Hello, Quarantined World

I live in the Philippines, and is currently under isolation because of the current pandemic that the whole world is suffering from. The whole world is in quarantine in order to try and stop the spread of the virus. With the implementation of the Community Quarantine in our country, everyone is forced to place their lives on hold and stay at home.

We have all been busy with trying to reach our goals and dreams that with the world on pause, we are almost out of things to do. I am a graduating college student with 7-day school-week with Mondays through Thursdays spent in 8-hour on-the-job trainings, and Fridays through Sundays are spent in school with 7AM through sometimes even 7PM classes. Given this schedule, I barely even have time to cook food for myself. This has been my schedule for a whole school year that my body is used to sleep deprivation, stress, and practically drowning in requirements that I cannot recall a time when I was not studying. When the quarantine was implemented in Luzon, my busy life lterally stopped and suddenly, I had hours upon hours of sleep and free time.

I enjoyed every hour of the quarantine on the first week — I have always wished for at least 3 days of rest because burnout was starting to eat me alive in school. After a whole year of sleep ranging from 2 to 4 hours a day, I finally had full 8 hours worth of sleep, with naps in the middle of the day. I was living the life. But then, things started to worsen. The week that was originally declared as the quarantine turned into a full month. Suddenly, the graduation we were all looking for was cancelled, and our lives were all put on hold. I started to worry… how are we all going to survive?

A full month of class suspensions may sound exciting for students, especially with those who share the same schedule as I do. But when you are a graduating student who is almost there to be part of society, to be able to help you family out, it’s disheartening. I was almost at the finish line. I was then sitting at home, no goals in mind, or anything at all, honestly. I was lost, with nothing but empty thoughts running in my head. Then it dawned on me: this can be an opportunity to wake up the writer in me. I have killed the creative writer inside me the moment I decided to spend my time studying my course, that I don’t remember if I still knew how to write. At first, I tried writing stories again but I could just not find the words for the chapter I was working on. Then a close friend suggested for me to try blogging again… so here I am. I’m going to be writing about thoughts, feelings, even might throw in some reviews of movies, series, and books that I will be reading and watching during the lockdown…