The QuaranTEENS

It is the first time I have spent two weeks holidays in Paris. I never thought I would have to do that. We should never say never!

Normally during these holidays I ride my bike and meet my family. Those holidays were not like the previous ones. First of all I have learned that the pop music festival in Normandy I used to go every year with my family (my cousins, my sister, my mother…) was cancelled. It did not make me happy because normally it takes place at the beginning of July just after the end of school and it makes me starting my summer holidays with a lot of fun and great moments. It is a great family and musical moment. Moreover, the setting of the festival is beautiful because it is located at in the grounds of a castle.

After this announcement, I continued to do my homework slowly but surely. Then came Easter! Every year I go on an egg hunt in my grand-parents country house .This time my “country house” was in Paris and it was my home. So I went to look for the eggs in my family flat, which kept me busy anyway. I received eggs from my grandmother, which made me happy because I was not expecting that at all. After searching for these eggs a second week of “vacations” began.

This week was the fastest week of my lockdown. Everything went by very quickly and yet I felt like I did nothing. Instead, I changed my habits, watched videos and read articles especially on sports to find out how to get back on track without getting injured. So I was able to see how the triathletes had changed their habits and how they were planning to start again. And I am already looking forward to it! I am thinking about my next holidays even if it seems to be quite difficult to know more about the healthy crisis but I would definitely doing a lot of sports such as my favorite ones : windsurfing, running, cycling, hiking and swimming.

During the vacations, the government broke the news telling us that we will probably resume classes at school. I’m quite happy because I wanna go back to school for a while. Actually the containment begins to be a bit long without seeing anybody except my parents and my brother.

For instance we just resume classes at home. The recovery wasn’t that easy because at didn’t work too much during the holidays. But now, it keeps me busy at least most of the day.

Out of work, I try to do things unusual for me, as manual things for example. Last time I made a fire in the parc of the hotel where I’m confined. I’ve never done this before but I finally found it pretty cool.

However, even if I try to not staying the whole day behind a screen, I have to admit that sometimes it’s complicated. My guilty pleasure is watching series. The last two series that I watched are “La casa de Papel” that everybody know and “Validé” which tells the story of a young French rapper who start to know success, fame and worries about this job.

What is the influence of fake news in times like these?  

Coronavirus is, as you know, a pandemic who left a lot of people in quarantine and since one month, we received many information, sometimes false.  

A fake new is a misleading information to manipulate or deceive someone.  

In fact, in this historic period, we see past fake news about Coronavirus or about other things related to this virus.  

5 fake news:  

• Packages from China can carry the Coronavirus.  
• the US has a role to play in the spread of the coronavirus in China. 
• 5G has spread the virus.  
• Holding your breath lets you know if you are infected.  
• Air pollution has gone down.  

With the social media, sharing information is easier and quick. We need to be attentive and check the real information which come from official websites or newspapers.  

See you next week!

This confinement is getting longer and longer. So to keep myself busy, I have taken up several activities that make my time busier. First of all, I read more and more game rules, which then allows me to play with the people I am confined to.

I had received a lot of games for Christmas and this confinement allows me to read the notices and thus not to waste my time. So I have played at the mastermind, at Carcassonne, and so on. I have also played a childhood game called Kapla! I have built beautiful constructions!

One of my other activities was to sort through my photos, which took me a considerable amount of time. It is something I rarely do and I should do it much more often given the number of pictures I had. However, I had really enjoyed this activity because it allowed me to see what I had been doing for the last six months. So it got me out of lockdown somehow. I then decided to look at my photos when I was a little boy in my parents’ arms. It was really cool because I am still amazed at how I and my parents have changed. To conclude this, I decided to do more photography and more activities with my family because time goes faster and faster and we forget that we only have one life, so we have to make the most of it.

We have been confined for over four weeks now. I smiled the first time I heard the news because for me, I was going to be able to sleep more, to have a rest, to do sports, to play games, to have time to do school work and extra-work and I had deduced that I would therefore be more active during the day. Also, I would take care of my family, to be closer to her and this would allow me to hear news from all my relatives.

But now that it has been four weeks, I have changed my mind. I wish I could go back to class, work normally, go to the pool and go rock climbing. So I would like to see my friends, my family in real life again. I terribly miss all this but we are all in the same situation and I think the best thing is to stay at home, continue to talk with relatives and friends. I also think it is a good time to reconnect with people I have not talked to in a long time. For my part, it allowed me to know what was happening to my friends. First of all I have got in touch with a friend I have not seen since primary school, he now lives right next door to me! He told me about these plans for the next few years and they are exciting. I am really looking forward to seeing him again. I also learned that someone close to me had caught the coronavirus and was really not feeling well. He had to go to the hospital and luckily now he is better. At the same time, I learned that a friend of mine might be spending the summer holidays in the same place as me! This special time allows us to take news from close people and that improves everyone’s morals, which is important during this period of lockdown.

For everyone’s sake I hope that we will soon see the end of this period which is beginning to be long.

We’ve been quarantined for more than a month now, maybe even more, I’m no longer counting the days . I must have lost the track of time. I don’t even know what day it is. My days are all very similar. Nothing really excites me. I don’t really have anything relevant to tell or share. In my opinion, we all started to feel like a routine. We were told that quarantine will be over on may 11th . But it wasn’t clear enough, we don’t know yet in which conditions we will go back to school, or how. It’s kind of messy and we are in the middle, waiting for answers. In the meantime, I got back to what I really like and really make me happy when I was younger and had more free time, which are computers and video games. I spend most of my time doing video and audio editing in order to improve my skills, also playing video games and trying to be better or even the best !

This quarantine has been giving value to our freedom, to all the people we miss (family, friends…), to everything we love. I’ve been confined with my family which is composed of 8 persons. It’s driving all of us crazy. We really need to go out and see others faces

As I said in a previous post, I found a camera, as we have time with containment I decided to take some pictures.

To do this I had to first get to grips with the features of the camera and then research some photography tips. I looked at several articles on different styles of photography but the one that attracted me the most was on portrait photos of people. Since I can’t go out of my house or take pictures of my friends, I decided to take pictures of myself with the means I had.

I am proud of the result and I think I have found a new passion to do in my life during confinement and after confinement, that confinement can bring beautiful things.

It’s now been a whole month since quarantine has started , and hopefully it won’t last much longer . If everything goes as planned , we should be able to go back to school on the 11th may . At least , it will be better than home classes . My life is feeling quite repetitive , i do almost the same things everyday , it’s getting on my nerves . Luckily or not , i have a lot of time to develop my skills at cooking or other things but i wish i could instead hang out with my friends . I miss those days where we weren’t locked in our homes but it is what it is .

FOURTH WEEK

Hello, I am starting this day off very well because I have very good news.  I have been admitted to Sup de Luxe. During this week, I have written two tests in English, in general cultures and two interviews one in French one in English. It was very stressful but it was a good experience.

I have never played as much with my little brother. He is growing so quickly it’s impressive. He ate his first baby food cup this week.

To celebrate Easter I made a lemon meringue pie to eat with chocolates 🙂

I miss my friends a lot. We talk on social media. The application I use the most is HouseParty because we can talk while seeing each other. I even watched a series through this application with a friend. It was fun.

See you

THIRD WEEK

I’m slowly getting used to the confinement. I cook very often, I clean everything at home.  The apartment has never been so clean and tidy. We try to spend time as a family and our ties are growing stronger. 

Saturday was my brother’s birthday. Although we were confined we celebrated it and it was fun.

Once a day I try to workout at home.  It’s very important, I want to continue living healthy. Even if in these conditions it is hard to have motivation.

I spent this week preparing an application file for an off parcoursup school. It required a lot of concentration to gather my strengths, my capacities and my ambitions for this type of learning. This school is focused on the luxury sector.  The program offers a variety of important subjects that interest me.

Finally, my father’s partner made us cotton masks. They are very useful for going out.

Have a lovely day everybody 🙂