Melbourne, Australia:
In Melbourne it was still before the Easter holidays when schools started shutting down. When schools around Australia did begin shutting down (and mine hadn’t yet), my parents took me out of school anyways. Eventually my school did close and because there were only 5 or so days left until the end of term my school decided to do online lessons until the holidays.
It was very strange doing school at home. During P.E. we would do pushups and sit-ups to keep ourselves fit while at home. During recess I could do whatever I wanted until classes started again, because I couldn’t see my friends at school (when you talked during class everyone could hear everything you said).
I often FaceTimed my friends during lunch and we would sit around eating lunch and talking. I was also taking tuba lessons at school and these continued online; I would set up my iPad in my room and FaceTime my teacher so he could hear my playing. I’m also learning piano outside of school and now that I’m at home all the time I have plenty of spare time to practice for my grade 3 exam. Many of my after school activities have been canceled such as tennis and scouts.
My mother has a medical condition that makes her more at risk if she were to catch COVID-19, so I wash my hands a lot and wipe down surfaces such as door handles, keyboards, light switches, and staircase rails with alcohol wipes very often.
On the plus side now that I have loads of free time I can sleep in until 9:00am which is a definite bonus. Even before the holidays started I could sleep until about 8:00am because school was online I could cut out the hour of travel time to school from my timetable.
Since I’m stuck inside I’m cooking a lot – with my parents.
David E.
2 April 2020