Day 163 of (Physical) Isolation

The fall is finally here, in function if not in cooler temperatures, and most American high-school students have returned to classes online. If there's a back-to-school spike approaching from the districts and private schools that have reopened, it hasn't begun to show yet. Throughout the country, we attempt to gauge how far six feet actually is, apply makeup to only the top halves of our faces, and make face masks fashionable in hopes of resuscitating this school year. Second semester, or 2021 if you're no longer at the age when your life is at the mercy of accredited institutions, glows in the distance like a neon sign in a thick fog as the date when a vaccine could be available and life could go back to normal. Since this pandemic could be under control in only eight weeks if everyone wore a mask, it feels ridiculous that we're still dealing with it at this point, but that's America for you, I guess. People here don't like being told what to do, even if it's for their own safety.

Going to a residential school in the United States has begun to feel like a sudden-death sports tournament, where any sudden rise in cases will force us all to move out and switch to online classes. In the trifecta of large universities near where I live, only one remains in-person for most students, and it's the private university that had the funding to provide every student with masks. College after college is closing when clusters of COVID cases surface, mostly due to fraternities and sororities hosting parties illegally. Most of the students I've personally seen in the wild have been wearing masks, and I've gotten into a habit of categorizing the people I see on the street - smart, smart, stupid - based on whether or not they're wearing one. Switching to fully online learning would be pretty disheartening, so everyone who's now living in a different community has a special responsibility to think of the citizens of your college's town when considering partying or not wearing a mask. Since my school is part of the state system in which colleges are shutting down, we have special pressure to prove that we can do a better job than college students at preventing viral spread.

Since my school required testing, I got a firsthand look at the testing process, and it's left me pretty optimistic! Though it was hard for me not to think about how far the nose swab seemed to be sticking, through my nostril and into my brain, that PCR test took less than a minute. A few of my friends had problems with mistimed test, odd results, or broken vials, but the vast majority of my school's first move-in group had safely tested negative and are now all living here at school. We can only hope eventual distribution of a vaccine will be this simple, but hopefully it works out. The world needs something to work out for once.

The first week of mandatory online school has begun for my public school friends, and many high-schoolers are ambivalent: "[I'm g]etting used to it, but it doesn't feel like school. [I]'m not ready to do this for 6 [months]," stated my friend Ellie. Speaking from experience, back in the spring, online school definitely didn't feel like actual school, which led to various states of demotivation in teenagers. Some people enjoy it, though - my friend Eva (again, pronounced Ava), called the experience "Shockingly not terrible???" because paring down school to the bare minimum of classwork has left students with a lot of free time to pursue part-time jobs or college applications. Of course, even in the absence of in-person education, a small degree of mischief still occurs, like the instances of people intentionally joining the wrong zoom call, asking inappropriate questions, then exiting the meeting, as accounted by my friend Katherine. Since students can't really be disciplined in their own homes, restrictions on things like eating during class have mostly been lifted, leading to this odd headspace in which online school exists halfway between in-person school and just chilling at home. As for hybrid private schools, at least in the case of my brother's, it seems like the kids who've elected to stay fully online and keep teachers safe are dealing with various connection issues and cursing the Canvas automatic grading software. For those doing fully online, classes definitely feel very different from the start of last year, but they're at least less of a time suck, and maybe students will be able to focus on themselves more. Also, as I'm writing this at 9am on a Monday, Zoom just went down (potentially worldwide?), so all of the virtual activities that'd been scheduled for the day can't happen yet (I'm thrilled, because the required Zoom meetings have been pretty boring and repetitive, and I also don't want to think about having to do actual schoolwork tomorrow). Everyone will definitely have to be a bit more flexible this year, but we need to remember that this is only a few months of our lives and that we can get through it.

For me, going to a place where I can see a bunch of new people my age in person has been pretty amazing so far. All the orientation activities have felt like summer camp, albeit a summer camp where touching is forbidden. Now that I'm experiencing an institution's attempt to keep in-person school safe, I understand slightly more how hard it is. Even with everyone who's here wearing masks, people who are in one area moving around will pretty-much-inevitably end up a bit too close to each other at some points. I was recently in a room with about fifteen people, feeling slightly nervous. I tried to remind people to stay apart from each other, but, as of now, humans are raised to be near others (I shudder to think of growing up and, in twenty years, teaching my child to stay 6 feet away from other people), and our pre-Covid instincts of getting nearer to someone when talking to them are very hard to override. This just means that we have to be extra mindful about safety going forward, because everyone I know really wants school to be normal as soon as humanly possible, even if we disagree slightly on what's safe and what isn't.

However, despite restrictions, we're still having fun here! A positive to being back at school meeting people is that, after so much time alone in my room coupled with the fact that kids here don't really know me yet, talking to people feels more like a game or an opportunity than a risk. Everyone is new AND lives right here on campus, so making friends is easy. I've said the weirdest things to people: "I think I know you from Facebook!" and "I love your outfit, you give me adorable bookish vibes" are some examples, and they still didn't seem opposed to being friends! I was struggling in quarantine because I needed newness, and now, I have it. A few nights ago, one of my friends and I were at a distanced event and decided to take some boys we'd just met to go play ping-pong (my new favorite pastime, since it's distanced by design). It was dusk, and we were walking through the humid August air under the glow of yellow street lamps. That feeling of total freedom, being out in the night air listening to the laughter of new friends, is the best I've felt for ages. It finally feels like there's potential in my life, and my days are full of something other than Netflix and a 2048 addiction.

Apologies for the late post, by the way! School hasn't even started yet and it's already keeping me busy. I thought I'd be homesick now, and I do miss my family, but this new school already feels like my home. I'm going to go find some new friends, because I'm so thrilled that's something I can do now. It's only been three days, and I already know this is going to be a great year. And to everyone who's still online: you've got this, and thank you for doing your part to keep us all safe. We can do this.

XOXO, Quaranteen