Summer Vacation During COVID-19

Finally off classes until August I think...

    On the 7th of May, Academic Year 2020-2021 for me had ended. YugiBearz has survived 11th Grade as an introverted HUMSS student who has somehow survived everything for the past few years of high school purely through clutch rolls of the cosmic d20s, and yet still has absolutely no idea on how to function as an adult despite on being in that arbitrary age of 18 in July as I venture forth into 12th Grade as a senior, and figure out how the fuck college, employment, and general adulting works. In short, I am a mess.

    Luckily, in-between the long stretches of education, development, and sheer social anxiety, there is a small sliver of hope that I have always looked forward to that has motivated me to keep on pushing on no matter how crappy the year was, and basically gave me a whole clean slate to start the next school year: Summer Vacation. Yet, as I grew older, the 2 months of "absolute freedom" of being a kid has felt different. This felt true, especially after the first summer when the COVID-19 Pandemic struck the entire world.

    If you have read the other posts of this blog (which you totally should, if you haven't), I have brought up life in COVID-19 a lot, and it has even been the reason why I have established this blog in the first place. TL;DR: Everything is just radically different once you finally notice it. The most subtle changes in life just feel so normal, then you notice the change itself and how impactful it was and suddenly it all hits you very hard right in the face. It's basically culture shock if it causes physical, emotional, and mental pain simultaneously. COVID-19 just amplifies this pain even further because time suddenly slows down in such a way you can see the full reality of the situation and the sheer complexities and intricacies which each action causes. 

   Being in the stages of Young Adulthood, the most crucial and important years of personal development as people discover who they are, what they want to be, and how they fit into this world, is a extremely terrifying even before the pandemic. It has been a thing that has been drilled into our heads as students approaching 10th-12th Grade, something that we have to prepare for so that we can have the answers for the most consequential questions of our lives with the heavy expectation of success and prosperity as we are given every tool and opportunity to easily speed run through life. The internet, quality education, paths to higher education, economic globalization and digitalization, and opportunities to make steady decent income without the need of a big office job. Hell, this blog would be a perfect example of everything I listed down if I choose to monetize my content, study the divine algorithm of Google, and better apply everything I studied in Creative Non-Fiction class while pursuing something fun in college, like Journalism, Philosophy, Political Science, Mass Communication, and Secondary Education. 

    I have always hated school for this when I was in 10th Grade, because they did it towards the end of the school year and made everything look so intimidating and scary while plopping in a whole lot of school work because we have to pick which strand to take and do a series of high-level tests just officially display how horrible at math's one was and how much some people suck at reading comprehension. In case you wanted to know, my results were Humanities and Social Sciences first, Accounting and Business Management second, and Science Tech and Math's at dead last. I was completely unsure on what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people felt this way as well in this stage of their lives, but schools just do it differently.

    Summer was just always there, it makes all the work you have done for the past school year worth it.  You were no longer under the strict rules, schedules, and workloads under the classroom. Instead, you are finally free. Free to travel, spend time with family and friends, and pursue personal endeavors in life. No one can tell you how you can spend your summer, because it is an adventure you partake by yourself with full liberties, even if it's just mostly spending most of your time indoors. It's a refreshing break, a award, and something that will always be a permanent fixture in our childhood. 

    As bad as it is to say it, I feel that the Philippines was lucky to be affected by the pandemic so late into the school year. Summer break was just a few weeks away, and when schools were first shut down during the beginning of quarantines, we simply just had to submit what we need to online. Any earlier would wreak absolute havoc to our education system and the situation of online classes would be even worst. I am even more lucky to be studying in a private school that has already implemented the infrastructure for online learning.

    Summer that year was just busy since I had to prepare making a big move and transition into online classes. I didn't really think about the pandemic at all since I was mostly working on settling in and trying to figure my personal situation out. When online classes actually started, I was more tired of interacting with people in general than the school work. The work was easy to brush by, the increased requirement of social interaction coupled with the fact it all had to be done through online channels is just frustrating. Summer this year was a blessing to me to be completely honest. 

    However, despite the fact that I have finally finished settling into my new home after a year of living in Rizal Province, and very easily transitioning and thriving out of the online space that we are all forced into nowadays, I thought that I would have an absolute blast, but the more I settled into the new normal version of summer, the more I realized the reality would be a completely different than what I anticipated.

    I am turning 18, in a time of pandemic. Adulting is a very hard thing to do if you literally a limited capacity to do basic social interaction outside workspaces. So the reality of being older and being stuck in pandemic kind of ruins the childish fun of being free for two months of my life. I have to plan out what to do for college, get registered to vote and earn a drivers license, and even consider getting a summer job just to gain some years of work experience which is required to get into your first job.

    I'm not too terribly sure if I would even enjoy my own birthday this year knowing everything going on both in my own life and in the entire world. To most people, it seems like the pandemic is finally slowing down, and for others the whole thing is just building up to something significantly worst. I personally believe in the latter. It would be nice to go back into the mask-less days of freely roaming around malls and eating with friends and family in a good restaurant, but the reality is that we would all probably still be stuck at home in quarantine as institutions and systems begin the long and grueling process of transition and recovery, which will take years considering healthcare resilience, economic healing, and figuring out how the hell the new normal will look like.

    Despite of everything, there is some hope. With everything going on right now, it is natural for people to respond with innovation and technology to adapt to the world. Banking transactions, shopping, food delivery, and a ton of other things can be done online now, and with even more efficiently. Sure it may not be the same as before, but it's better than the alternative of nothing. Optimistic Nihilism is a good way of thinking if one is self-aware enough.

    With the fact I am not allowed to visit my favorite game shops because I live too far from the city, malls probably might be shut down again if shit hits the fan again, and also the fact that Magic the Gathering Cards are really expensive and take too long to choose if you are as indecisive as me, MTG Arena is a great alternative and makes MTG more accessible for people. The same can be said about D&D, a game I have passionately praised in multiple posts in this blog as it serves as the only comfortable place for me to be with friends and have fun online. 

    The good thing about quarantine in the summer is the amount of free time and personal freedom you have for yourself. Although we cannot do the same fun summer time and coming of age traditions we used to do or dreamt of doing because of how our world is pretty much a horrible place with horrible people who ruin the world for everyone else, it doesn't stop the fact that there could be small times when you can meet with good people, make good memories, and have a good time regardless of the situation you are in. Times may be hard and challenging, but we can find ways to mitigate the pain for a little while and go through it for a bit longer. Like all things, there is an end. Another piece of Optimistic Nihilism there.

    What I can say is, this summer during COVID-19 will definitely be different, both for better and for worst.

- YugiBearz