“Stay. At. Home.”

 – From Me to You.

Wow, this has been a weird 30 days.

It still shocks me that my senior year is being spent predominantly at home. Even more, I am not sitting any final IB exams. To this day, I still have mixed feelings about this revelation but I am making do with the less stressful time I have been provided.

First and foremost, I would like to address how important it is that everyone stays at home. You may not be worried about catching the pandemic as our chances of recovery are high, however, it is those most vulnerable to the pandemic, those that are at greater risk, who we must think about and truly practice social distancing for the greater good. I know whoever is reading my blog most definitely has heard these pointers before so I won’t go into too much detail about it.

But seriously, stay at home.

With that said, another point, less addressed, that I would like to talk about today is how to make the most of your time during self-isolation. I don’t think I can stress the importance of taking care of your mental and physical well-being during such a confusing and troubling time. But it is with your best interests at heart I say to really try and control what you can control and do what you can do best while staying at home. Enjoy it! Be positive! Such statements are best to be practiced now.

I know a lot of my friends are finding this period very difficult and are growing more anxious, more lethargic as the days go by. This is not how any of us imagined our senior year would go which explains why most of my grade mates are disappointed and upset about these unfavorable circumstances. HOWEVER, it is on us to not dwell on what in uncontrollable and to really focus our attention elsewhere. I learned this the hard way, but I learned, which is more than I can say about many.

My first week of quarantine looked a little like this: worsening sleep schedule, late meals that are sometimes skipped, stress eating, making tik toks, downloading all social media accounts and spending HOURS on them, exercising here and there, unhealthy snacking and just overall lack of productivity and declining enthusiasm to get up the next day. To put it simply, my lifestyle was utterly unhealthy.

Suddenly, the next week came by and a series of unfortunate, strange events took place in my life: a fallout with a friend, IB exams canceling, a prolonged period of lockdown. I had an epiphany then, that this situation was going to seriously mess up my life if I didn’t take initiative to control it. it was messing with my relationships with my friends who I was losing interest in keeping contact with, it wasn’t helping me make productive decisions for my daily in-house life with my family. Something had to change.

And change was exactly what I did.

I took out two whiteboards that I had and made a plan. A plan for the next day. I made sure to follow that plan and get through it. by the end of the day, I erased the plan and wrote a new one for the next day. I followed this cycle and I have been at it for the last two weeks and oh my god, it has been the best decision I made since the dawn of 2020.

I really do think it is worth sharing my plan with anyone who may benefit from it but let me break it down for you.

 

THE RONA SZN GAME PLAN

1. WAKE UP BY 7.30 AM

• The early bird gets the worm, as the saying goes. It is really refreshing to get up and go out on to my balcony, take in some morning air and start my day bright and early! Sometimes I wake up even earlier and just have an even earlier start to the day so I go do some casual bird watching in the garden or up on my rooftop and to anyone who wants to do that, I highly recommend.

2. EXERCISE TO START THE DAY

• There’s nothing like doing a workout first thing in the morning. I usually start at about 7.45 am till about 8.30 am. This workout is often done in my living room but I did my workout today in the balcony which was also great. I do a varied workout using some of the videos recommended by our PE teachers (Thanks a bunch!) and my own ones. For more information on my workout, check out my next blog!

3. DLP WITH MY FAVORITES

• It is truly a strange way to learn but DLP can be a great way to connect with your teachers and friends and I love to bombard the zoom chats with my friends until our teachers threaten to block us from accessing the chat!

The next few pointers are options for what you can do following DLP. You do not necessarily have to do everything but rather, one thing a day!

4. READ A BOOK

• I haven’t had any time to read and have been making so many excuses for reading so I made it a point to “force” myself to get into the habit of reading. I picked up a dark fantasy book from my favorite fantasy author, Mark Lawrence, and I have been reading chapter by chapter, slowly but surely. It was a struggle to get into the habit of reading at first but now, it’s such a satisfying and enjoyable leisure activity. I don’t read many chapters per day and I am taking my time but that allows me to savor the text and enjoy each chapter by itself!

5. HELP OUT AT HOME

• This is a bummer. But personally, I think it is on us to help out at home in some way. It can simply be folding your clothes, making your bed, cleaning your room, mopping the floor, preparing a meal for your family, walking your dog. ANYTHING! It’ll make you feel good and it will make your family happy too.

6. DO SOMETHING NEW!

• I have been cooking. The only reason I have stepped into my kitchen for the last 18 years is to eat. But I have been cooking and it has been the most fun activity I have ever done. Check out my next blog to check out some of my creations as well as some fun ways to modify your cooking to involve others as well!

7. BRING OUT YOUR INNER ARTIST

• This one is so easy. you could literally have a solo dance party in your room and call it art. So explore, have fun, be creative! I play the guitar, sing songs, and dance and check out my next vlog to see how THAT is going.

8. CALL A FRIEND

• Group meetings are great and all but I miss one-on-one time with my best friends. So I make sure to video call them, not simply text, and talk to them face-to-face for a good while. And not just my closes friends but I’ve been reconnecting with friends that live far away and who I haven’t had time to call because of school. Just the past weekend I baked cinnamon rolls with a friend of mine in Dubai via zoom and it was so much fun to reconnect (I hadn’t spoken to her in about 5 months!). Even the past week I video called friends I made from SAISA and caught up on each other’s lives. It’s fun if you vary up who you talk to because you’ll find that you not only miss your best friends but the other people in your life as well.

Now, these ones I do every day.

9. HAVE FUN WITH YOUR FAMILY

• Stop fighting and start laughing. At this point, I think my parents are sick of me but it’s definitely not the other way around! I have literally had so much fun with my parents who join me when I exercise, make me lovely meals, play cards with me at night and watch me do silly dance routines to really old Sinhala songs which cracks them up every time. I cook with my dad, do facemasks with my mom, listen to my dad talk about university days, talk to my mom’s friends and their children together and zoom call my extended family! We spend most evenings together up on the rooftop, enjoying a great sunset and just relaxing. Of course, we argue sometimes but we get over it and that’s what counts. To all you seniors, you will move away soon and be off to university far away from these people who raised you since day 1 so really, make the most of it or you might end up regretting it. I know I would.

10. SELF CARE DAY IS EVERY DAY

• Eat healthy, avoid snacking, stay hydrated, take care of your skin, meditate, do whatever you need to do to feel good in your own skin, even if that is soaking yourself in a nice warm shower, do that. I haven’t had a warm water shower since the beginning of quarantine and it is doing wonders to my skin which feels so much fresher. A cold-water shower in the morning also wakes you up so I highly recommend it, especially in this warm weather!

11. DO DLP HOMEWORK

• No explanation needed but if you can stay motivated and stay on top of your assigned work, you will actually have time to do them well and even enjoy them!

12. SLEEP AT GODLY HOURS

• I don’t care what I have to do, I sleep by latest 12. And even that is very late for me. On average, I sleep by 11 so that I get that solid 8 hours of sleep which has also done wonders to my productivity during the day because I feel energized and healthy enough to actually use my brain power to its best. IB messed up my sleep schedule, but my procrastination was what did it the most damage. Right now I have no excuse, so I actually have made great improvements to my sleep schedule.

 

THE CONCLUSION

BE HAPPY!!! ENJOY!! POSITIVITY!

Do not dwell on the “what ifs” and all these other uncertainties just make the best of your daily life. You do not want to look back on this strange period with misery, at least I don’t. I refuse to let my senior year be spoilt by COVID-19 but most importantly, I refuse to let myself be sour and miserable just because things aren’t going the way I planned. I chose to adapt and I am sure that you will find it in yourself to do the same.

Stay safe and I wish you all a happy quarantine!