32 Covid sucked. But I kinda miss it.

I was located in southwestern Ontario in a small town called Chatham when Covid was first announced. I was 17 and in grade 11.

Yes, in Chatham, I think we did go into a full lockdown. I had no school after a certain day. I can’t remember the exact date, but everything moved online, and we ran classes through Zoom. My grades were frozen at the time we went fully online, which was fantastic for me as it was still somewhat the beginning of the semester and my grades were quite high, which I knew would be a bonus as I was applying to university. I was also working in a grocery store at the time in the deli section, and we were still working, but it was incredibly limited. I remember my shifts being quite boring, as we could no longer cut meat to order, we just had to prep a lot of it in the morning and put it on the deli shelves like we did pre-packaged items. Other than that, our responsibilities were primarily sanitizing the store, and if you were not in your department, you were walking around the store cleaning surfaces. We were fully in lockdown, I’d say until around late April, or early May? I can’t recall the exact timelines, I just remember not being able to see any of my friends unless we went for a walk outside.

Honestly, I know Covid was a huge struggle for a lot of people. But for me, really, I did not have many challenges that I faced personally, beyond challenging my lack of work ethic once a structured environment was taken from me. Outside of school, though, I really flourished with the hand I was dealt. I was happier at work, as I did not have to help as many people directly, and the majority of my work was solitary and mindless. I got quite active during lockdown, as many other women may relate, there was a big fad of online workout videos to do. Not only was I getting more active inside, but the lockdown happened to have started right when spring was really starting to blossom, and having an excuse to be outside all of the time was really good for my mental health. My friends and I no longer had an excuse to sit on our phones next to each other or mindlessly watch TV. We were outside going for walks and exploring new walking paths that we hadn’t bothered to go on before. And if it was not a nice day out, or it was at night, all of my friends and I would hop onto Minecraft and play together online. Those times in particular, I think back on quite fondly. I do not think I have more intense nostalgia for any other time, like I do lockdown. I am quite an introverted person, so the lack of in-person interactions did not hurt me as it did others. I was quite happy during the lockdown.

If I struggled with anything during Covid, it was online school. I have a lot of trouble learning when it is self-guided. I can understand everything just fine, but I struggle with discipline and focusing my attention on something that I am uninterested in. A structured environment like a classroom was incredibly helpful in keeping me on track, and Covid took that away. I remember, I was happy about it at the time, being able to wake up for five seconds at 8 am to turn on Zoom and then go back to sleep as we did not need to have our screens on, which I know was not the case in many others’ experiences. Of course, a teen is thrilled to have their grades frozen and not have any real consequences of putting school in the backseat. I still completed all of my work of course as I had big aspirations for university, but I definitely cheaped out on a lot of the content. I think this did have some decent effects on my ability to learn and my achievements once I got into university. My first term here at McMaster was also almost exclusively online, apart from one lab every other week. The same issues happened for me personally, as having no accountability by teachers or peers to keep up with workload made it much harder for me to do well. I think the long-term impact I struggle with is that physically going to class instead of watching it online is a lot harder for me to want to do than it should be. Watching online is the norm for me now, versus I think older generations have it ingrained to physically be in a classroom to learn. I also had a hard time making friends on campus in my first year as well due to there being no shared spaces to talk, beyond socially-distanced study rooms in my dorm.

I remember that blame was a big deal when I was in lockdown in Chatham. Chatham is filled with mostly older conservative populations, so as you can imagine things like Facebook groups were filled with anger and misinformation when Covid was on the rise. People were spreading hate towards the Chinese, and especially when the vaccines were starting to come out, they were voicing their opinions about mandated vaccines and how they did not trust them or the government, and were upset that they could not visit their favourite restaurants if they were unvaccinated. This blame was not exclusive to older generations; my generation also had its fair share but through a slightly different lens. Those who were more into social justice and education were quite strict amongst themselves regarding Covid protocols, and I remember a lot of kids who chose not to follow Covid protocols were being shamed on social media and bashed for endangering others in the town.