Music. It’s the only thing getting me through this all. Imagine if quarantine meant that we had to sit in silence and do nothing! I think I’d go even crazier than I already have.
So before I tell you about my day today, here’s a playlist that I made called Songs To Get You Through Quarantine. There’s no specific genre, but they’re all upbeat and/or calming songs I’ve been listening to a lot over the past few days. I’ll be adding new ones daily, so feel free to follow it if you want 🙂 I thought that I could post some sort of media, whether it be a movie, playlist, video, article, book, etc. each day in case you are in need of entertainment, so here ya go:
Anyway, last Friday was day one of distance learning. If you read my last post, you know that it was really hard and frustrating and sad for me. Today was day two, and while it still very much sucks, it was definitely a bit better.
I woke up at around 9:20, took a shower, and just made it to class for 10. (Somehow, even when school starts three hours later than usual, I manage to juuuuust make it!) Italian went really well, mainly because of how organized my teacher is. While it was still a little weird having to turn my microphone on to answer a question, I was able to focus much more than I did on Friday.
After that, I had ceramics. My teacher was back, but he hadn’t learned how to use the online program, so it was super glitchy. Nevertheless, many of us were able to speak to each other and talk about the plan for the upcoming week(s). Obviously, it’s pretty hard to do ceramics without clay, so a lot of the projects will be sketching and drawing things that we would make, which sucks for me because I can’t draw. But I’ll try to make the best of it, just like with everything else.
After “lunch” (which consisted of an everything bagel and Thin Mints), I had piano. My teacher switched platforms to Microsoft Teams, so we were all able to see each other and it ran a lot more smoothly. Of course, it’s not the same as seeing everyone in person, but it still made me happy. We were assigned songs to play from our piano book, so our homework until next Monday is to practice them and post a video of ourselves playing them to get checked off.
The classes are shorter than usual, but even so, they go by so much faster than they normally do. I think it’s because we don’t really have time to work on stuff like we normally would; if we did, it’d just be us sitting in silence over a video call. But that also means that there’s a lot more work to do outside of “class,” which, frankly, I am not used to at all this semester as so much of the work happens within the classroom. It keeps me busy, though, so that’s good.
After classes ended, I didn’t know where to start. I had a ton of work to do for each of my classes, and it all seemed super overwhelming. So I kinda went crazy for about an hour. I worried and stressed and procrastinated and thought of the worst-case scenario about all of this rather than doing any work.
I sat on my bed and stared out my window for a good five minutes as if I were a prisoner desperately longing for fresh air.
(Which I am not!)
So I went outside and went for a run, hoping that some fresh air may give me some motivation. I listened to The Beatles and ended up doing two miles which is more than I have walked since last week. It was tiring, and I wanted to give up and start walking probably 27 times. But I did it, and it felt pretty good.
After I got home, I began doing my school work whilst listening to The Flaming Lips. I just finished everything, including drawing three textures for ceramics and writing a *very rough* essay for Italian, and now I’m writing this. In about an hour I will bake my sourdough bread that has been proofing all day, and while I wait for it to bake, I will begin knitting my second sock.
While I’d much rather be in school, I am slowly getting used to this and am becoming a little more accepting of the fact that this may be my reality for a while. I’m doing my best to try and stay busy at home. There are lots and lots of negatives regarding this horrible situation, and they cross my mind every ten minutes. But I intend to keep busy, doing things that make me happy, even in a not-so-happy world.
See you tomorrow!
studio josie 