Covid-19 is a virus that struck the world by surprise causing our normal life to not be so normal. Covid-19 for me was kind of scary when I first heard of it. The deaths, the public fear, all the rules put in place, masks, all of it freaked me out. I never liked the masks to begin with, but I wore them in places where it was required. The governor put the “stay at home order” in place which required everyone to, well, stay at home. People were only allowed to leave their houses for essentials.

The stay at home order was a struggle because I had to get used to the fact that I was doing school work and my parents were working at home. Everyone was with each other every day, at all times, for three months. I even decided to go to the store with my dad just to get out of the house for once. Everywhere you looked someone was wearing a mask due to the governor's requirements.

My life was changed drastically. I had a lot more free time on my hands. My teachers were not giving us much work on Schoology because they were not prepared for an event like this either. I was usually playing Xbox one, or working on video editing. My friend would occasionally send my videos for projects that needed editing because his computer could barely run Chrome, and I was happy to help him.

My family eventually went on vacation to the Outer Banks and I must say that life there was different from here. Down there, you did not have to wear a mask everywhere. The only time you had to wear one was to go into certain stores. We stayed for two weeks and the second week felt more like at home. We moved into Duck and out of Nags head, and the mask rules applied almost everywhere making it feel just like Pennsylvania.

School eventually started in September and life was semi-normal despite the mask wearing. Students had to wear masks in school which was expected, but I wish we did not have to. But if wearing masks will the school open then I guess I will wear one. I was a student who struggled with online school and almost failed the fourth quarter, but if these protections help things get better, I am sure life will be back to normal before 2021.

~Joe