I woke up late this morning, and everything just seems a little bit weird to me.
I was eating my cereals with black grapes in it, and somebody knocked on the door.
I reluctantly put down my cereal bowl and got up to answer the door. It was two package delivery guys with two gigantic TREES.
Right, trees, taller than me, I saw two actual trees outside of my door. I even wonder how they fit them into the elevator.
PC: adsttc.com
They checked the address with me, and that was correct indeed.
I thought this is a prank from my silly friends or something. So I asked them who ordered these trees, and they told me that they didn’t know, they just knew they need to deliver them to here.
I called my mom, and she said just put them on the balcony.
Am I still dreaming?
Anyway, I couldn’t just let two delivery guys wait too long. So I told them to put the trees where my mom told me. And then they left.
So… now I’m sitting outside with these trees, and writing down what just happened here.
I brought an end to my last relationship two months ago, and that was the turning point I guess. After that, my life went like a roller coaster, everything just went up and down like crazy.
At first, I suddenly have tons of free time, I had nothing to do except resting in my room.
Till the time when some weird rumors about me were flying all over the place, I even heard my name mentioned with some words like “flirty” “player” “bitchy”. I was confused, I was being judged based on something that ain’t true.
I tried to stop it at first, but I had no idea who started the gossips in the first place. Nothing worked out well, except I made myself extremely exhausted.
Kind of lost control of myself those days. I have faced plenty of “first time” things: I almost failed my unit exam, I received some laps and did laps labors, I got kicked out of the classroom, I signed a contract with school…
I tried to let it go and calmed myself down. I brought several books to read during spare time.
On the bright side, there were some good “first-time” things: I talked to some people I haven’t talked to in a while, I hung out with several new friends, I went to some new places I never been to in the town before, I ordered Trenta size drink at Starbucks, my article got published on local newspaper…
To be honest, I had a thought about escaping, a break from reality, but I never expected this happened.
Something really big happened, all my difficulties were literally nothing compared with it. Coronavirus outbreak in the state, my school got closed off, my SAT got canceled, my AP exams became online. I thought I suddenly had nothing to do again, but I was totally wrong.
I needed to make a decision as soon as possible: should I stay or go home? I chose to go home after I went through lots of mental struggles.
Due to the limited airlines, I had to take connection flights. Due to the virus spread prevention, I had to take 14 days long quarantine. Due to the location I am, I had to access my learning materials through VPN. Due to the time differences, I will take my AP exams online at 2 am in the morning.
There are lots of unsatisfactory things that I can do nothing to make it better except deal with it, this is what I learned from this experience.
Everything goes back to normal here, at least it looks like it.
People are out on the street again, some kids are playing around, some people are running with earphones in, some are waiting at bus station, some are riding bicycles, some are delivering food or other packages……
But every single of them is wearing a mask, even including the baby in the stroller. And they don’t interact with each other but keep distance.
Cars were driven on streets again, public transportations were back as well. Restaurants, supermarkets, malls were reopened. Schools are planning to reopen soon. Even domestic travel has been promoted now.
But no matter what place it is opened, there will be a gigantic obvious sign hanging on the door says “STERILIZED TODAY”, and there will also have a sign right next to it that says “please wait here for the health check.”
PC: timgsa.baidu.com
Disease Prevention Center developed the “Health QR code” to represent the users’ health status at the beginning of February. By now, literally everyone has their own code in their mobile phone, at least in the city where I’m living.
The code has three different colors: green, yellow, and red. Every single place requests to have a GREEN code for entering or leaving. The RED code holder is requested for self-imposed quarantine at home or mass quarantine for 14 days in a row, and shall be eligible to have a GREEN code when he/she has reported himself/herself in normal condition for the past 14 days.
The first free morning after I got out of mass quarantine, my health code didn’t turn into green from red. I had difficulty returning home, the security guard wouldn’t let me enter the community where I live after knowing that I didn’t have the correct color code.
I thought I don’t need to take my temperature twice a day after quarantine, but it turned out that my temperature is taken about ten times a day now.
Wherever I enter, there will always be someone stop me to take my temperature first and then ask to check my health code.
PC: timgsa.baidu.com
One thing really baffled me: I don’t get it why some people slightly backed off and kept distance from me after they heard I am just released from quarantine. Although I also told them that took two testings, and both of them were negative.
I wrote a blog post about racism after virus two months ago, and now I felt a bit of discrimination in my own country. I think it originated from fear, and I don’t know what I can do about it.
Can I complain about the pathetic life that I’m living in recently?
If you don’t mind, keep reading.
[1]
I saw the news today: “SAFER AT HOME” ORDER IS ISSUED FOR L.A. COUNTY
Are they actually gonna shut down the city?
I couldn’t believe it, I was totally shocked and thought it was pretty ridiculous when Wuhan city closed off.
Now I felt the same.
[2]
An extremely optimistic person, that’s what my friends say about me. I will always stay positive no matter what happens, that’s what I thought.
But… I have to say this now, I just can’t hold it back anymore. MY LIFE IS SO MISERABLE at the current situation.
I thought it would have been a minor thing and stoped in China, and that was it.
But now the WHOLE FUCKING WORLD IS SHUTTING DOWN.
PC: timgsa.baidu.com
[3]
Since the moment I landed in Shanghai, I was surrounded by full-body protective suits. I filled out lots of forms, they took my temperature many times, and other health checks.
It took me six hours to go through all these AFTER TWENTY HOURS FLIGHT.
After I exited from the airport, the government from my hometown Zhejiang Province provided transportation from Shanghai to Zhejiang.
Then my city government picked me up from where the province bus dropped me.
And the local government from my home district drove me to the hotel, where I received more health checks and quarantine.
14 days long quarantine. Alone, in a hotel room. Something I haven’t done before. I even can’t stand the feeling of eating alone.
I expected everything will be fine as soon as I get back home.
But I’m literally trapped here. I didn’t even get a chance to see my mom closely. All I did was wave at her through the metal bars on the windows from the fifth floor.
[4]
I was gonna do my homework today. I opened my laptop, went on safari, tried moodle, AP classroom, and Khan Academy.
Then… all showed up on my screen was “Safari Can’t Open the Page.”
For distance learning, we literally use google everything: google docs for editing words, google meet for the virtual class, google drive for sharing videos or slides, Gmail for communication……
However… GOOGLE IS BANNED IN CHINA.
I didn’t realize how serious the problem is until now.
[5]
Before all this shit happened, I was on the non-sugar diet with my friends. But now, I have to stop the diet. I really need sugar to paralyze my nerves and slow down the mental break down.
Even before last Friday, my plan was taking SAT on Saturday morning, ice-skating in the evening, brunch and shopping mall on Sunday.
Boom, everything just happened too fast. I hate when I have to say goodbye to the people I loved. I told myself that we will see each other again for sure, but I am not sure when. Maybe in a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, maybe several years, or maybe never.
[6]
I woke up at three this morning, got out of bed at six.
I took a shower, got dressed up, did makeup. When I was going to put on my shoes, I suddenly realized that I am going nowhere, I am staying here for the next eleven days. No matter how good the weather is outside, I told myself while looking through the metal bars window.
Not even able to open the door of my room on my own.
Am I really a living bioweapon?
[7]
What was also in the news I saw: one positive thing.
I started non artificial sugar diet again, because my skin condition was getting really bad and I just couldn’t bear it.
And sugar is the one who exacerbates problems to acne and blemish breakouts.
The non-sugar diet is a popular search term on the Internet. But it’s not a branded eating philosophy; it’s a lifestyle. Also called a sugar-free diet, this way of eating seeks to remove sources of added sugar from your daily food intake.
Non artificial sugar means no milk chocolate, no chocolate milk, no cookies, no chips, no syrup on pancakes, no ketchup on hash brown, no brown sugar in oatmeal…
These desserts have become part of my life, and now I realized they are not even good for me.
It was so hard when I just started it, I had the thought of giving up too. And it was Valentine’s day last Friday, I tried so hard to not thinking about chocolate or cupcakes.
It took about one week for me to get used to it. And now I really enjoy my diet.
Riding on a bicycle should be a very simple thing, but it is extremely difficult for me. When I was a child, I could ride the four-wheel and three-wheel bicycle very well, and I liked to ride around in my neighborhood. I felt myself was as cool as the police riding on his motorcycle.
pc: rei.com
However, I cannot ride the bicycle anymore that I rode when I grew up. I started to learn how to ride the two-wheel bicycle, and it is much more difficult than I expected. This kind of bicycle is totally different from what I used to ride, it has no balance at all. Someone told me that you can get balance when you’re riding. So I was trying to pedal and let the bicycle move forward, and it was quite smooth at first, I even could felt the breeze touch my face gently. But, this condition did not last longer than one minute, I felt that I was just like a clown performing acrobatics when the bicycle started to shake left and right. I was too scared to continue pedaling, then the bicycle started to tilt to one side until it touched the ground. Then I was sitting on the cement floor with a scrape on my knee.
The end of this story is I will never ride any bicycles again, even if it is more than two-wheels.
My mom criticized me for my overconsumption, and I retorted back.
After that, I sat down and did an incomplete statistic.
Just in my dorm room, not including the stuff I have back home.
I have 9 drinking equipment: 4 mugs, 2 straw cups, 3 water bottles.
I have around 50 different earrings, 10 necklaces, 10 bracelets, and several rings, and I am still buying more.
I have over 100 different hair ties: about 10 coil-style hair rings, 20 hair ties with different decorations, 30 regular hair ties with different colors, 50 small rubber bands, and several scrunchies.
I have about 20 different hair clips too, I used to have more but I keep losing them.
I have a hill of plush toys on my refrigerator: a reindeer, a white bear, a yellow chicken, a unicorn, a yellow cat, a brown and white dog, a sloth, a unicorn-like Pusheen, a grey dog, a snowman, an elephant, a rhinoceros, a pink piglet, a goose, an avocado, and a little monkey.
For sunscreen, body wash, face mask, conditioner, body lotion, lip balm and so on, I have at least two of each, and I don’t even know why, probably because they have different flavors and functions from each other?
To my surprise, I even have two blankets, five pen begs, three trashcans, four school backpacks, two large camping backpacks, three exactly same phone chargers, and five playing cards (but I don’t even play poker).
For all the items I list above, one is completely enough, but somehow I have more than I need.
Hmmm… I guess now it’s the time to do some reflection and make some changes.
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