Aspiring author Hajer al Balushi, a grade ten student of Seeb International School, says the situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has taught her to appreciate what we have before it’s all gone

These past few days have been a hassle for me. I haven’t seen the sun in such a long time that when I open the windows, the sun feels too bright. However, this social isolation hasn’t been harder than I thought it would be. I’m doing my schoolwork, listening to music and painting every once in a while. It’s more relaxing than anything.

Since I’m a pretty social person, I really do miss my friends. I haven’t even spoken to a few of them and some I don’t even know what they are up to at all. On the plus side, my closest friends and I text almost daily and due to this isolation, I’ve even made a couple of new online friends – some things to tick off my bucket list.

My school has started online teaching and it’s been going quite smoothly other than the occasional troublemakers joining the lessons and not taking the work seriously. But who doesn’t have a class clown. I’ve mostly been preparing for upcoming tests and completing my homework as much as I can. Since I’m an IGCSE student, my day is quite packed with classes running from 8am to 2pm and then I revise and do homework from 4pm until 9pm, which leaves little room for hobbies unfortunately.

When I do get time to rest and do what I want, I’m either painting, listening to my favourite band or dancing to keep myself active. Since I don’t really like the concept of exercise, I make up for it by learning different choreography styles and moving to the beautiful rhythm flowing around my bedroom.

Being at home all day without a way to leave doesn’t affect me since I stay at home most weekends. Now a days, visiting family is very difficult and visiting friends is near to impossible, but the little things like going to the store to buy milk is also something we can’t do – that was harder to deal with than I thought. But with being at home all day, we can grow closer to our families and follow the news about COVID-19.

This social isolation has been allowing kids and teenagers like me to try new things and create new hobbies since after a while we get bored and look for something to do, which has made me really happy for the people finding new passions. Nonetheless, kids are reckless and irresponsible which lead them to make irresponsible and dangerous decisions that make me wonder what went through their mind. And I’m very guilty of this myself as I taped my whole water bottle with duct tape out of boredom.

When this pandemic ends and life goes back to the way it was, I don’t think I’ll be able to forget this interesting time we are in. It’s terrifying and everything feels risky but I know that this taught me not to take things for granted and to appreciate what we have before it’s all gone. And on the bright side, while we are keeping ourselves safe due to this virus, our earth is becoming healthier and carbon emissions are decreasing causing the air to become clean, so when everything goes back to normal, we will be witnessing a healthier lifestyle. I’ll definitely be telling my grandkids about the crazy pandemic of 2020.