I can’t complain too much. As the end of the school year inches closer and closer, though, I do begin to wonder if I’ll miss any or all of the things I’m telling myself is fine being over. As the days and weeks unfold, I guess the insanity of quarantine will make me confront all of my truths, as I’ll be far too bored not to. I guess I’m just hoping that even if this virus manages to take my senior year away, I’ll still have some semblance of an exciting and new journey into college. I can’t even think about that, though. The idea of “normal” life is becoming more and more foreign with each day that passes.
As the weeks go on and the days get longer, the options only seem to thin. Amid a global pandemic, many wonder how they’ll possibly fill the time. I was in the same boat for a long while. That was until I was graced by the gods with a gift from the heavens. On March 20th, a game I’ve been waiting for, for over a year, called Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out. I was overjoyed, but there was a catch. The game had only been released for the Nintendo Switch, and as luck has me, I had sent mine in to get repaired. The only problem in this situation is that the repair shop was forced to shut down because of the virus. I waited for a couple of days for a miracle to happen, but it looked like my machine was trapped in the clutches of a now-abandoned shop. All of my friends were playing the game, so I caved. I went to Target and bought a new system so that I could be freed from the darkness and despair of the world around me. Although the purchase was an expensive one, it was worth every penny to me. As I loaded the game into the system, I was instantly thrown into a world of peach trees, animal villagers, and an island with beauty at every corner. In comparison to the house I had been living in, I would’ve done close to anything to escape from the current condition of the world around us. As I do all I can to manage and cope with the seemingly crumbling world around us, I look for all the ways in which I can learn to appreciate the time I have now. I’ve begun meditating, trying to find some sense of peace and stability in all of this chaos, and that has been a beacon of hope recently as well. Between managing my own time and balancing it with my family’s this whole pandemic, the environment of my life has been quickly changing and evolving in ways I never expected. As my senior year begins to wrap up, I learn every day that this one is more surprising and quickly-changing than even I ever expected it to be
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Taylor QualeyA high school senior from Moorhead, Minnesota going through a worldwide pandemic ArchivesCategories |