TailGlowVM
Now 100% more demonic
As we draw close to two years since the world began to be affected by COVID-19, and I begin the first few weeks since then without restrictions (if they haven't removed them where you live, there are probably plans to do so soon), I realised far more has affected me long-term from personal experiences in this time than I would have admitted a while ago, and I expect we will all be able to do the same.
(Before you read this, I want to warn you that this is very different to anything I've ever talked about before within the Smogon community)
I'll begin at the end of 2019, when everything seemed fine. We had a load of stuff planned for the upcoming months (some of which we will likely never manage now), I had settled into my classes, and that thing in China seemed barely relevant at all. Where I live, this continued perfectly normal into February, and about this time in 2020 was when everyone started to get worried and all the different measures began to be put in. I believed firmly that everyone was overreacting a bit - we wouldn't shut down the country for a cold.
The big change was obviously in April when the government announced that schools would have to close. At this time, I actually was quite excited by the idea of this - now I'm not sure quite why that was, because I care about doing work and would not have been one of those people that wouldn't have done anything if they could get away with it. I completed the stuff that they set us, but I admit now (would not have been able to at the time) I didn't always work to quite the standard that I would do in usual circumstances. There was never the amount they set that I had normally, and I didn't really learn stuff in the same way as in a classroom. Gradually, life began to be more like imprisonment - there was only so much possible when you were limited essentially to sleep, eating, walks around the local area, the above mentioned work, things you could do at home and basically only being able to talk to three people.
Later on in these restrictions, they let my year group go back to school for one morning a week, but the totally overkill rules (we could only sit in the hall, have desks that were about five metres apart and if I remember correctly only half the class was allowed in at a time?) meant it wasn't anywhere near the same.
They finally got rid of all the major restrictions in time for the summer break, which we all enjoyed and relaxed for a while. Going back to school in September, it seemed like we were returning to normal, but I didn't keep up my usual standards and my grades began to drop off a lot in November. (That said, there were clearly a lot of people that had done less than me - I remember they said that one person hadn't logged onto the homework-setting website at all during the entire four months.) There was just enough time to recover properly ahead of the exams in the summer - until we got the new Delta variant that demanded everything be shut down again. This time I was actually very worried, as exams clearly couldn't go ahead in their usual form and I might have had to have my results based off those disappointing November ones. This time we didn't even get any time to prepare for another lockdown in the same way, as what must have been nearly my entire school ended up in isolation over Christmas.
With more time to prepare, classes worked a lot better this time - we got live lessons with our teachers, actually useful and time-filling schoolwork set, and a shorter lockdown and some of the less necessary limits removed meant there weren't quite the same effects as before. I'm surely not the only person that has realised how classes have become a lot quieter now as a result of a lot of people not talking about anything that isn't exceptionally important, the way we didn't back then - this is probably the biggest effect on me now of all the different impacts we had, I barely talk at all at school now. I'll also remember that this will be the only time in my life when I was looking forward to going to the dentist, because it was a reason I got to go somewhere.
I worked hard during the lockdown and beyond into the reduced exams to get some actually good grades at the end of the year (which still could have been a bit better). My school also then began to get rid of some of the (now we know more about the disease) more ridiculous restrictions, like the one-way system around the school buildings and suspension of registration.
Just like in 2020, last autumn it started to feel like we were getting back to normal, then we got another new variant in the winter that threatened to stop everything. As more information got out about the new strain, my sister began to get very worried about the mental impacts of a third lockdown. I tried to see the positive side of their research, and just for once we actually did get a bit luckier with this variant and are now essentially living in a world with a different disease. After a few weeks of tightening to deal with the peak of Omicron, the restrictions are now removed where I live, but it still feels far closer to the less dominant phases of the pandemic than to the old normal.
There's one final thing that happened after these events I could say to conclude my reflection, but it involves some sensitive subjects and it's probably for the best if I leave it out.
(Before you read this, I want to warn you that this is very different to anything I've ever talked about before within the Smogon community)
I'll begin at the end of 2019, when everything seemed fine. We had a load of stuff planned for the upcoming months (some of which we will likely never manage now), I had settled into my classes, and that thing in China seemed barely relevant at all. Where I live, this continued perfectly normal into February, and about this time in 2020 was when everyone started to get worried and all the different measures began to be put in. I believed firmly that everyone was overreacting a bit - we wouldn't shut down the country for a cold.
The big change was obviously in April when the government announced that schools would have to close. At this time, I actually was quite excited by the idea of this - now I'm not sure quite why that was, because I care about doing work and would not have been one of those people that wouldn't have done anything if they could get away with it. I completed the stuff that they set us, but I admit now (would not have been able to at the time) I didn't always work to quite the standard that I would do in usual circumstances. There was never the amount they set that I had normally, and I didn't really learn stuff in the same way as in a classroom. Gradually, life began to be more like imprisonment - there was only so much possible when you were limited essentially to sleep, eating, walks around the local area, the above mentioned work, things you could do at home and basically only being able to talk to three people.
Later on in these restrictions, they let my year group go back to school for one morning a week, but the totally overkill rules (we could only sit in the hall, have desks that were about five metres apart and if I remember correctly only half the class was allowed in at a time?) meant it wasn't anywhere near the same.
They finally got rid of all the major restrictions in time for the summer break, which we all enjoyed and relaxed for a while. Going back to school in September, it seemed like we were returning to normal, but I didn't keep up my usual standards and my grades began to drop off a lot in November. (That said, there were clearly a lot of people that had done less than me - I remember they said that one person hadn't logged onto the homework-setting website at all during the entire four months.) There was just enough time to recover properly ahead of the exams in the summer - until we got the new Delta variant that demanded everything be shut down again. This time I was actually very worried, as exams clearly couldn't go ahead in their usual form and I might have had to have my results based off those disappointing November ones. This time we didn't even get any time to prepare for another lockdown in the same way, as what must have been nearly my entire school ended up in isolation over Christmas.
With more time to prepare, classes worked a lot better this time - we got live lessons with our teachers, actually useful and time-filling schoolwork set, and a shorter lockdown and some of the less necessary limits removed meant there weren't quite the same effects as before. I'm surely not the only person that has realised how classes have become a lot quieter now as a result of a lot of people not talking about anything that isn't exceptionally important, the way we didn't back then - this is probably the biggest effect on me now of all the different impacts we had, I barely talk at all at school now. I'll also remember that this will be the only time in my life when I was looking forward to going to the dentist, because it was a reason I got to go somewhere.
I worked hard during the lockdown and beyond into the reduced exams to get some actually good grades at the end of the year (which still could have been a bit better). My school also then began to get rid of some of the (now we know more about the disease) more ridiculous restrictions, like the one-way system around the school buildings and suspension of registration.
Just like in 2020, last autumn it started to feel like we were getting back to normal, then we got another new variant in the winter that threatened to stop everything. As more information got out about the new strain, my sister began to get very worried about the mental impacts of a third lockdown. I tried to see the positive side of their research, and just for once we actually did get a bit luckier with this variant and are now essentially living in a world with a different disease. After a few weeks of tightening to deal with the peak of Omicron, the restrictions are now removed where I live, but it still feels far closer to the less dominant phases of the pandemic than to the old normal.
There's one final thing that happened after these events I could say to conclude my reflection, but it involves some sensitive subjects and it's probably for the best if I leave it out.
