March 30, 2020: Hot Cheetos!!! My dad and stepmom went to the store today, and I asked them if they happened to see any Hot Cheetos on the mostly deso­late store shelves, if they could please grab a bag for me. Hot Cheetos have really been the only thing that I’ve been craving while in quar­an­tine these past few weeks. It was prob­a­bly the most excit­ing thing that has happened to me for the entirety of this quar­an­tine when I saw them peeking out of the bags in the trunk. I took the glori­ous red shiny package out of the shop­ping bag and gave it all of my atten­tion. After wiping it off with a Clorox wipe, I cradled it in my arm (sepa­rate from the rest of the groceries) and carried it inside. I’m thank­ful for Hot Cheetos today.

March 31, 2020: I’ve gotten good at making to-do check­lists. Each morning I write down all the classes that I have and under each one I break down every­thing I must do into multi­ple differ­ent tasks. For example, one math assign­ment will have multi­ple compo­nents to it such as 1) doing the actual prob­lems, 2) taking pictures of my work, 3) upload­ing the pictures of my work, etc. I do this because while there are more tasks on my paper, there is also more stuff to check off. It makes me feel produc­tive. I NEVER put stuff on my check­list that I don’t actu­ally have to do but prob­a­bly should do, because if I don’t end up getting around to them I feel like I failed by not check­ing every­thing off on my list for that day. I feel very accom­plished and fulfilled at the end of every day having a page of all the things I had to do with big check marks next to each task.

April 1, 2020: First day of April — I just really miss my friends today. Usually, I really enjoy the month of April because I always feel like it’s filled with fun events and every­body seems to be in a gener­ally posi­tive mood. To me, April always kind of signi­fies the end of winter and the last stretch of the school year and gearing up for summer. This April, however, feels just the same as last month, if not worse. I’m dread­ing it, really. 

April 2, 2020: If there’s anything that will really resonate with me after this whole thing is over, it would prob­a­bly be the impor­tance of having a village. The saying ​“it takes a village” has taken on a whole new meaning since the begin­ning of all the shut­downs and all. The way in which people have come together and learned to help each other out is utterly jaw drop­ping. I didn’t know people had the capac­ity to commu­ni­cate and level with each other the way they have this past month. I have my doubts that this kind of behav­ior will be carried out after this quar­an­tine, but I really hope it does. A discon­nected connec­tion is the only way I could begin to describe it. 

April 3, 2020: Today was really defined by the music I listened to. Music has the power to entirely trans­form my mood, and I need to remind myself of that more often. The past two days I’ve been in an absolute creative and moti­va­tional rut. But this morning I turned on my favorite upbeat playlist and haven’t taken my earbuds out since.