“The pandemic has kind of shown me that no, you don’t need to be afraid”

Further into Corona when we went on a hybrid schedule… so two of our days would be in person and then the other two would be virtual, I was nervous obviously cuz I didn’t know who was gonna be there. And when I got into class, I didn’t know anyone very well because this was the first time that I had taken these classes in person. And so I remember having to stretch myself very outside of my comfort zone in order to start a conversation with those around me and get out of my comfort zone and just talk to people that I wouldn’t have normally talked to. And I remember, my — one of my really good friends now, we didn’t know each at the beginning of Corona, or we didn’t know each other that well, like, we were acquaintances. But we never talked much. And so I had to take a leap and I just struck up a conversation with her one day in our German class, and she turned out to be very friendly and very nice. And she’s one of my closest friends now and I’m really grateful for Corona because I had had anxiety over social situations before this and I feel like the Coronavirus really pushed me to create social interactions and to just lean out of my comfort zone and discuss things with people that I wouldn’t normally discuss because we have nothing else to talk about and to create those new bonds and to create these new friendships. And I — I feel like that’s one of the ups that this pandemic has really shown me is to get over my social fears of possibly being rejected or just tons, tons of different things that I was afraid of that the pandemic has kind of shown me that no, you don’t need to be afraid of this cuz everyone, everyone is afraid of it. And so that is one of the things that I am actually thankful about the pandemic for.