I attended a Catholic Middle School for most of my life. Everyday of the week, I was—as an atheist—forced to go to church and talk about God. During the time of COVID and eLearning I lost a lot of my social skills, meaning I would always be too anxious to leave the house. I found it a lot easier communicating over text. My grades weren’t horrible, but I cheated my way through, like most kids at the time did. When I remember Google Meets, I mostly picture me not paying attention to anything that the teachers said. Most of the time, I lied, saying that my camera didn’t work; in actuality, I had just woken up and was still laying in bed. Sometimes, I would just let the Google Meet play on my desk while I go to take a nap in my bed. 

If I did end up actually sitting through a meeting, I would be texting my friends the whole time, most likely criticizing the way the teacher taught a lesson. I have memories of my math teacher putting his camera on a piece of paper and doing math problems in a red pen without any  explanation as to what was going on. The grainy camera quality hurt my eyes, and I found it useless to even tr

y paying attention since I couldn’t see or understand anything. Most of the time for his assignments I would just ask a friend for answers or use the math filter on snapchat for answers. 

During this time I was also extremely depressed, and I don’t think I would have ever thought I’d be where I am now. I had made and lost a few friends, which changed me a lot. 

Once the quarantine and online learning ended, I still had all of my friends. Since sixth grade, I have been friends with the same people. I have only met about one new person who I consider a close friend, but that’s since high school started. I am glad quarantine and covid happened because I think it changed me for the better. I don’t know where or how I would be right now without that experience.