school – Studio Josie

high school during a pandemic: day four

ACS_0796 — Here are some of the flowers in my front yard to brighten your day.

Today one of my teachers said that it doesn’t feel like it’s only the fourth day of online learning. And it’s true: it feels like this has been going on for months. Each day I’m stuck at home feels like it lasts a lifetime.

I think today was the best day so far, though. I woke up a bit too late but made it to Italian class right on time. And you know the rest. Ceramics, lunch, piano. The same old schedule.

I don’t know what made today better than the others. Perhaps it’s because I had a better mindset. As I mentioned yesterday, I have been trying so hard to be hopeful about all of this because the future of my senior year hasn’t been decided yet. So I had good thoughts all day and enjoyed seeing my classmates and teachers, along with a few of my friends over FaceTime.

I started a Microsoft Teams group with all of my friends so that we can chat during our scheduled lunchtime. Today my friend Emma was the only one who joined, haha, but we caught up and I enjoyed seeing her and her family… through the screen. This whole thing has also made me realize how much I took seeing my friends for granted!

After school, I went for another run. I ran two miles down my road and it felt great. Something about pushing myself to get over the hills is very therapeutic.

And when I got home, I worked on my homework which consisted of a short Italian worksheet and piano piece practice. I also cleaned my room which helped ease my mind a bit.

Anyway, today wasn’t too eventful, but it was relaxing and I feel much better than I did yesterday. I hope these blog posts aren’t too boring. I will try to make them more interesting as time passes! Ultimately, they are for me to share this experience with anyone interested and to look back on it in the future.

Oh, I almost forgot a happy thing for today! If you’re on Instagram, you must follow Dan Pelosi. His stories are so funny and clever and they make me very hungry, but I look forward to them every day. He’s been posting a lot more since he’s stuck at home, so it’s been keeping me very entertained!

Well, I’ll stop talking about myself for now and ask you all a question: how are you doing? How are you keeping busy? I’d love to hear. I have all the time in the world…

high school during a pandemic: day two

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!

high school during a pandemic: day one

I never thought I’d be writing a blog post with this title, but here we are. (I apologize in advance if this is rambly and overdramatic. But these are my thoughts.)

Yesterday my school announced that we would be closing for at least the next week due to the spread of the Coronavirus. I am fortunate enough to attend a school that has the resources and opportunities to conduct class online, so that’s what I’ll be doing for the next week(s) or month(s). Since I’ll have much more free time than I’d prefer, I figured I may as well write about it. After all, living during a pandemic is sort of a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.

Having to attend high school from home is a really hard thing for me to digest, and I’ve found myself in tears a lot over the past 24 hours. I know that’s an overreaction for some, but I love school, and I love physically being at school. I love my teachers, I love my classmates, and I love to learn. So it’s really hard to give that all up so suddenly.

On one hand, I feel so lucky that I’m able to learn and see my teachers from home; I know that there are hundreds of schools around the world that don’t have these resources. But on the other hand, I’m devastated that I’m not physically able to attend school during my senior year (of all years!). It’s only been one day and I already feel claustrophobic. I know this is all for the best, and I know everyone’s just trying to stay healthy, but I can’t lie and say that it isn’t a challenge.

My classes are all skill-based this semester: Italian, Ceramics, and Piano. It’s kind of hard to go to ceramics without touching clay, and it’s hard to learn about major and minor chords without a live demonstration (at least for me). It’s just frustrating because I love all of my classes this semester so much. It’s my last semester of high school, so I’d like to actually be at school and be able to practice my skills in these subjects. I know that closing the school is all for the best and all for good reasons, but it just feels like a waste of time that could be spent actually in school.

I also want to say that all of my teachers have been unbelievably positive about all of this, and they’re all doing the best that they can to make sure we learn as much as possible. I love my teachers and am so grateful to have such amazing ones, but all I want is to be back in the classroom with them.

Anyway, in case you’re curious, here’s what the first day of distance learning looked like for me…

I woke up and got out of bed at 8:45 a.m. I took a shower, made an iced coffee, and cleaned my desk before my first lesson, which was Italian, started at 10:00 a.m. Today was technically just the “test day,” so it only lasted about a half-hour. We used Microsoft Teams so I could see my teacher, but all of my classmates kept their cameras and mics turned off unless we had a question.

Halfway through the mini-lesson, I got really really sad listening to my teacher go over our work. I could barely focus because I thought about how much I hate that all of this is necessary. Just yesterday I was in class with my teacher, physically talking to her and all of my friends. It’s just so weird. I know I’ll get used to it, but for now, it’s really hard.

After Italian, I have Ceramics. My teacher is out of town this weekend, so we weren’t able to do a video chat with him. He posted an assignment for us to turn in which was to design and sketch a sculpture inspired by an artist.

The next block was “lunch.” I finished my sculpture (which was Keith Haring-inspired) because I wasn’t very hungry. Then, I had senior privileges which is when I typically go home for lunch. Since I was at home anyway, I began to write this blog post. And then I had piano, my favorite class this semester.

I totally lost it during piano. I couldn’t even laugh at the jokes my teacher made because I just wanted to be together with my class. It was so hard to focus, too. Yesterday he gave an awesome lesson on how to make a major chord, and today he taught us how to make a minor chord through a Youtube video since he didn’t have a physical piano to show us. I didn’t get anything from today’s lesson which really really sucks. I hope it gets easier.

Also, we found out over the group chat that three of my classmates who are boarding students are going home this weekend and won’t be returning for the rest of the semester, even if we go back to school. Yesterday was the last day I’ll see them, and I didn’t even know it.

It all just feels like a bad dream. I’d like to go to sleep and be woken up when this is all over when everyone is healthy and life is back to normal and no time ever passed.

I’m trying to be optimistic, but it’s not easy. All I want for my birthday this year is to be back at school.

An August Playlist

I am at work on the upcoming Arizona trip post(s) but while I have a minute I figured I’d share my August playlist with you all. I haven’t shared a playlist in quite a while and I feel it’s time for a new one! (Although if you’re following me on Spotify, I am quite active and you can see all my playlists there all in one place!)

This month has been craaaaazy. I got back from Arizona on the fourth and went to two weeks of camp after my return. I also had to finish (AKA start) my summer homework for my AP Government class. I had a bunch of school events to attend as well, and long story short the end of August was crazy stressful and busy!

Slowly but surely things started to calm down. I started school on the 29th, and I’m now a sophomore in high school! I am really excited for the year. It feels so good to not be a freshman anymore, haha! I’m taking some really cool classes and am so ready for a (hopefully) great year!

OK, back to the playlist. This month I triiiiiied to add one song a day, but that’s just now how music works for me. Once I discover one artist or song, I discover a million others that same day and it’s too stressful to add them all or to wait until the next day to add them. So, instead of having 31 songs, this playlist only has eighteen.

As you may have noticed, I’ve got a pretty random taste in music. Sometimes I hear a song in a commercial or somehow rediscover it (An example being: Potential Breakup Song and Under Pressure…) and then become obsessed. SO, don’t mind the randomness. (That’s basically what this blog is though, right?!)

I am SO excited about Beck’s new single, and his upcoming album! AHHH! I’ve also been loving The Smiths, and made another playlist just dedicated to them. Grizzly Bear has a new album which I listened to a few times and enjoyed a lot, too.

And yes, the song Despacito is on this playlist as well. To be perfectly honest I don’t really know why because during the entire month of August, I never listened to this song all the way through. I just like the chorus and thought it was catchy, and it’s on the top charts so I figured I’d add a little bit of pop to this mix! But never mind, I don’t need to explain myself! LOL. 😉

That’s about all for now, but one, if not more of my Arizona posts should be up this weekend. I hope you all have a great rest of the week and a wonderful start to September. Let me know – what song have you been loving lately?!