It’s been nearly a year since school was first cancelled because of the coronavirus, and at the time, I thought it was just a convenient excuse to avoid doing homework — how could that go wrong? Needless to say, almost a year later, many things did go wrong. I don’t remember the last time I went outside, and I’ve fully transitioned into my new life as an extension of my bed. But in honour of not completely losing my mind, I decided to review my life in quarantine.
Online school: -1/10
Online school is, to put it nicely, a unique experience. On the bright side, you don’t have to pay attention at all. What is your teacher going to do, send you a private Zoom message? In fact, as I am typing these very words, I’m supposed to be paying attention in math class (Ms. Kwan, if you ever see this, please look away). But everyone knows online school isn’t exactly fun. From the TDSB’s complete lack of organization to my own complete lack of motivation, it’s an overall mess. Also, I hate breakout rooms with a passion. Breakout rooms single-handedly dragged this rating to an abysmal -1/10.
Actual human interaction: 4/10
COVID-19 pulled a stan Twitter and managed to cancel everything remotely entertaining. I haven’t seen a human aside from my immediate family in months, all the school trips that I was slightly looking forward to were cancelled, and I have overall forgotten how to speak Human. I can’t say there’s nothing good about this, though, because I don’t particularly want to interact with certain people. As an ambivert, the lack of human interaction isn’t completely bad — it’s just a little too much isolation, earning this category a decent 4/10. Decent, at least, by quarantine standards.
Free time: 10/10
This is what I was excited about when quarantine began, and it’s still saving my last remaining brain cells. There’s nothing much to say about this — there’s so much time to do anything I want. Sadly, due to my very minimal motivation, this time usually doesn’t get spent productively, but I still count it as a solid win.
Health: 1.5/10
The only reason this rating isn’t in the negatives is because I haven’t actually gotten the coronavirus, which is great compared to literally everything else about my health. Issue #1: my sleep schedule is awful, which sounds odd because there’s so much time to sleep. Sadly, my sense of time has vanished into thin air and I average 4-5 hours of sleep on school days. Issue #2: the only physical activity I get is exercising my eye muscles to stare at a screen for hours, which is the eyeball equivalent of dropping a dumbbell on your arms to get stronger. In other words, my eyes hurt 24/7. This needs no further explanation (read: I’m too sleep-deprived right now to write anything else). And yes, I am aware that this category’s ratings are completely my fault, but this is my review.
Literally everything occurring in the world outside of my room: 0/10
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it might be best that you keep it that way.
Overall: -5/10
I don’t know where the -5 came from, but it feels like the most accurate rating. I’m too sleep-deprived to care. Quarantine is bad. I’m going to sleep now. Pretend I wrote a conclusion.
Photo: Getty Images
