Hello Everyone!! I have now been in quarantine for about 7 weeks now, out of school for 8 weeks, and doing online school for 3 weeks. I did not realize we have been in quarantine for that long now. I feel so fortunate that my dad was able to keep his job and work at home to support our family. My mom had applied for a new speech therapy job at Texas children’s Hospital and got it, but it has not started yet, so I cannot imagine what it would be like to have both parents out of work. I do have some good news! We are going to have a driveway get together with some family friends, 6 feet apart of course. People will be bringing their own lunch, drinks, and lawn chairs so we can just chat for a bit since we have only been able to see each other on video calls for over a month now. Basically, I have been super bored 24/7 so one day I just decided to stop procrastinating and finally work on my magazine project for school. We had to compile a bunch of our old writings from English in high school and make them look like a real magazine with the ads and table of contents and all that jazz. I finished it and I think that is my biggest accomplishment in quarantine! (haha I’m just joking……but that may be my biggest accomplishment since I haven’t been able to do much else stuck inside all day everyday). My days consist of school, walking my dog, baking, going on a bike ride with my family, and watching the news. It was only recently that I have been allowed to take my brother to go get an occasional treat from Starbucks or chick fila so we can get out of the house for thirty minutes or so. Even when we get to go do that it requires bucketloads of prep from masks to hand sanitizer and any other crazy supplies we happen to need just to leave the house these days. Another thing I have been doing is my National Honor Society independent service project. I contacted the therapy dog organization that my dog, Zoe, is in and asked if I could write a children’s book to be read to kids in hospitals or at the library and, surprisingly, they said yes! That book took me so long to write and even after that I still had to take photos for it, but I am so glad to finally be finished with it. My mom literally got it printed at office depot and sent it to my grandparents, so I decided to keep the jokes going and I told her I was going to get it published. She started laughing and said ok do it, so now my new mission in quarantine is to figure out how to get my children’s book published (because why not). I am constantly trying to distract myself with baking and exercising, or any other random thing I can think to do, but every time I look on the news I am reminded of the dire state that so many people are in. It is crazy this is all a result of a silly virus; you would think people would be good at dealing with that kind of thing after being on the earth for so long. It is a reminder of how delicate the human body is and how short our lives are. I keep feeling so guilty for being in the good situation I am in with my dad in work, having a safe home and more than enough food, while so many people are fighting for their lives or the lives of others. I hope there is not a relapse of COVID-19 as Texas begins to reopen, because I am totally ready to get back to normal again. I hope that is a possibility at this point :(