When COVID began to get more serious our middle school had a huge assembly, which we talked about hand washing, covering your mouth and nose when sneezing, and we even watched a Brainpop video. Right away, the class clowns started to poke and slap each other and the ones that were really desperate for attention began to roll around on the cafeteria floor. At that point COVID was a joke to us, something scary but too far away to hurt us. And when the teachers used the words "global pandemic" and "historical event", and then when the principal compared it to 9-11 in a somber tone that was when we all started to worry. Later that day, we were told to wash our hands in the bathroom before lunch and being a bunch of middle schoolers that wasn't typically a habit for us. The environment in the school bathroom was unlike anything I've ever experienced before. Every single person in that bathroom was on edge, and usually for a bunch of middle school girls, we're talking and laughing all the time, but at that point, people were afraid to touch each other. That was March 11th. The next day, school shut down—March 12th, 2020. The school closing was surreal, but since we've been warned at the assembly, I figured that after spring break, I was most likely to be back in school. To be honest, I was most upset about not being able to see the guy I liked, which seems so silly now. My dad and aunt were out of the country at the time and they were visiting family. So I was shocked to hear that there was a very real possibility that they might be stuck there. I think that's when I knew COVID was getting more serious and there would be restrictions in our lives that I never experienced before. When we went to the grocery store, many of the aisles were bare, even the ones you wouldn't expect, like the fruit and nut aisle or the cereal aisle. And there were news reports of people hoarding toilet paper and basic supplies, which was so crazy to me, because toilet paper didn't seem like such a big deal before 2020, but suddenly it was something everyone needed and everyone needed so much of it that there were restrictions on the max number of these items available.…

Oh, Avatar. If I was to be one of the characters in Avatar, it'd probably be Sokka actually. Cuz -- yeah I don't get any of the powers, but if he was to ever mature and grow up developing your skills that man would basically be the Avatar version of Batman. His signature weapon is boomerangs. And what does Batman use? Batarangs. Think of the possibilities, especially if you learn that sort of martial arts that one of the characters used where it could block their Chi points or something. Either that or Toph. I'm already partially blind, so if I were ever to go all the way, I would definitely want to be Toph, and just -- you know, Bend Earth and all that.

So for me I have a decently interesting story for behind like what's my favorite food. So I really like lobster. Lobster tastes, tastes pretty good. The way my mom makes it is pretty good, but kind of the memory I associate with having lobster or like the kind of thing that I associate whenever I'm eating lobster, is kind of like, my family being together because she would always make lobster since it's fairly more expensive than just what I normally eat. Like, I don't eat lobster every day. It's reserved for special occasions like a holiday or a birthday celebration. And for these celebrations, my whole family would gather together and my mom would, of course, cook the lobster for dinner. And I love the taste of seafood and kind of like the novelty of, because it would just be like once every few months that I would be having this dinner. So, definitely, like I like the change of pace and also because It would be the gathering of, like, my family. My siblings are significantly older than me and they don't, they didn't often like come home except for these celebrations or holidays so whenever they would come home it would be, they would enjoy this lobster dinner with me and there would usually just be a fun time with everyone together.

And then another really cool thing that had happened is I'm doing this summer program where I get to connect with people like across the world and I got to connect with this person in Indonesia and she's gonna be like -- kind of like a mentor for me and it's so crazy but like we can -- we are so alike in so many ways. We have a lot of the same interests and I was just talking to her about like horror movies and like these thrillers, like I'm really into that stuff and it's really hard for me to find people that are into that stuff like my age, and we started talking about this show like Dexter, and we both really, really like the show and I like, literally have never met someone who liked that show in my age group and it was just so crazy to be able to talk about that stuff.

Looking back to the beginning, was there a specific moment you realized this was going to be a big deal? Oh yeah, oh COVID. I remember very -- I remember exactly actually. It was mid March, and I guess that's not exact, but I remember it was one day until my state meet for my synchronized swimming competition. And we had been practicing for months and months and months. And the next day was going to be our meet. And I remember at school, they started talking about this whole COVID thing, like, "oh in a couple of weeks we might take a week or something off." And I was like, "okay, yeah, whatever, taking a week off is chill." And then that was on a Thursday and then that Friday like there was no school. I remember I had a physics test that Friday and I was so happy there was no school 'cause I did not want to take the physics test. But I was super, super upset because we also didn't have our state meet. I was like, "wait, what? So are we rescheduling it? What is going on?" So then just like that, like a week went by, and I was like, "okay, well, they did say a week," and then I started watching the cases and they just kept going up. And I was like, "wait a second, wait a second. This is not -- this is not what supposed to be happening, you know? This is like something that happened so far away, like why is this affecting me? Like, I don't understand." And so, I went through this like state of confusion, I guess.

This week has been exciting, but it's also been a little bit sad. I was taking part in the American Legion Auxiliary program for Girls' State Michigan. And it was fun, it was exciting. And I made a lot of great friends and learned that I probably will want to go into law for my career. But I was also sad because I didn't get into Girls' Nation and I didn't get scholarships that I wanted to get. So that part has been pretty upsetting to me, but I am glad that I made some friends, even though they are scattered all around the state, including the Upper Peninsula. I probably won't be able to see them very much, but I'm glad that I at least now have a new group of girls to talk to. So that's -- that's pretty fun. Yeah, having to deal with the feeling of not being good enough to win the scholarships and to win Girls' Nation has been something that I've really been struggling with over the past two days. Even though I've known that I've worked hard, it's tough for me to see other girls who have worked just as hard as I have get it and wonder like what could I have done to be better? What could I have done to actually achieve the goals that I want to achieve? It's been really difficult for me but hopefully I can move past this feeling and work hard and possibly even harder in the future to work towards what I want to do.

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.

Me and my closest friend -- me and my best friend came up with -- it wasn't really like a language. It was-- I guess it was kind of like a language, but it was kind of all-around strange, where it was like some letters were like little movements, some were like saying something, some were like moving a certain way or moving your leg or scratching your head or something. Like the letter A was like staring at someone -- like staring at her or like a really long blink. I think that the letter C was like cracking your knuckles. We try to kind of move a letter to have the first letter of that thing to kind of be the letter that we’re corresponding. So I think B was like do a fake burp, so B-Burp. C-Crack your knuckles, I don't know why A was blink. I don't think I could come up with anything for A but I can-- I think I have a list I could probably look at. Yeah, I found the list. E is like, elevate your chin. F is fake laugh, G is grab something and I is like itch yourself. So overall -- it's like -- there's obviously more letters, but that's just some of them. I don't feel like naming off all of them. But, we made it like last summer I think coz we were bored and we were sitting on a hammock and we were like "what if we made our own language?" And we could play games and stuff and win if we were on teams. So then, because then we could be talking to ourselves -- with each other and nobody would know, yeah.

If sight was the only sense you had, how do you think your life would be different? All that's a tough question. Well, I definitely have a lot of memories tied to music and to smells. There are certain songs that -- there are certain songs that evoke distinct, specific memories that I think that no matter how old I get, will always be tied to those memories. And smells too. There is -- I have a jewelry box from my Nana who passed away in 2013. And, I have things in there in stock, it's just the jewelry box. There's no jewelry in it. It's just, I have it -- it's like a little storage thing, but I rarely open the doors, because even now it's been eight years, over eight years. And if you open the door just a crack, you can still smell her perfume, and it's a smell that I haven't smelled in -- maybe nine years. She was sick for about seven months before she died and she was in a hospice for four of those. And so she didn't go out and she wasn't wearing makeup, she wasn't wearing jewelry and of course she wasn't wearing perfume, but it's something that I will -- the entire house smelled like it, her bathroom, her dresser, it all smelled like that. So I -- I rarely open that door and when I do, it just floods out, so it's very, very specific and I think, I think that -- not -- if I were to lose my other senses and only have sight today, then I think those things I would miss a lot because I would just have the memory of that. And, and it's really hard to describe a sense memory like that. And so it's -- I think life would be dull without the rest of your senses.

My take on standardized tests? I despise standardized test for me and I feel like they're ridiculous. Because first of all, I personally get really anxious when I take tests. I'll get super worked up about it even though I know the material really well, I'll get really worked up about it, and I find that that makes me do worse on the tests, but I can't do anything about it because I'm going to get a bad grade, and then it's gonna bring my grade down because it's -- all tests usually are a good portion of my grade. So usually I'm doing amazing job on all the assignments because I understand the material, but then a test comes and I just don't do good. So I just, I don't -- I don't like them.