Today, to escape the boredom of quarantine, I decided to ride my bike outside. Of course, I wore a mask. I did three laps around the entire neighborhood, which took about an hour and a half. I did not expect to see many people outside, mostly because everyone is fearful of contracting the coronavirus. However, I saw countless of my neighbors during my outing. The family to the left of my house was on their front lawn. The children were playing tag. In addition, there was a group of about five to ten people on the basketball courts. They definitely were not staying six feet apart from each other. I saw others on the gazebos surrounding the main lake, taking photos that were probably used for social media. Around three people were washing their cars in their driveways. The most concerning thing I saw involved a family living on the opposite side of the lake. A group of approximately twenty people was outside on the front lawn. They were eating barbecue food and drinking sodas. There were speakers outside that were blasting Latin music. I was extremely surprised to see that people were still having gatherings, especially with all the “stay at home” advertisements everywhere. I hope that this family and everyone throughout America can understand why social social distancing is crucial.

Miss Rona is annoying, she won’t give me some peace

I want to see my friends and hold them in my hands

But despicable Miss Rona, she has some other plans
 

She shows up in the news, she won’t leave me alone

When I hear her name, I just can’t help but groan

She loves to drive me crazy, to take away my fun

I feel like I’m trapped, and I’ve got nowhere to run

The days are never ending, the nights are just as long

Can’t find a silver lining, everything seems wrong

Maybe this will finish soon, maybe she’ll be beat

But I’ll have to face Miss Rona, up until her defeat

Today, the fact that the school year is ending soon finally sunk in for me. My teachers have announced their end of the year awards, which means that school is wrapping up. While I’m excited to be done with online learning, as it is much worse than physical school, I am sad that I won’t be able to see my friends throughout the summer. I miss talking to them everyday, even if it was about the silliest things. We’ve been in quarantine for almost two months now. If school starts on schedule in August, that means I won’t have seen my friends in person in a little over five months. This may not sound like a long time, but I don’t think I’ve ever been separated from my friends for more than three months. While I love my family very much, I don’t love spending every minute of every day with them. My father’s house feels very cramped, and I can’t seem to find any place to spend some time alone. My mother’s house is a little better, but it still feels chaotic. I’m definitely not used to being around my family 24/7. I’m seeing my family too much and my friends too little. Hopefully, quarantine won’t last for much longer, and the balance between time spent with family and friends can be restored.

Today, the tickets we bought to Europe were refunded by the airline company. This made me think about how all of my plans for the summer were essentially thrown out the window because of COVID-19. My dad was going to take us to London and Paris. It wouldn’t be the first time I went, but it would have been fun to go again. This was going to be a trip for my entire family; our group was about fifty people. I’m a little bummed that I won’t get to see my cousins from Texas on the Europe trip anymore. I usually meet up with them every summer. In addition, my mother planned to take a trip to South America. We were going to go to Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. I’ve never been to any of these countries, so I was really excited to travel there. It sucks that we’re not going anymore. But besides going on trips, I’m going to miss all of my school friends. A lot of them have birthdays in the summer, so I usually go to about four or five parties to celebrate. Now, we’ll probably have to do a group FaceTime to meet up, which just won’t feel the same. I am definitely not feeling very enthusiastic about this upcoming summer, as I’m just going to be sitting around all day, bored out of my mind. I might even do online summer school just to waste some time. Hopefully, this summer will go by quickly and school will reopen soon.