A letter from October 12th, 2020

Hey. I should be in bed. It's 10:40pm and I have TOK early tomorrow. But I'm here instead. COVID has been rough. Over the summer, during lockdown and the early stages of reopening, it was okay. I started to see people again, always masked and distanced, of course. I went biking a lot with Qu and Ro. We had some semi-legal fun. School started 3 months ago (wow, I can't believe it's been that long). I thought it might be okay. The end of last school year wasn't that bad. I was wrong. It's so hard. I was mostly okay about doing all my work on time at first, but by now it doesn't matter to me anymore. I'm turning in my math work days late almost regularly. I'm swamped in lit work. No one pays attention to bio. Sitting at my desk all day is worse. There's no hallway transition, no commute to school, and no variation. Most days I go on a morning bike ride with Qu to simulate biking to school and to wake me up. In the afternoons, we'll meet up with Ro and go on adventures. Lots of times, Qu and I will decide to ditch some schoolwork and eat lunch together. That really helps my focus and mental health. Juniors are scheduled to go back on November 16. I'm staying virtual. So are a lot of other people. I'm not excited about it, but it's better than catching COVID and spreading it to Mama or Papa. I hope that by the time you read this, COVID will have faded into the past and no longer taints your life. Lots of things can happen in a year. Let's hope it's the right things.