Journal Entry Number 9

Journal Entry Number 9:

Today is Thursday April 23rd, I have been looking forward to this day for a very long time. Today is the 2020 NFL draft and my friends and I have been looking forward to this day for months. Not to mention this will be the first somewhat sporting event in months! That has definitely made this much harder for me because sports are my life, if i'm not in school i'm at the hockey rink and not even being able to watch the professional athletes has made it very difficult. Before I could even get to watch the draft J.B Pritzker mentioned some disappointing news. The stay at home order has been extended through May 30th. This is so hard to hear for me, that is over another month of not being able to leave your house. I am so bored and just don't know what to do with myself anymore. For fun I have found myself either throwing a tennis ball against my garage or stickhandling a tennis ball with my hockey stick. I'm not sure how much more of this I can do, I need interactions and can not keep zooming for many hours a day, my brain begins to hurt from staring at the computer for so long. My hockey team is planning on zooming tomorrow and that is about the only zoom I'm looking forward to so far. 

Journal Entry Number 8

Journal Entry Number 8:

Today is Wednesday April 22nd, we had a baseball zoom today where our coach officially announced that our season is cancelled. This was very hard for our seniors and our coach has tried to set up a zoom banquet in the upcoming weeks so the seniors could get the appropriate recognition they deserve. My thoughts on school have definitely changed,  doing online classes is very different and very weird for me and I am definitely not a fan of them. However, there really are no other options and this is what the world has come to, we are very fortunate to still be learning, and one of my baseball coaches said “This should be a time where you don't have to focus on grades but it is a time to focus on your education.” I have been thinking much about it and he is right, this is a time where grades are not very important because they will stay the same as third quarter so instead of focusing on grades for the first time in our education we should focus on the learning and our education for the future. This is our education and there is no going back so why don't we put in the maximum effort to succeed in the future.

Journal Entry Number 7

Journal Number 7:

Today is Sunday April 19th, today my mother forced my sister and I to help rake our lawn again. By now all the activities my mom has us do are just busy work because if we were not outside we would be sitting in front of the T.V. During the weeks my family and I have been taking adventures out at night for dinner and to simply get out of the house. My moms office is in the city of Chicago and we have many times driven down there to get mail and then a quick dinner. This is a very hard time for restaurants and small businesses, I really feel for the people working at those companies because they could at any moment lose their job. We have seen many millions of Americans declare for unemployment as my brother and father always talk about how it increases. It has gotten near 20%. That is 1 in 5 Americans who are unemployed, which is just mind boggling if you think about it. My perspective on money has definitely changed. My mom is very fortunate to be able to keep her job and there are so many who will lose their jobs and struggle to pay the bills during this difficult time. All I can think of is how quickly this needs to end for all the people who can then go out and find a job. Where will it go from here? 

Journal Entry Number 6 of Remote Learning

Journal entry number 6:

Today is Friday April 17th, a green day for New Trier. Today I woke up at 8:30 and checked in for advisory and then continued to fall back asleep like I do everyday because I have the first period of every day free. I woke up a couple minutes before my physics zoom and rushed to my computer. I noticed that when I looked outside the ground was covered in snow which is very fascinating. There wasn't a ton of snow but enough to stick for a couple hours. Who would've thought there would be snow in April I sure wouldn't have. Something very interesting happened today, there has been much talk about governor Pritzker closing down the schools for the rest of the year and continuing with remote learning. This is not much of a surprise for me but it is kind of sad. There are so many things that have been cancelled and this is another one to the list. My baseball cancelled most likely will officially be cancelled because of this and that means two of my sports seasons were cancelled. This is so frustrating and I can't do anything about it. To get through these times the other day my family and I started a very interesting 2000 piece puzzle filled with the many national monuments in the United States. Clearly, life is getting very frustrating and being trapped inside is very tough, and we are simply running out of ideas for things to do. I have recently been trying to convince my mom to buy me a basketball hoop so I can spend more time outside playing basketball because I really need the exercise during this time.

Journal Entry Number 5 of Remote Learning

Journal entry number 5: 

Today is Thursday April 16th, a Blue day for New Trier. Luckily for me I only have 2 classes on blue days and am able to relax a ton. I have been having zooms with my baseball team to be able to connect with some of my friends and teammates which has been good. In fact, my coach has been giving us certain challenges throughout the quarantine. There was a time last week that we had a joint zoom call with the Loyola baseball team and played bingo, New Trier vs Loyola which was a different fun activity. The challenges our coach gave us were to somehow make a remote team picture where we would photoshop everyone in their uniforms together. The other challenge was to create a video of us all doing baseball activities at our homes, for example I took a video of myself hitting wiffle balls outside with a bat. These zoom calls with my baseball team have definitely been a good way of connecting with people and it's been so good to have interactions with people because that's what everyone needs during this time. 

Another good thing for me during this time of quarantine has been being able to spend time with my older brother who has been coming to our house almost every night. My brother is 25 and he lives in Evanston and I wouldn't be seeing him this much if we were not in quarantine. That is one of the positives of this whole thing for me. The other day for dinner we made noki as a family which was a really fun activity for everyone and all these activities have definitely brought everyone closer.

Journal entry number 4 of remote learning

Journal entry number 4:

Today is Wednesday April 15th, a green day for all the students of New Trier. This means we have periods 5-9. It has felt like we have been in quarantine forever and I have been feeling really bored with myself and I am running out of ideas. For fun today my family and I raked our yard and all the leaves in the backyard. We put the leaves in 8 different yard bags and worked for over an hour. My mom has been putting us to work by cleaning the house and yard as often as we can. My mom is very eager for us to get outside as well, so today I threw a tennis ball against the garage for around 30 minutes which was fun for me to be active because that is definitely something I have not been doing as much as I should.

So how much longer will this whole quarantine be is what the entire world is asking. Personally I think that it will be at least another month. The safety of everyone is far more important and cases are still happening. In fact, on the news I saw there was a nursing home in Joliet that had 23 deaths. Joliet is fairly close to us and it just shows there are still many cases happening. We need to wait for this whole thing to be over to go outside in my opinion. My physics teacher believes it will be pushed back even farther until May 15th and I agree if not even longer. Obviously this is tough for everyone and everyone just wants it to go back to normal but i'm not sure that's happening anytime soon.

Journal Entry Number 3 of Remote Learning

Journal Entry Number 3: 

Today is April 9th and it is sunny out but a little cold outside. I was watching T.V when I watched a commercial offering advice to deal with the corona virus. It was a commercial that was complete silence that stated “the world is a loud place right now, you need silence”, I thought this was very fascinating. Technology has made an extraordinary impact on my daily life. It's funny to think that without technology and internet connection we wouldn't be able to have school. That's why technology has made such a big impact on my life and all the students at New Triers, as well, that's why there is such a big talk about the digital divide because there many students around the world who do not have ipads or computers or even internet connection at their homes. We at New Trier are very fortunate to be able to continue school unlike many other schools around the country where students don't have the materials to continue school. We are very fortunate to be able to continue our education through zoom and be able to prepare for the following years of education rather than taking much time off of learning. 

Being able to zoom with our classes and friends is a necessary thing. Other schools that don’t get to participate in zoom calls and different interactions are unfortunate. Everyone has been stuck in their house for over a month, people are going a little crazy. In life loneliness is a very bad thing, people need daily interactions and as people are unable to go outside and meet with their friends people might find themselves a little on edge. That is one of the huge benefits of zoom and remote learning in my mind. It's a day where I get to interact with my friends and schoolmates and it is beyond necessary for everyone’s mental health and I think it's a very good thing that we are doing it. 

Journal Entry Number 2 of Remote Learning

Journal Entry Number 2:

It is April 7th, if you looked outside today it would feel like a normal day. It's almost 75 degrees out and the people in my neighborhood are not scared to go outside. I live on Sheridan road in Winnetka and the amount of bikers and walkers out does not fail to make it feel like a normal day. However, when I walk outside and observe a majority of the people respect the rule of staying 6 feet apart which is great to see. In the neighborhood a majority of restaurants are still open for carryout and delivery which is very odd to me. Occasionally I will go out to a drive thru to get out of the house and I have observed many people are out of the house. It makes me wonder, are people taking this as serious as they should be? Personally I have not seen this virus up close because I am fortunate enough to say none of my family has contracted the virus. If people were to take it more seriously in my neighborhood would this be over sooner? 

I have heard many stories of people trying new things like trying to learn the guitar, or write left handed and I think people from New Trier are making the best out of the situation. I think the best part of the remote learning for me is being able to spend so much time with my family. Each night I get to do some type of activity with my family. I have been playing with my brother, cooking, puzzles, walking my dog and other different fun activities. In specific, my family and I are really using this time to bond and spend the most amount of time together possible. Throughout my day I have been watching the news and watching different announcements from J.B Pritzker and Lori Lightfoot and it seems like they are on top of things. I believe Illinois and the government is handling this situation very seriously and if we obey the rules they set in place we will be back to normal in no time.

Journal Number 1 of Remote Learning

Journal entry number 1:

It’s Friday the 5th day of completing home learning. Home learning is much different than regular school, waking up everyday to check into advisory through our iPads is something very odd to me. The whole thing will feel more comfortable as we do it more. The school work is definitely a lot less work through home learning as teachers have to account for the other work students get. Quite frankly the weirdest part of this whole thing to me is the way people are acting in my community. From my point of view it seems as if nothing has changed other than kids are not attending school. I live on Sheridan road which is one of the most populated streets with bikers, runners, and even cars and the activity of people has not decreased. So this makes me wonder, to what extent are people taking this as serious as it is. Do people know the effects of this Covid-19 virus? 

In some parts of this world this virus has caused entire country’s to go on shutdown but here in our community people are still out and about living a normal life. The government has taken serious action by closing all restaurants for dine in. This virus is having an affect on every single person in the world in some way shape or form. Personally this virus has had a devastating effect on me, my hockey team was in the semifinals for the state playoffs, only one more game to win and we would be playing in the state championship in front of 10,000 fans at the United Center. But with this virus they cancelled the remaining two games leaving everyone in shock. Why should we let this virus take such a toll on our lives. This has been my dream since I was a young kid, and now this virus will cancel my hockey games and maybe cancel my entire baseball season. And the worst part of it all is I’m stuck in my house left hopeless unable to do anything about it. In the wise words of my hockey coach, “In life there are some things you can control and this is something that you can't control. It sucks but we cant do anything about it”. That is definitely the most upsetting thing is there truly is nothing we can do about it. So what's next for us?