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My Sister got engaged in August, and it was a very happy moment. I spent a lot of time with her fiancé while they were dating and its great to see them together.

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I went to Savannah during winter break of 2020. I went with my family and it was awesome to see such a historic city. I do remember a lot of people did not wear masks.

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In July we got a new dog, a boxer, and we named her Sandy. She is very annoying but we love her

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For my birthday in August my family got me a season pass to Universal. I had never been to it before and it was by far the most entertaining thing I did over the pandemic.

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Q1: What were your first reactions to hearing about COVID19 when it first became a pandemic last year?
A1: “It was shocking to me to see how this virus was affecting and impacting the world. Eventually we had to quarantine which was a sad experience to me, but I got to hang out with my family.”
Q2: How is today different from when the pandemic first happened for you, your family, the nation, the world?
A2: “It’s been a year now and there has been many ways to keep safe from the virus, like washing your hands and sanitizing after you touch things. We now have vaccines which is helping a lot of people get better, including our relatives. Our parents have the vaccine and now we understand the circumstances of this virus better from a year ago.”
Q3: What would you tell yourself a year ago?
A3: “I would tell myself that things are going to get better with the vaccines, and that we would have to quarantine for a long time. Eventually though, I would get to see my friends and other loved ones outside of quarantine.”

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Q1: What were your first reactions to hearing about COVID19 when it first became a pandemic last year?
A1: “I stayed calm and tried to gather as much information as possible, but never panicked.”
Q2: How is today different from when the pandemic first happened for you, your family
A2: “One year after most of the family is vaccinated and my other son will be vaccinated soon. We learned how to live with all the precautions in order to protect ourselves.
Q3: How has your life changed since first going on quarantine last year?
A3: “I focused even more in working from home as much as was allowed in my job. We limited our social activity, and we paused all travel unless necessary.
Q4: What has the pandemic made you realize?
A4: “it made me realize that there is nothing that could stop the spread of a virus in today’s world.

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After I witnessed the murder of George Floyd by ex-officer I was outraged and thought that the police who were responsible for his murder need to be punished. Finally less than a year later the officer who murdered him was convicted for murder, and the police officers who were his accomplices were convicted of civil rights charges a few days ago.

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Once the pandemic started Disney, as well as other theme parks, closed. Once this happened I realized that things were going to be different. I never thought a small virus in China would escalate to this level.

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You may not be able to read I it because its a bit blurry, but during the early stages of the pandemic many businesses were struggling. And the new masks did not help. People who refused to wear masks were turned away at shops and then threatened to hurt the business. For example, they post a bad review on yelp. Masks hurt everyone but so did the people who are dumb enough not to wear one.

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Twenty-Twenty
Not a lot of words could describe it
A year full of grit
Where many simply quit.
A year full of misery
And problems aplenty
Twenty-twenty

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Coming into 2020 I had high hopes, a year later I wanted the pain to end.

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First couple weeks of Online School had me like this

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To be honest this is how I felt at the beginning of online school, and I’m pretty sure everyone else felt like this as well.

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Another game I played a lot over the pandemic was Valorant. This game came out in June and I still play it to this day. I mainly play it with my friends, and I was the one who introduced it to them. Valorant is a first person shooter and I played a lot of those at the time. But this one stuck out to me because it was the first game I played on my computer, which I had gotten in early June. Because of this game I played a lot more with my friends. If it had not been for this game I probably would not be so close to my friends as I am now.

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On October well into the virus and into my sad pastimes I started to play FIFA 21, a virtual soccer game. This was not my first FIFA game but the last one I played was three or two years ago, so I was no stranger but I owe a lot to this game. Because of me playing this game my passion for soccer was reignited, and I was able to get closer to my dad and brother. FIFA had been introduced to me by my brother, who I love very much, and when I started to play this game I started to bond more with my brother due to our shared love of it. it also helped me get close to my dad because soccer had always been my dad’s favorite sport and he’s the one who showed it to me. So when I started to play it more often outside he would come out to play with me and we could bond more. This game also made me nostalgic of when I was very young. I started playing FIFA at around 2014 and it will always remind me of the good times I had playing with my cousins and brother.

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On January 2020, I was thrilled to see what this year entailed. My mom made arrangements to go to Argentina, which was where most of my family lived, and I had not been there since I was 3 years old. I obviously didn’t remember anything from the trip, so it was basically my first time in Argentina. My mom also wanted to make a plan to go to Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, mainly the Scandinavian countries. There was also the upcoming Euros and Copa America in soccer, so I was excited. Then the news of the pandemic hit and everything came crashing down. The trip to Argentina  was cancelled, which was the most disappointing, any hopes of traveling where short-lived, and anything that would go on during the summer was also cancelled. I was so disappointed because I wouldn’t get to see my Argentinian family. Thankfully though my sister got engaged and they plan to have their wedding in Argentina on December 2021. The only traveling that I did was going to Universal for my birthday in August right before school started. So most of the Summer consisted on staying inside and playing video games with my friends. Overall it was probably the most depressing summer I’ve ever had, and hopefully I never experience one like it again.

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One of the biggest movements during pandemic time was the Black Lives Matter movement. Black people in America have always been discriminated in America but not much had been done to change it. But in May that changed with the tragic death of George Floyd. George Floyd was a black man who was killed by a racist police officer, named Derek Chauvin. This sparked massive outrage across the world. Almost a year later, Chauvin was tried for 2nd degree murder, 3rd degree murder, and 2nd degree manslaughter. He was convicted as guilty and a sigh of relief was let out by many people in America. Another example of discrimination I saw was in soccer. I am a very big soccer fan, and I remember seeing videos of people throwing things at a Black soccer players. I had never noticed how much black people were mistreated around the world. The first Black person I saw being killed because of their race was Ahmaud Arbery. I think his death was in February. I was outraged when I first saw footage of him being shot to death by two old white men. Now I know that racism is not just a problem in America, and the whole world needs to be conscious of it.

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On March 13, 2021, I first heard of the news that we would have to quarantine and spend a couple weeks on online school. At first it was pretty surreal. When I heard of COVID-19 in January where there were was an epidemic in China, I never thought much of it. I thought it would go away and not have an effect on America, but after a couple weeks it became evident that this would stay for a while. I remember a lot of memes on how some people were overreacting, and they started to hoard a lot of materials, even though that was totally impractical and it took materials from other people. And other people were under reacting. Of course there were the COVID deniers, who were just ridiculous conspiracy theorists. There were people who thought COVID-19 was just a bioweapon made in a Chinese lab. And also people who thought the coronavirus was being transferred through LG towers. Overall there was a lot of confusion at the time. This confusion led to many deaths in the first weeks of the virus. In America, the government did not really help the situation. They were slow to respond, which led to even more deaths. And for me life was weird online. To be honest for the first weeks of online I was depressed because of the lack of social interaction. I had awesome friends who I didn’t get to see a lot anymore.