Online School

As the pandemic had started, every student shifted from going to school in person to doing school online. At first, everyone including myself were very excited to be doing school in the comfort of our home. I could be sitting in bed and doing my work and could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to. One of the main things I was excited about was waking up at a later time. Before I had to wake up at 5:45 so I could get ready and reach my school bus on time.

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But now, I can wake up at 9:00 and still make it to my zoom meeting in time. At first, online school was a fun experience because all my teachers were flexible with due dates and homework. But as timed progressed, days felt exactly the same. It was the same routine every single day and it got tiring. I also started receiving much more homework and weekends didn't even feel like weekends anymore. Although teachers are flexible with when we turn in assignments, I still receive a lot and it gives me little time for myself. There has also been a lot of complications with technology.

Sometimes the Wi-Fi wouldn't work and I couldn't join my classes or sometimes assignments wouldn't show up and I would have to message my teachers to help me out. What I heard from many students was that they lost motivation and procrastinated because everything is virtual now. They say that it is difficult to concentrate and focus with their devices around and the fact that the teacher can't see what they were dong during class time. Overall, online school has its benefits and its disadvantages but I have learned to manage my time.

Time Management

I was struggling to finish my work in time and attend meetings that I had for my extracurriculars so I felt that it was necessary for me to create a schedule. Without my schedule I would forgot about assignments that were due and meetings that I had to attend. The schedule consisted of school assignments and small tasks that I had to throughout the day. The small tasks were chores that I would have to do around the house such as washing

the dishes, dusting the furniture, folding laundry, and mopping the floor. I would have the home chores color coded differently than the school assignments and I would have the school assignment color coded differently for each class. This way I would be able to have an organized mindset of completing all my work in time. Due to this schedule I got good sleep, was able to do my favorite hobbies, and overall had a good mood throughout the day. 

Extracurriculars

I have always loved doing extracurriculars because I meet new people and I like seeing how I can challenge my brain. The clubs I am in this year is HOSA, UIL, Physics Club, Health Ambassadors, Student Council, and I am also a class officer this year. I took advantage of the time I have at home to do as many extracurriculars as I can. HOSA is an organization which focuses on medical events such as medical reading. behavioral health, medical spelling, and more.  

The event I did this year was Behavioral Health and was fortunate enough to place second in area and advance to state. UIL consists of different events such as spelling, current issues, calculators, social studies, and more. The UIL event I did was spelling because I have been doing spelling UIL since I was in third grade. I got second in the district meet and advanced to regionals. As well as competing in events I also hold many leadership positions. I am secretary for my HOSA chapter, secretary for the Physics Club,

a health ambassador, a member of student council for my grade, and parliamentarian for Class of 2023.    

Family Time

Prior to the pandemic, my family really didn't have much time to be together due to our busy schedules. My dad is a cardiologist so he was always busy calling patients, reading electrocardiograms, and doing dictations so he never really had time to play games or doing anything as a family. My mom would always be doing home chores like ironing, cooking, doing laundry, and taking care of my autistic brother. It seemed like my mom's work would never finish and by the end of the day she would be drained physically.

The same problem was occurring with my siblings and I. Due to being mentally and physically exhausted and receiving more homework, we didn't get to have time to hang out as a family might as well have time or ourselves. However, the pandemic started and my siblings and I only received about one to two assignments per day due to online school being new for us. We also stayed home all day so we weren't physically tired from school. My sister and I helped my mom out with chores since we were home and her daily stress decreased. We also took care of our brother that had nonverbal autism and helped 

him in daily tasks such as brushing his teeth and helping him in his routine table. Since people were quarantining, my dad started getting less patients in the hospitals he worked in so he came home earlier and had less work to do. With all of my family doing less work than before, we finally had some time to play games and enjoy. We would watch movies on our TV and play games such as monopoly, uno, and a traditional Pakistani game called Ludo.