It’s been a little over a year since COVID-19 shut down everything, and I’ve been reflecting a lot on what I’ve learned this past year. I’ve had my challenges but also some surprisingly good experiences. I’ve finished high school and started college. I’ve made friends and lost them. But what I’ve done most of all this past year is attempt many, many projects.
I’m sure we all had that phase, early in quarantine, when all anyone could talk about was all of the fun art projects they were doing or the new skills they were learning, so we decided that we wanted to be part of the excitement, too. I was no different. Unfortunately, even though I started a bunch of projects, I by no means finished them. On this list are all of the things I attempted to do during quarantine, and ultimately gave up on.
- Learning to play the violin
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I already play the string bass, which has the same strings as the violin. My sister had abandoned her own violin a few years ago, so I tried to pick it up very early in the quarantine. I practiced some scales and bow work for a few days, and then promptly gave up.
- Reorganizing my bookshelves
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My bookshelves have been color-coordinated for a few years, and one day I decided they were looking a little dull. I pulled all of my books off of my shelves (which, mind you, is a lot of books), then realized that I had no other ideas for how to organize them and put them all back in the exact same places that they were.
- Writing a memoir of my high school years
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This one might have been a bit ambitious, considering I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday, much less anything that happened to me throughout the past four years. I got a few paragraphs in before I couldn’t remember what classes I took my freshman year and gave up.
- Writing a collection of personal essays about my high school years
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This seemed a bit more manageable, but the more of the first essay about my toxic ex-boyfriend that I wrote, the sadder I got, so I stopped halfway through and never touched the Google doc again.
- Starting a YouTube channel
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I made it a bit further with this one than the others. I currently have around 10 videos on my “booktube” channel about books I’ve read and my thoughts on them, as well as recommendations. You can check it out here, if you want, but please be warned that I am unlikely to ever post on it again, so don’t get too attached.
- Re-reading the entire ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ series
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Now hold on, I can explain. Percy Jackson is easily my comfort book, so with all of the upheaval going on in my life, I was craving some comfort. I planned to read the whole series and vlog it for my aforementioned YouTube book channel, but got halfway through the first book before realizing my time was better spent watching the movies.
So there you have it, all of my failed quarantine projects. Hopefully, this article helped you feel a little less alone in all of the projects that you’ve abandoned!