1/13 Wednesday (tested day):
Standing in line as the clock keeps ticking, the suspense building up in me was overwhelming. I was scared to get tested, as all I could think about were the videos of people’s experiences of getting their nose swabbed flooded the internet over quarantine. I was next up in line and felt the tension arise in me. The test itself wasn’t as bad as thought to be, it mainly just makes your nose feel uncomfortable for a couple minutes, and it also makes your eyes water as you want to sneeze. Still uncertain of how I could have gotten COVID because I had not come in contact with anyone with it that I had known, I tried to put the puzzle pieces together. I knew I had to prepare myself to be locked in my little room for a while or until my test hopefully came back negative.

1/14 Thursday:
I woke up feeling fine, close to perfect. I had no symptoms and was confident that I would end up testing negative. The waiting game has started. I was told that my test would come back between 24-48 hours. Wearing two masks simply to walk downstairs and grab water, sanitizing every door I would touch, and telling my parents in advance when I had to go downstairs so they could leave the house and wait outside–these are some procedures that were useful and helpful to take. My second day of quarantine and I wasn’t too bored of it yet, rather I was enjoying it.

Friday (results back):
Today I could feel symptoms start to emerge. My throat was sore, my body ached and my nose was runny. I was sneezing uncontrollably. Only a couple of days into my quarantine and things seemed to be going downhill. With COVID I feel like one minute, things could be going good, and then the next, everything could go wrong. I was already feeling behind in school, my sleep schedule was messed up and I couldn’t help but feel guilty about how I could have potentially given it to my father and my mother, who has very intense asthma and breathing problems. I started to then realize how rapidly COVID spreads.

My test came back positive and I knew I had to prepare for another week basically locked inside a box.

1/16 Saturday:
At A5 south, a COVID breakout occurred, and due to that our first tournament was canceled this weekend for volleyball. It was a big disappointment to the whole team. Once I tested positive for COVID, a couple of my teammates decided to get tested too. Four of them ended up testing positive. I saw that if procedures are not taken seriously then we will not be able to control this deadly virus.

1/18 Monday:
Day one of online school and I could already feel my grades slipping behind. As I try to keep my eyes open and stay awake during each class, I struggle to learn through a computer screen.
But I tried my best to try to keep in touch with my teachers and participate through the zooms each day.

1/19 Tuesday:
I learned that being stuck all by yourself in one place for 10-14 days was eye-opening because all you have to do is focus on yourself. You can’t see family or friends. You have no one to make face-to-face contact with. All you give is you and your mind. Over quarantine, you make many realizations and yourself and your life overall.

1/21 Thursday:
As days continued to pass I realized my days were all the same, wake up, go to online classes, have my parents put food outside my door, do homework, when bored scroll through endless social media platforms until I was bored so I would switch to another app.

1/22 Friday(last day):
My 10th and final day of being stuck in my room. I was relieved that it was over and I could finally go back to school, volleyball and start to get back into the groove of things again. COVID definitely made me learn to not take such simple things like going to school, having dinner with my parents, watching tv with my siblings, basic interactions with people in general, for granted. Isolation allows people to think a lot more and invest in yourself.