COVID1-9: My experience as a student
By Selam Teshome
If you had told me several months ago that I would have to learn facing my computer screen, I would not have believed you.
I, for one, have never learned virtually and have always been engrossed in physical learning full of vivacity!
Racing, walking, diving, chasing, bustling- I got so used to an active world swarming with people that I couldn’t imagine school any other way.
Ever since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, rumors of schools being closed down and online learning taking place reverberated around the country.
I didn’t pay much attention to these reports until the cloudy afternoon of March 13th when the first coronavirus case was confirmed and we were all sent home.
Online learning is so new and different. I now send my homework via scanning apps and emails and communicate with my peers and teachers through online chatrooms.
Like all things, it has its ups and downs, its bitter and sweet moments that we have to face.
There are times the network is poor and you can barely hear each other while there are days when the network is good and conversation is uninterrupted.
Sometimes my back hurts from sitting so long in one place but then I say ‘At least were still connected’.
Some days I sit and wonder how things have changed so quickly. How everything has been turned upside down. How with time our social bonds are slowly fading away.
Will I ever get to chop onions and cry in food science again? Or carry out an experiment again?
Or play in the team again? Or sing in the choir again? Sometimes I wonder if I’ll even sit my final exam which slowly brings about the dreaded question, that everyone is too afraid to ask; will this ever end? It will.
Selam Teshome, a 14-year old Hillcrest International School student
