Ashkan Rezaei

30S Comprehensive Focus

A. Smith

February

Instagram joke that turned into reality

I can remember back in early 2020 during class I was going through Instagram

and I saw this meme that went something like: in 1720 there was a bubonic plague

outbreak. 1820, Cholera outbreak. 1920, Spanish flu. and 2020?? In my head I laughed

and thought haha that's funny. Like that's ever going to happen! Then I went back to

paying attention to class. In January COVID-19 was practically unheard of in Canada.

Fast forward two months, to March and a whole worldwide pandemic started, everything

and everywhere was closed, and school was shut down for five and a half months.

COVID-19 has affected me in many ways but I'm going to be talking about two of them,

it's mental effects and its effects on my school and studying.

It was super overwhelming and stressful mentally because I wasn't able to

workout at gyms or hang out with friends which are two of my favorite ways to relax and

give care to my mental health. So, I had to improvise and think of different ways, tactics,

and strategies to cope and attend to my mental health. I tried working out every single

night before bed at home by doing pushups and other physical activities that can be

done at home. That mostly worked and it helped me a little bit. I also found that I was

spending much more time on electronic devices because I was using those devices to
contact and spend virtual time with friends whether it is video games, video calling or

just texting my friends.

Another aspect of its effects on me where is effects on my schoolwork and

studying. Mainly I'm talking about online school which was very difficult and challenging

to say the least because it was a very big and unexpected change for both us the

students at the teachers. One of the most challenging parts of it was that it was much

harder to ask questions from the teacher and relearn something that you missed

because learning from a living person who you can talk to is way more effective then

learning from a video that you can only watch a few times and you can't interact with.

But at the end of the day it was a super challenging process to go through but I'm

happy that I could use that experience and learn from it and maybe use the things that I

learned in the future and it also made me understand the value and worth of social

gatherings and going to different places in the city. You know what they say, “you never

know what you have until its gone”