The QuaranTEENS

Hi everyone, I should not be writing right now, since I’m 1 second to falling asleep. There is another good reason for that: I might just write how I feel about how I fail in most of the things I really like because generally, at that time of the night, every feeling that I have about myself is boosted times 100. I realise that this website is not a diary and that there is almost 40 people who are going to read this, but since I need to share how I’m feeling during lockdown sometimes, it’s a perfect opportunity.

It’s perfectly normal to feel a little depressed about something from time to time, especially if something really sad happened not so long ago in your life. In my case, nothing in particular happened to me lately. I think that when you give your best at something you really feel is going to turn out just fine, and doesn’t, you kind of want to abandon it totally… For example, when you have a passion like physics, generally understand most of what you’re learning of just reading; but then, the teacher introduces a new concept and you feel like you’re the only one to not understand it and the teacher won’t care whether you get it or not, and you can’t find any complementary information to help you out, some people would feel useless, completely dumb and that they suck at it. It’s like that one second, that one glitch that makes you feel like a tiny rock being thrown into a really, really deep well by a normal kid.

Let me tell you something, I might be thinking this as I am writing, but that kid, is your mind. It’s called pessimism and I really don’t like it if you know what I mean! It kind of gets me EVERYTIME to be honest. As an example, I have been playing the piano for 3 years and a half, on my own, but really often, I end up thinking “I suuuuuuck, why did I even put my fingers on these keys years ago?!” right after having thrown all my anger on my innocent keyboard.

You know what? This week, I built a grand piano shell for my synthesiser made exclusively out of cardboard, unfortunately, making it in only 3 to 4 days didn’t even make me proud of my creation, even though it’s just as I imagined it and stand pretty still (it also takes 1/4 of the remaining space in my bedroom). Now I’m not really telling a magical way to become satisfied with yourself and with what you do because it’s the most difficult thing to do for me but I know that 50% of the time, when my self-confidence is super low, it’s mostly because I’m tired and that in this state, finding a solution to what I’m doing is absolutely impossible. So just…chill out, go to bed, go eat a little, drink something refreshing, to get energetic and good enough to get back to what you were doing. As I said, I works, sometimes… Actually confinement slowly makes me realise how important sleep is. I think I should go to bed by the way.

One last little comment on my usual behaviour… I know you might sometimes feel like I’m looking down on other students or on you, and I’m really sorry for that. I actually don’t know why I do that, I even look down on myself ALL THE TIME and I don’t like it… I really want to change the way I’m acting in public, in class with everyone…but the thing is that I have no idea what I could start with…it’s all blur in my head, who I think I am for example. I’m basically always asking the same friends to help me because I feel like they are the kind of people to solve personal issues haha. Anyway, I have some time to work on myself so I think I could try!

P.S.: This post is clearly not as great as the previous ones but it’s late so good night everyone!

Brahms

At this time it is essential to stay at home to limit the spread of the disease, but for everyone it is very complicated.

Indeed, since the beginning of confinement I have seen through my window many people still come out, some family of my residence constantly in the course of the building in which I live to talk, play, bask in the sun, to the point where even people outside the residence come and go to talk with others. Of course, all this without complying with the instructions given by the government.

But when you think about it, you don’t say that staying locked up at home can drive some people crazy, especially the people alone or inadequately surrounded.

All of this because of the boredom, the feeling of turning round, the activities that we do have the long time, we do nothing anymore has the force of not knowing what to do, to end up in an impression of emptiness in our mind, all that we seek to do from then on serves only tried to fill this void in us.

From that moment on, the occupation search force, we do things that we would have tried without all that.

I’ve been writing a lot of short stories in the last few years, but I’ve been getting over it recently, and here’s one of them:

You wake up in the middle of the night. You’re half in the woods and your vision is pretty blurry. You lie on your back in bed. The only problem is that you can’t move. Actually, your body is paralyzed from head to toe. Only your eyeballs still have the ability to make movements. A little panicked, you try to raise one of your arms as your first reflex. Of course it is unsuccessful. Still, you try again and again. You’re starting to feel a little tiredness in your muscles. You’ve never had this experience before. You feel like hundreds of pounds lean against your body, which prevents any movement. The cold begins to make your skin shiver. You feel like your window has remained open while you remember closing it the day before. Fear is all at once. Stress also goes up, it gives a mixture of panic and terror. Without shouting beware, something gently blows against your ear. You can feel his icy breath running through your spine, while the sound of his wrecked breath reaches your ears. You panic even more, but you’re here, lying down, can’t do anything at all. Caught in fear, you try to wander around the room with your eyes when suddenly a dark and blurred humanoid face leans towards your gaze. You then spread your eyes and your breath accelerates. You feel like you’re suffocating. This face is slowly approaching. You see almost nothing as you are in the dark, but your eyes have had time to get used to the dark. The figure comes to rest and you feel his penetrating gaze staring at you with intensity. Fear transcends you, you close your eyelids strongly and pray in your head that it all stops. And here you have a light. “Why don’t I call for help?” do you think? You hear some noise coming from the next room. With a lot of difficulty, you’re trying to turn your head towards this one. During this moment, your neck refuses to follow the movement, but you decide to force the price of hearing the bones of it crack one by one, as if they were breaking. Happy that you finally managed to move a little, you opened your mouth gently. You feel that time is slowing and that this world is only a nightmare.
Open-mouthed, you shout with all your strength, calling for pitifully help. But all this in vain… no sound comes out of your throat. You feel helpless, helpless and this thing above you that always sets you without moving… You’d like to cry, but let’s cry the tears that won’t come out. At this moment, your greatest fear is to die or stay stuck in this position in the face of this morbid silhouette.

Eventually, you close your eyes again because fatigue will soon invade you. The next day you wake up sweaty. What happened? Did this really happen? Well, yes, all this is beautiful happened well… a sleep paralysis. Between awakening and sleep, at the mercy of the unhealthy spirit that lurks in your room, the worst scare often becomes reality.

Will you wake up before it’s too late?

I lost track of time, has it been 4 or 5 weeks, I don’t even know anymore. Time is flowing at such speed that it’s starting to gnaw my soul, and if that wasn’t enough i’m running low on ressources, i only got one bottle of water and one pack of skittles. One other enemy that all humans have encountered once in their life is bore, being able to entertain yourself is almost like a lost cause, the only social activity that we’re able to have is clapping our hands at 8 PM.

Ok, now to be a bit serious about this, I don’t thing confinement is that bad, their is some good side about it, I get to spend more time with my family which wasn’t the case before because of the work etc… also at the begin of the confinement I was able to do finish/continu stuff that I couldn’t do before the confinement, but of course I’m missing a lot of things such as going out with my friends, being able to party and also, believe it or not, go school, hopefully we’ll be able to go there again before the end of this year. Other thing that I wanted to add, i was able to go through a diagnostic and discover that I was infect by a disease called “le seum” , since my god damn 18th birthday is during the confinement and I can’t celebrate it with a giant party ( I know I’m not the only one).

This week, I found a camera, which has lived quite a while with my family, so I found some old family pictures with my brothers and my parents, which made me nostalgic because it’s been 4 years that I’ve been living alone with my parents, because my brothers are studying in another city and so we don’t see each other very often.

This discovery made us want to watch videos from the past for the Easter period with the egg hunt, there was a lot of laughter, a wave of nostalgia made me think about this period of confinement.

It’s true that we are often nostalgic, the proof during the confinement, we want to see our friends again, to go to a specific place, to find our daily life which allows us not to feel disoriented. That’s why I became even more aware of enjoying the present moment, because nostalgia is a very good feeling for me, but when will it be if I enjoy the present moment even more? Well the present is much better, so the past has been even better and so the future can only be even better.

It’s been a month now that we are locked up and I’m still waiting for the end of it. The government said that apparently we would be at the reaching point at the end of may and that we would be maybe able to go out at the end of June … it seems so far. 

My parents allow me to go out about 2 times a week otherwise I’m really annoying and we argue all the time. I don’t know what people think about “the applause time” at 8pm but I don’t usually do it because most of the time people who applause are the one who go out for a walk (like I do obviously) and I don’t think it’s fair because if you applause that means that you support the medical people and that you don’t go out like the president said. 

This week was boring… like the last one… and the one before. I don’t know when it’s gonna end and people says that we won’t go to school before September. The most frustrated thing during confinement is that we can’t have a private discussion with a close friend, like during the day when nobody is in the apartment because of work or even at a cafe. I don’t think we can have privacy anymore these days. Like the majority of teenagers, I argue with my parents every day for meaningless things. I have a lot of time to think on my own and I really don’t think that the recover with be easy and fast, every day we see on social media that people will go out, party and see friends but I’m pretty such that this is not gonna happened because people will be scared about an other relapse of coronavirus. 

We have been quarantined for 3 weeks now and i’m slowly starting to get use to it , but the fact that there’s no football , no basketball is depressing . Hopefully they’ll be back soon . Also my sleeping schedule is quite messed up , 4 AM is my new 10 PM . What worries me the most is the situation with the BAC , we don’t know how it will be , it’s pretty annoying . During this period , i try to keep myself busy as i can but it’s pretty hard , i workout everyday , i do my homework and play video games , and that’s about it . At least with the containment , i can finally finish my series . Be locked up at home is really though , i miss hanging out with my friends , eat outside and go to the gym .Hopefully this situation will be solved as soon as possible

We’ve now been quarantined for 3 weeks and everyone is getting used to the situation. People are reaching daily schedules to occupy themselves so the number of fines concerning the confinement rules are reducing. Meanwhile we are still facing a major issue which is fake news. Some people find pleasure in misinforming other, people mostly spread fake news on twitter and WhatsApp. During this crisis on social media several people proclame themselves doctors, scientist of analyst. Saying the corona virus was created in a laboratory to eradicate the wick part of the population. Others claiming they have special concoctions to cure the virus, and out of fear and desperation some people follow. We mostly thing fake news only comes from social media while even politicians contribute in distorting individuals, like Eric Zemmour who succeeded in making a link between the virus and Muslims saying in suburbs Africans are responsible of the virus spread. Trump is also a great example, he keeps misleading people by spreading fake information during the daily press conference, calling the virus the Chinese virus, he isn’t informed but pretends to be. We are now in a time where we are confronted to a flow of information we should be smart and thoughtful and learn how to dissociate what is true from what is false.

I’ve more or less adapted in two and half weeks of confinement.

Dresscode: Hoodies. But, get this: two groups, inside hoodies and outside hoodies. You must separate them by fit and filth. So, you’ve got your “classy” hoodie and then you’ve got the hoodie that can double as a napkin in an emergency. Wear the same jeans and hoodie all week, who cares! No one is going to see you!!

Schedule: none besides checking Pronote and email hourly. Turns out I’m not an extremely disciplined person. The only schedule I truly adhere to is three meals a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Meals: prepped and delicious. Eating well is all I’ve got!! The highlight of my week was the courier bringing us gourmet coffee beans and I’m not going to lie, I’m also excited for the box of vegetables direct from the farm we get to pick up tomorrow. Wow. This is my life now.

Listen, I don’t want to be the corny teacher who lives for their students but I have an affinity for my job. I’ve realized something: I miss those annoying kids! That, folks, is the hardest part about confinement. No contact with those sweet rascals. In other ways it’s neat, I get to experiment with new ways of teaching and interacting (this blog, ahem) as well as recording my own audiobook for my 7th grade classes. I’m reading Charlotte’s Web to them and they draw me comic strips of what they understood from the chapter. I assure you, the drawings are hilarious. My literature class is making propaganda posters for George Orwell’s Animal Farm. I sit back and watch my inbox fill up with artwork then I frantically respond to every parent confirming the reception of every attached drawing. It’s daunting for someone who once tweeted “I wish everyone would stop sending me emails!! I can’t take it anymore!!”

And what about y’all? What have you begun to enjoy? What have you rediscovered?

My second week was not fun as the first one . The lockdown is more and more painful but we have to respect it. When we go out, we may encounter policemen and they can ask us about the paper (“attestation”) that allows us to go out. It is a bit stressful time. It is difficult because you have the uncomfortable feeling that police is always watching you. Definitely we have to stay at home and to think about new activities inside. I try to keep myself busy by watching series, movies, playing chess or board games. I have improved my games and now I am a chess master! I have also had to do a lot to finalize my “Parcoursup” profile. I have also discovered an old game called: the “jokari”

We play with a ball and a racket but the specificity is that the ball is linked to a small box by an elastic cord. Then you can play alone but I prefer with two players.

What is really missing for me is the lack of freedom. I cannot do what I want to do. I feel like in jail. I miss my family a lot especially my cousins with whom I really like to share time and play games. I suffer from the lack of outside activities such as cinema, theater, bowling, escape games, playing football and so on..

Finally I would have preferred to leave Paris during the lockdown because I could have been with my family and take advantage of this time to be more with them.