Journal

4/6/20

4/6/20- The Covid-19 outbreak has not affected my school life very much. I have disliked school for a very long time. The majority of kids are rude and do not know how to behave. There is only one student and a handful of the teachers that I enjoyed seeing everyday so it is safe to say that I do not miss school. I had too much anxiety to join any clubs. Last year I joined one and had to stop attending due to panic attacks. My parents did not want to put in the time for sports like I did so I am not in sports either. So honestly not much of my school life has been affected.

This has changed my routine a lot though. I spent the entirety of the first three days at home cleaning. I reorganized every room of my house (my family has since messed it all up again) and did pretty much only that. I did end up painting the moms bathroom blue and brown and my own bathroom blue too. That led to me painting new things for my bathroom walls which eventually led me to paint new things for my bedroom walls. I have had the most productive and strange spring break.

The outbreak has led me to enjoy my yard a lot more. I have three dogs and a rabbit and they enjoy being outside too. By they I mean my rabbit and my big dog because the two small dogs are lazy. I play outside a lot with them and help the big dog hunt for squirrels. I live on a lake and the ice recently melted. The dad is always the first to put his dock in and as soon as he did that I went paddle boarding. The water was warm considering the time of year and the fact that it had just rained. I put the big dog on the board and we went for an adventure. It's safe to say my neighbors think I am crazy.

I have been staying active at home. I set up the Wii upstairs so I can play just dance. For a while my dad and brother were gone fishing so I had a lot of time to play. They are back now and I never get to use the tv. It is still my goal to have the highest score for all the songs on all the just dance games we have even though that means spending a couple hours playing the little kid version. I have also been enjoying volleyball. Playing in the house has taught me control and playing outside has taught me discipline. Why did it teach me discipline? It taught me that because if you do not work hard enough to make sure the ball hits your arms in a certain place after a while your skin gets bruised and cracked. My arms and hands are currently covered with black spots but when the bruising goes away I will practice some more.

My family life has been insane. My family is not the nicest and I do not enjoy spending time with them. I have a mom, dad, and a twin brother. They are all always crabby and yelling and this has not really helped. The dad is normally distracted because his way of trying to get me to not ignore him is to watch horror movies. I love horror movies but the ones he picks tend to suck and the mom yells at him for it. The mom keeps trying to get me to do things for her saying ¨do this so you won't get bored¨ when in reality trying to get away from her gives me enough to do. The brother and I do not really talk but when we do it normally turns into a wrestling match.

The outbreak has not affected the parents working schedules that much. The mom cleans houses and a lot of her customers are paying her not to work. She also helps take care of a dementia patient and that is deemed essential so she does still leave the house sometimes. The dad works in manufacturing so he is also essential. He is currently working on converting some of his companies products into tools to help clean public areas. He works third shift though meaning from midnight to sometime in the morning so I am still stuck with him during the day. Yesterday he brought the brother and I an early birthday present. The present was a rake for both of us that he wrote our names on so we wouldn't confuse them and then he made us rake the yard.

The brother and I's birthday is on April 13th. The day after Easter and the day before my little cousin turns five and my dad's brother turns ancient. Our birthday normally doesn't mean much to anyone anymore. I've always had bad experiences with birthdays and I wish mine just didn't exist. I was looking forward to it this year purely because I was going to take my boyfriend to a petting zoo and spend the day with him. Not only can I not do that I can't even see him anymore and that sucks. I will however be making a neon blue and green birthday cake. The brother wants a different cake and I don't even want cake but the idea of a neon birthday cake won't leave my head so I am making it.

I have to do online school on my birthday though. I guess it's better than going to regular school but still. Who wants to do work on their birthday? Online school has been amazing though. I get up around 6-7 in the morning, take care of the animals, eat and make lunch, and do chores. After my upstairs stuff is done I return downstairs to my room where I workout for an hour, shower, and do school stuff. School so far has not been taking me long and I spend the rest of the day outside with the big dog. There's nothing very exciting about my day.

Maybe today I will do something new. I will take the big dog on a new adventure. Or maybe I will do a fashion show in my room. I will probably fix the fort on my bed that the big dog destroyed but maybe this time I can find a way to make it bigger and cooler. I can start writing a horror novel. The possibilities are endless. But I do not think any of that will happen anytime soon. I will probably spend the rest of my day watching crime mukbangs and doing random exercises in my room. More boring stuff during the boring quarantine.

I have hopes for this quarantine though. I wanted to work on myself a lot before all this happened but now this might make it easier. I want to be stronger and more fit and being at home all day gives me lots of time to work out. I want to be mentally healthier and now I have time to sit and reflect and find things that bring me joy. I can also work on skills I want to improve like cooking, baking, and painting. I can get the stuff that I always say I am gonna do but never get done because I have nowhere else to go. This quarantine sucks but at least I can try to make some good come from it.

I hope other people are thinking the same. I hope everyone has one thing they're working on improving since most of us have the time now. Self improvement is one of the best things in life. It feels good seeing your work has paid off and feeling proud of how you changed. You did it. You improved and you're growing and you're changing because you are human and that's what humans do. So I hope people are able to find some positive to this situation and use it to positively affect their lives.

This has been fun. I enjoy writing and the relaxation it brings. I wish it hadn't been so long since I have written something. But that is all for the day. I will see you tomorrow.