I was so excited to go back to school on November 2020. My friends – finally! But one evening, I was reading a book when my dad walked up to me and told me that there had been a case in my class and I had to isolate. My whole world had frozen, but I shrugged all my thoughts off my shoulders. I mean, it’s only two weeks. They’ll fly!
They didn’t. The first day was fun: I explored Teams and chatted with my friends, just getting used to the ‘stuck - at - home’ vibes. As the days trudged on, I slowly became tired of doing the same thing again and again. Life was too predictable and I didn’t like it.
Sure, I talked to my friends via Zoom and Meet. Sure, we played lots of games. Sure, it was different. But I realised that most of my life was depending on a screen, and honestly, there was nothing I could do about that.
I learnt to be grateful that at least all of us were safe, and what we were doing was for the good. I got jealous seeing my sister going to school every day, but she was jealous that I got to stay at home and chill. First thing, I wasn’t chilling (there was work to do). Second thing, the seaweed is always greener on somebody else's lake.
Lots of funny things happened too, though. There was no lesson without one person saying, ‘I can’t unmute!’ It was hilarious how so many technical glitches happened. There is, however, no way you can compare actual school with home learning though.
I want to thank all of my teachers for all of their effort. Everything – even my extra book group and clubs – continued online. If I were them, I would have exploded with the number of technical problems.
Overall, my experience with home learning has been... well... horrible (I can’t see my friends!). But, again, it’s for the good.