COVID-19: A tragedy

In the months following the discovery of COVID-19, disaster struck the earth. Planes fell out of the sky, there were big explosions and the human race slowly began to witness their fall into insanity. At least, that’s how a lot of people see it. These days, I see quite a few people remarking about how they think that COVID has changed everything and that since it happened, everyone’s lives have basically gone to hell. However, I can’t say I completely agree. Obviously, since the “start” of COVID, there has been so much change — but, I don’t think it’s been all bad. 

In my personal experience, COVID was a double-edged sword. It’s had its ups and downs for both me and the people around me. 

In the beginning, COVID had an overwhelmingly positive effect on me. Through being holed up in the house, I got introduced to all sorts of new stuff. One thing I discovered was the art of cooking and baking. When I was younger, I never ever wanted to be in the kitchen, except for when my mom was baking and I, for some reason, wanted a bite of a stick of butter she was using, which was a bit weird. But anyhow, I started cooking and I found out that it was so cool! I have a pretty big sweet tooth, so it was always fun to be able to look up something on the internet that I wanted, and just make it. I truly had the power of God and anime in my hands! (Yeah, I know, old meme, but I thought it would fit here.)

Alongside that, I got a new hobby — that is, chess! You might not know, but in 2020, there was a chess boom. Most notably, there was a chess tournament called Pogchamps. This tournament was organized by Chess.com and a whole bunch of famous Twitch streamers participated. In short, it attracted a bunch of people to chess, and one of those people was me. I started playing in about the fall of 2020 on a whim because I saw a funny Twitch clip of a Pogchamps participant xQc getting checkmated in 6 moves. But I soon found out, chess is actually pretty fun! It really never hurts to try out new things. 

Of course, COVID wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. As a student coming into sophomore year, I learned soon that school was gonna kick my behind, especially ‘cause of COVID. This year, I’ve gotten a lot of homework, and more importantly, I have chemistry. CHEMISTRY. Maybe you are a chemistry person, but for most people, chemistry spells out D-O-O-M. Chemistry is the final boss of sophomore year. You can’t hide from it. It’s like a monster. It is by far the hardest class I’ve ever had. And alongside COVID, it proves a formidable foe. COVID was good to me in regards to hobbies and extracurricular related stuff, but in school — oh, no. My grades aren’t too terrible but school is definitely harder in some ways. In class, for remote-learning, sometimes it is just so hard to stay focused. At home, there are all types of distractions and temptations. Also, I’ve gained a terrible habit of procrastination. I am horrendous at getting started on homework sometimes. I used to be so disciplined, but I find myself making excuses to myself and getting homework done later and later. 

COVID overall has come with its challenges, but I would say that it hasn’t been too terrible, at least for me. It’s easy to look at the downsides of everything and while COVID has been quite unenjoyable in some ways, I would urge others to try to keep a positive mindset. Maybe we can turn our time at home in this pandemic into something productive and fun.