PHOTO COURTESY OF CLIPART.COM

Originally published May 26, 2020.

 You know what grinds my gears!? Not being able to see my friends.

 I have a few close friends, and I do everything with them, so when I found out I wouldn’t be able to see them for a month and a half, maybe more, I was very mad and upset. 

 Yeah, I get we’re in a pandemic, but like what about everyone’s mental health? I basically live off of those people!

 My parents say “There’s still FaceTime,” but FaceTime isn’t the same! Can you hug your phone and would it be the same? No. Can you have a sleepover with your friend on the phone? Yes, but it would be boring and a bit weird. Imagine you’re a parent and you walk into your kid’s room to see them and their friend snoring and wasting phone battery, there’s absolutely no point in that!

 We get that we could make everything worse if we went outside, but if you had less than 5 friends that you do everything with, would you want to be away from them all the time? No.

 And THAT is what grinds my gears!

 You know what grinds my gears!? Bad WiFi. 

 Almost everything today functions mainly off of WiFi, and now it’s basically EVERYTHING now that we’re all stuck at home. My school needs WiFi, my parents work needs WiFi, our phones, our T.V., our games, everything needs  WiFi. But when everything needs WiFi, everyone knows that will lead to my worst nightmare, bad WiFi.

 Just the thought that I would lose all of the hard work that I’ve done on Animal Crossing for the past hour to bad WiFi is killing me right now. But honestly, when it comes to bad WiFi on my brother and I’s phones, we don’t really care. We both know that we just need to close a few apps and tabs, and sometimes reset the WiFi on our phones, but it only takes a minute.

 However, when it comes to my school work, that’s when it crossed the line. My school work is very precious to me, especially that book report I’ve worked on for the past month. So this is a warning to any future WiFi problems. If you TRY messing up my school work, you should run.

 And THAT is what grinds my gears!

 You know what grinds my gears!? Having no food!

 This quarantine is really breaking me. Not only do I have to stay at home, but I have to stay in a home with NO FOOD!

 You see, I’m one of those people who opens the fridge and pantry every time I’m bored. That’s right, not every time I’m hungry, every time I’m bored. Now, this would be fine if we were gone for 8 hours a day at school and had homework for hours to keep us busy, but we aren’t. We’re stuck at home with nothing to do. So what do I do? Eat my problems away.

 We can’t even go out to get groceries without it being a safety hazard, courtesy of social distancing. This is absolute TORTURE for me. Just let me go outside!

 You never really realize what you have before you have it brutally taken away from you by a virus that has singlehandedly destroyed the world and its economy. Even though I never go out regularly, I swear that I will go out and enjoy nature, before going inside and playing games and never leaving my room again.

 And THAT is what grinds my gears!

 You know what grinds my gears!? Google Meets!

 During this global pandemic, teachers are doing Google Meets with the class to catch up and ask questions. I would think that we would be doing some actual learning while in the Google meetings. 

 Instead, teachers either go around talking to specific students or random people talk whenever they want. 

 Then there are people that are just there for the information or learning opportunities, but when the teachers are finally ready to teach, the time scheduled is over or no one has any questions.

 This means that the Google Meet becomes useless. That thirty minutes spent doing nothing could have been used for other assignments. 

 Sometimes the whole class just waits for instructions and then there is an awkward silence. 

 Most of the Google meets are not organized and the teacher goes over one thing and decides the class can chat the rest of the time. 

 Although it is good to see your classmates and teachers, I would like the time spent to be productive. The school closure makes it hard enough to be productive without the added stress of a Google Meet.

 And THAT is what grinds my gears!

 You know what grinds my gears!? Boredom

 Now, at first glance, quarantine sounds HEAVENLY, being forced to stay inside your house, binge watching Youtube and/or Netflix  (and insert other streaming platform here), sleeping as long as you want, or basically being able to do whatever you want within the confinement of your house. 

 Within the 1st/2nd week of quarantine, everything is peaches and cream. Couch, bed, T.V, snacks, basically anything you’d ever want in life. But then, EVERYTHING DISAPPEARS!

 Soon enough, all the snacks are gone, there’s nothing to watch on T.V, we still have school work to do, and we CAN’T GO OUTSIDE ( we can go outside but all the malls, restaurants, theaters,  are closed ). There’s basically no escape at all.  But then, the most unlikely enemy begins to strike. Boredom. 

 At this point, almost everything is boring, being bound to do the same things over and over again each day. Wake up, eat, do school work, T.V, T.V, T.V, (optional: go outside and exercise), sleep, and then do the same thing all over again. It’s BORING. EVERYTHING IS BORING!

 Please coronavirus, LEAVE US ALL ALONE!

 And THAT is what grinds my gears!

 You know what grinds my gears!? Social distancing! 

 If it’s the only thing we humans can do during this pandemic, of course we’re going to get tired of this giant, limiting factor.

 Now I get why we’re supposed to distance ourselves; we don’t want to catch the virus, and neither does anyone else. But when I see groups of friends smudged together in public, and not stretched apart like the rest of us, part of me wants to scream. What part of “deadly virus” do you not understand? These actions have VERY  high consequences, as you can eventually KILL  someone if you’re not careful!

 And social distancing nearly bombarded all my plans for the year. April was going to be a great week for anyone going on the D.C. Trip, but that was cancelled.

 2020 is also the last year for 8th graders to be a part of Mt. Baker, to play sports, to sing in Choir, to show school spirit…  all of these things? Gone. And when you take them all away, summer won’t feel like an award when you’ve been locked inside for a grand total of 14 SCHOOL WEEKS.

 And THAT is what grinds my gears!

 You know what grinds my gears!? Not being able to have deep conversations with your friends.

 Don’t you ever feel the NEED to tell something to your friends, but it’s too deep that you have to tell them in person? 

 Then you realize that you’re in quarantine and you won’t be able to see your friends in MONTHS. So, you can’t just go over to their house, nor see them at school, nor talk face to face to them because now that seems illegal, especially if you have strict parents. 

 Then you have three options left, text, call, or facetime, but you can’t because it’s too much to be said over the phone. Then when you ABSOLUTELY can’t wait and decide to call them, you realize that you have no privacy and your conversations could easily be heard. 

 So, then it gets on your nerves for the rest of the month and you start to feel anxious. Everything seems really annoying and you start to lose yourself.    

 So, you suddenly become best friends with yourself because you have no one to talk to. And you LITERALLY start having those deep conversations with yourself. 

 And THAT is what grinds my gears!

 You know what grinds my gears!? When teachers don’t give a required due date on homework.

 In Google Classroom there is a homepage that shows all things due that week. It’s an easy way to see what you need to do and what you have done. When you turn in the assignment it disappears from said homepage.

 I do NOT get why a teacher can’t just give what we already know is required a due date. They tell us it’s due, so why is it not labeled as due? It’s especially hard when the assignments in that class are labeled the same. So it is good to know what you actually have to do. I cross homework off my list, so when it’s not even on the list it’s hard to remember to actually do the assignment. It is very, VERY annoying. JUST PUT A DUE DATE ON IT BECAUSE WE ALREADY KNOW IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE DUE.  It’s like they are saying,  hey this is due on Friday every week but I’m not going to put that on the paper because I  want you to forget and not do it, you’re welcome.

And THAT is what grinds my gears!