POV: You’re me. Sitting on your bed, scrolling through the Course Atlas, wondering how on Earth you are going to fulfill your GERs, pre-med requirements, and English major requirements. You look at Eng205 (Poetry) and then Chem203 (the dreaded Organic Chemistry). These sound slightly unpleasant, and you can’t help but wonder what the Fall 2020 semester is going to be like. But an even bigger question looms: will there even be a Fall 2020 semester?
Needless to say, quarantine is trying its absolute hardest to take away my hope for the future. It’s hard to think of when we will be able to just snap back to normal the second this is over, or if we even will. That’s not to say that the future is incredibly bleak; it’s just daunting to begin to imagine the future, where I get to leave my house without putting on a face mask; where I get to see my friends and hug them instead of standing six feet away; and where I can stand amongst other people, someone can cough, and the room won’t go silent.
At the moment, my days consist of waking up at 9:45am for my 10:00am Zoom class. On days when I don’t have that class, I let myself sleep until the early afternoon. While some may say I’m being lazy, I think I’m actually just giving myself a chance to rest. Before quarantine, I was constantly running from one thing to the next, and did not really get a second to stop and breathe. Now, I have all the time in the world. I spend hours on Pinterest, saving pins of outfit ideas, new meals to cook, places to visit. I plan and plan for the time when I finally get to leave my house. In that sense, I feel like Rapunzel, wondering when my life will get to resume.
As I contemplate what classes I’ll take next semester, I discuss it with my friends, planning which classes we will take together, which professors cold-call and which don’t assign too much homework. It’s therapeutic to think of the future, to plan for the times when we no longer have to worry and spend our days listening to the news with the latest numbers and graphs detailing how this virus is taking over.
I talk to my friends nearly every day, remembering the days P.Q. (pre-quarantine) when I saw them every day and could walk outside my dorm, met with so many friendly faces walking through campus. Going from constant social interaction to essentially none (no offense Mom and Dad) is a real shock. The first few days of quarantine, reality had not struck. I kept thinking of who I was going to visit when this was over, how I was finally going to get the third ear piercing that I had been begging my mom for. Now, nearing day number I have completely lost count, I’ve fallen into a routine. Wake up, drink coffee, read the news, do some homework, watch some TV, go for a run, waste hours on TikTok, eat many many snacks, Facetime my friends, and then do it all over again the next day.
By the time I get out of this quarantine, I can promise you three things. Number one, I will have fooled myself into thinking my life is now entirely planned out (because I have spent this time doing nothing but that). Number two, I will somehow lead a more wholesome life, having made more resolutions than I can count. And finally number three, I will never watch The Vampire Diaries again (two seasons in under three days can do that to you). Until that day, I will continue planning, continue dreading Orgo, and continue to think of the future. And when it comes, I will be ready.