Student blogs

For any regular readers of my blogs out there, you may have noticed my slightly long absence from writing. To say that I’d been struggling with ‘writer’s block’ would be a fairly accurate description. For weeks I kept thinking “What do I write about?” and even though I’d start the occasional blog, I could never finish anything and I’d end up ditching them as drafts. I spoke to a friend of mine who’d come across my blog and he said “Why don’t you write about not having anything to write about?” – so that’s exactly what I set out to do. Surprisingly enough, even though that’s what I initially planned on writing about, I started brainstorming ideas and realised that I actually had much more to offer. So, without further ado, here’s an update on my life in the lockdown.

Physical and Mental Health

COVID-19 has been scary. I don’t think I really took it seriously until I got a shielding letter sent to me, telling me I shouldn’t be leaving the house. I became so paranoid and spent much of my time panicking about what would happen if it infected me or someone I knew. To top it off, one of my parents is a doctor. Around mid March my entire family and I were pretty sick and, as you can imagine, I was terrified. However, as there weren’t that many testing opportunities at the time, I guess I’ll never know if it was COVID-19 or not but given how many of the symptoms matched, it very well could have been. The toll being sick took on me was a big one and I couldn’t shake it off for ages. I was constantly tired and could barely go up and down the stairs without needing a break. When I did recover, I decided to take things slow and started to build my strength back up, taking things one day at a time. Fast forward to today, I usually do a dance fitness/workout video from Youtube (not Chloe Ting ones, for anyone asking!) and go on a 1.5-2.5K run in the evenings when I can.

Education

At the start of the lockdown, I found it especially hard to focus on work and exam revision. Lack of focus wan’t my only problem. Hearing someone say “Oh I’m being so productive” didn’t inspire me at all, instead, it just irritated me beyond belief. I found myself losing my own motivation and I’ll be lying if I say I ended up finding it in a few weeks. To be honest, I’m still struggling to work. Some of it is definitely to do with my working environment (it’s hard to go from working until 11 in the library to working at the dining table!) but the majority is to do with how distracted I’ve been. Given the current situation, I find myself stressing a lot about friends and family and reading article after article on the Coronavirus. However, I’ve tried my best to get a routine established so I don’t waste too much time freaking myself out. Whilst I can’t say that I’m completely worry-free and ready to revise, I can say that I feel better about my current situation and am ready to tackle exams head on.

Family and Friendships

Okay so this probably isn’t a surprise but Zoom and Houseparty have been lifesavers. I’ve set time aside to talk to people and have enjoyed seeing friends from my course, family and friends from India, schoolmates, etc. Even though a lot of our current discussions are to do with how bored we are, its quite nice to hear someone else relate and tell you about their lives as well- definitely helps me feel less alone. I’ve also gotten closer to some people who’d I’d lost touch with an have also met new people through mutual friends. Just the other day I went round to my best friend’s house to have a quick chat from her front garden (don’t worry, we were social distancing!) and felt so positive right after. Moving on to family, I can definitely say this experience has been interesting to say the least. Sure, we’ve had our fair share of arguments and fallouts (not surprising at all) but we’ve also taught and learned from each other. I’ve just recently introduced my parents to Tik Tok (cliche, I know) and its fun to watch them try out new dishes and hacks.

There’s obviously so much more I could write about but this blog has to end somewhere. The purpose of it was for me to give you guys an accurate representation of the effect COVID-19 has had on my life so far. I know there are many people around the world in situations so much worse than my own and to anyone reading this, if you need to talk to someone, feel free to leave a comment down below or message me. Stay safe and well, everyone.