Journal 7

It's crazy to think about what would be happening if we stopped this at the source and it never spread the way it did. We would be in school right now, I wouldn't be writing this. Everyone would be getting ready to say goodbye to the seniors. We would be watching them have their marching practice. I would be in my track season going to meets and practices, seeing my friends everyday. But clearly that didn't happen and now were all quarantined for what feels like years

I watched Bill Gates’ TED talk on the next outbreak. In this video, he almost predicts what will happen with the next epidemic and how it will be dealt with by the world. At one point, he mentions someone feeling well enough to get on a plane, go to a market, or go to work. This is very ironic due to the current events we are dealing with now due to COVID. He lays out a plan that seeing how things are being dealt with now was not taken very seriously by the government and has not been put into effect

One topic that I noticed and related to the most was how social media and news sources can increase the panic drastically due to fake news and conspiracy that cause panic in the people leading them to do something unrealistic. For example today people are going to groceries stores and hoarding the essentials for themselves when realistically they don't need to. It's just social media and news causing them to make the situation seem worse than it is.

In the past day after doing school work, I have been doing an electrical engineering class to learn about electrical engineering and to see if it is something I would like to pursue in the future. At this moment in time, I do not know what I would like to pursue as a profession of what I want to go to college for which may also make it harder to know what college is right for me.

There are steps Bill Gates thinks we should take and one of those we need to create a medical corps and pair the medical with the military and have them work together so they can move fast and secure areas. I’m surprised because he said at the end of his speech that we needed to start and prepare for the next epidemic so we could be ready for the next one. To me it seems as if we didn’t do as much preparing as we should have done.

Also vacation didn’t really feel like vacation at all. We did not do anything except do yard work which was not fun at all. It was good not having to worry about doing school work for that week but also was more boring because I did not have anything to keep me busy for the morning.

Finally, on a happier note, I turned 17 over break! I would’ve rather gone on the school trip and spent it in Costa Rica with my friends, but it was still fun. As I have on previous birthdays, I was able to see my friends. It’s nice to see friends in person I haven’t seen in awhile, rather than communicating through a screen, it was a nice change. Although, it wasn't quite the same and makes me wish I had a different birthday, maybe one that would take place outside of quarantine.