High school students are thinking about the influence of Covid, 5 years after the pandemic

Until autumn 2020, many seniors in Oakland Technical High School became night.

Already for half a year, constrained to their homes and desperate fun, they remained all night. They made a thicket, watched porn, playing in Fortnite. In the monotony of the pandemic lock, “I suppose time did not matter,” said Nadav Stamper-Kurn, so they found ways to social contacts, even if they were alone. NadaV built a non -standard server to play minecraft with friends and watched the simulations of life in which he was unable to participate. He watched the YouTuber David Dobrik journey and the party with his crew jokester and all nine seasons of the “office”.

Ruby Chan-Frey, she was constantly not studying for SAT, and then marinating in stress, often watched movies with friends at Discord, until sunrise. Finally she started running, setting out at 23:00, when she returned at 1am, sometimes she met her father in the kitchen. “I would be like” Oh. Hey, “she told me.

Oakland Tech went “only distant” in March, and nausea was suffocating. The school day, only three hours, began at 9. Distance learning was both absurdly simple and huge: in these circumstances soothing teachers simplified the material so that nobody would disappoint, but for many students, believing that returning feels impossible, like climbing glass. NadaV had two monitors on his desk. On one would be “present”, camera. On the other hand, he would watch Oakland A. Ruby could not focus at all. She would log in, spoke a few words in the classroom to determine her presence, and then turned off the camera and return to sleep.

Ruby’s friend, Veronica Liu, entered her last year with solemn intentions. A first -generation student with excellent classes, she imagined that there was Shoo in Berkeley. She made a desk, pulling a folding table to the edge of her double bed. But on thanksgiving, the desk was so covered with remains-pipes and binders, a rock garden, its collection of stickers, plush, masks, souvenirs of fans of K-pop and food packaging-that Veronica had to go to bed to get to bed. She began to participate in classes with a muted microphone and sound, her camera headed up, so that only her forehead showed on the screen. Veronica felt trapped.