Like many others, my life slowed its pace mid-March once I had frantically moved out of my college dorm and returned home to spend the first of many months home in quarantine. My transition to working remotely on my co-op went smoothly despite the abrupt changes made to my daily routine. As a homebody and introvert, staying home wasn’t that big of a deal for the first few weeks. However, days began blending into one another, and I soon drifted into a routine of doing nothing. Nothing, as in I cannot even remember what activities I did each day after work to spend the last six hours of my day.
I had no drive, no passion and no strength to pursue anything new while all I could seem to do was aimlessly scroll through Twitter and TikTok for hours on end. After all, it felt like I had all the time in the world for once. My own lack of activity had me falling into a quarantine slump. All I could offer was disinterest and the inability to focus on anything for more than twenty minutes, especially after my co-op ended in June. As time in quarantine passed, I slowly picked up some new hobbies and interests that sustained me for the rest of my time at home and reignited my spark to experience new things.
- Gardening
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Sometime in April, my sister spearheaded the decision to begin a small garden in our backyard. We spent a whole evening wheelbarrowing compost dirt from the driveway into the garden beds in the backyard, filling every nook and cranny. To be honest, my sister did most of the work in sprouting the seeds, managing them every day to make sure they were growing and thriving. I didn’t fully realize the joys of gardening until she moved back to her apartment, and it was my responsibility to water and maintain the plants and do the harvesting.
Watering the garden beds and searching for ripe vegetables became part of my morning routine. Summer brought me and my family countless cucumbers, tomatoes, and zucchinis – more than we had even imagined when we began this project. There’s just something so rewarding about being able to harvest and eat the vegetables that I’d seen grow from a tiny seed. This summer was so successful that we already have plans for the next summer season. Maintaining a successful garden required effort and patience, but I can say for sure that I cannot go back to eating store-bought cucumbers.
- Kombucha Brewing
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I am an avid kombucha fan. I love the fizz, the flavor and the good mood it brings me on a perfectly sunny day. The idea of brewing my own kombucha had been residing in the back of my mind for months, but I never took the initiative to actually start. Now that I was at home with little to do, it was the perfect time to try it out. I ordered a kombucha kit from an online kombucha-brewing shop and began my first batch of kombucha near the end of April. Like gardening, brewing kombucha mainly just takes time and patience.
The whole process was rather simple: brew tea, add sugar, add water, add SCOBY and wait. I did feel rather anxious as I checked my first batch of kombucha many times each day – I really wanted this project to be a success. In the end, it was(!), with me having six bottles of fresh kombucha to drink every two weeks. The best part of brewing my own kombucha was that I could experiment with my own flavors and combinations: grapefruit and lime, cherry and lemon, lavender and ginger. Despite the endless possibilities for customization, I still stand by the fact that ginger is the best flavor.
- Running
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Running was something I had left in freshman year of high school. Cross country was enough for me. While racing was invigorating and it was rewarding to beat my own personal record each meet, all it really left me with was knee pain and daily exhaustion. Running a minimum of six miles every day burnt me out quickly. I probably had only ran a few times here and there between the end of freshman year and my second year of college. While quarantine made me feel aimless and rather lost, it also gave me the strong urge to run for the first time in years.
The best thing about running is that it’s free, and it really did help set my mood for the day when I was able to accomplish something before my day had truly started. I started off just running a mile until I worked myself up to two miles and some more whenever I was feeling good. Downloading a running app, Strava, really helped me stay motivated throughout the summer. It made running feel a bit like a game and made me want to run faster and farther.
Running in Boston has been a new experience for me; before this school year, I had never run around the city I’ve been living in for a few years now. Feeling the wind against my face and in my lungs in the early morning before the rest of the city is awake is rejuvenating. And to my surprise, running with a mask on is a lot easier than I had imagined.
All in all, quarantine did do me some good, and I am privileged enough to have the opportunity to develop some interests and try new things amidst a global pandemic. The main thing I realized throughout the past few months is that it isn’t hard to pursue something new. For me, all I needed was some curiosity and a small self-motivating push to build upon my rather typical daily routine.