Since I’m stuck in the house due to the pandemic for more than three months, and not
being able to go to school, my lifestyle led to a big shift. Of course, my sleeping schedule is
messed up. Now I go to sleep at around 1:30 at midnight and wake up after 10 o’clock in the
morning. I’m also being assigned a huge amount of work from school which is almost always
hard for me to finish on time. But whenever I get spare time from school work, I try to focus on myself. From these spare times I figured out that my preferences have changed. Usually I’m a talkative person and I like to socialize with my friends a lot. However, in this quarantine, I
realized that I like to spend time alone which is quite surprising for me. Now that I’m alone, I get time to do self-reflection. From this I realized, there were few things I had told my friends and family unintentionally which were quite offensive and I feel guilty about it. I have told my friends a few times that if I tell them something foolish, they should correct me because words are more hurtful than weapons. Therefore, I’m working on controlling my tongue. I’m also practicing listening to other people’s problems because from self-reflection. I’ve found out that sometimes, I just talk about myself too much that I don’t let other people talk. This made me realize I was also being selfish unintentionally. I am interested in learning about other countries’ cultures, origins, and politics. Lately, I’ve been learning about the history of Korea: how the country originated, the dynasties, the language and how the peninsula was divided due to political reasons. My US History class, K-dramas, and K-Pop had motivated me to learn about Korea. The past two weeks, my main focus was learning about North Korea. I had always wondered about how this country could be so secretive, how are the people surviving and what is life like in North Korea. After learning about the country’s history, I’m grateful that I have my own freedom to live and enjoy my life. Sometimes I feel suffocated by staying inside the house for a long time. I miss going out because in my opinion this is the best weather to go out since it's neither too cold nor too hot and I’m grateful that I don’t have a pollen allergy. Other than that, the quarantine made me realize that I live a great life and I am grateful for that. I have enough food stocked in my house, and I
have a shelter. I’m also grateful towards the frontline people who are putting their lives on the line to treat the patients and to help other people. I pray that they get a big reward for their
sacrifices because they deserve that. Before the sunsets, my whole neighborhood comes in their
window and claps for the frontline people. We as a whole neighborhood thank the frontline
people. As I notice the positive vibes of my neighborhood and how I am upgrading myself
through self-reflection, I don’t lose the hope of going out and things becoming normal again.