Tuesday 17th August. 15:05. Maths class. Five minutes till the final bell goes (though only for us lucky juniors).

 

“Guys, I have to announce something so please pay attention here.” 

 

Everyone’s eyes slowly focused on the teacher.

 

“There has been a Covid case in the community which means you must take all your books home. The school won’t be open for you to take your books so please be prepared for another lockdown and make sure you are ready for online learning.”

 

A whole lot of chatter broke out. The class was cheering because there would no longer be a maths exam next week. Woohoo! There were also some going crazy. Ugh, what?

 

15:15. Teachers were marching inside the commons, some yelling at us to cram more books into our already stuffed bags. Dramatically, it began to rain. It felt like a lockdown was approaching. 

 

17:58. I sat at the dinner table, with my phone leaning against the pot. We are doomed, I thought. We are gonna be stuck in another lockdown.

 

 

And here we go. We are stuck in another lockdown. Again. 

 

To have the best time you can possibly have in lockdown, I decided to give you a list of recommended things to do and not to do during lockdowns. But first have a read through the types of opinions on lockdown below and find the type that sounds like yourself. 

 

  • Type A: You hate lockdown. You hate online learning. You hate zoom meetings. You want to hang out with your friends. You don’t want to miss your sports game, music festival, tutoring class, or whatever you’ve got on. And you are desperate to have non-virtual human contact with people (obviously, apart from people in your bubble that you are stuck with 24/7). You hate being trapped within the same four walls every day. 

 

  • Type B: You love lockdown. You enjoy sleeping in and attending zoom classes when you’re still in bed. You can leave all your homework till the last minute and not do anything in the allocated periods you are meant to do it. You might be able to eat food during class and enjoy a tasty lunch your parents made for you. No more milestones too!

 

  • Type AB: You are a mixture of type A and type B. You are sort of miserable during lockdown. You want to stay up late and sleep in, but you also get bored at zoom meetings. You are okay with online learning and other lockdown things while at the same time looking forward to your ‘normal’ life. Your thoughts are fluctuating between the good and bad sides of lockdown.

 

  • Type C (1.0): You don’t really talk at school. You normally are on your own. Everyone thinks you are lonely and you are weird. But no one truly knows what you are up to. You don’t attend any zoom meetings. You don’t do any work. No one knows where you are. You’re quite a lonely, melancholic soul.

 

  • Type C (1.1): Your personality is so mixed up. You are happy. One second later, you are crying. Two seconds later, you get mad at everyone. Three seconds later, you are fine again. No one knows what you are really thinking. One second, you are loving lockdown, the next, planning your escape to the outside like a prisoner seeking freedom. You’re quite a crazy and mysterious soul. 

 

 

Now, find the list that matches you! You might even consider reading some other lists for enjoyment or out of curiosity. 🙂

 

List A – you hate lockdown.

 

  • Don’t sleep too late or wake up too early. Because if you do, you will find yourself daydreaming during zoom meetings and end up sleeping in the middle of class. (By ‘don’t wake up too early’, I do mean wake up at a decent time like 8 am.)

 

  • Don’t be miserable all day long and end up not eating. Keep regular eating habits. I understand that you are not happy in lockdown. But…why not have a piece of chocolate? Or a bag of chips? Or some delicious food that your parents might be cooking up? So have some drinks and have some food! You will feel better when you are energised. 

 

  • Don’t miss your zoom classes. Because if you don’t attend your zoom class, you will get punished either by your parents or your teachers (oh no). And you will hate lockdown even more.

 

  • Go outside. Have some fresh air. Or turn up the music and dance your heart out. Or film a TikTok. Do some exercise, because we all know it’s good. Surely you wouldn’t like your legs to ache, your eyes to become sore, or to suffer from pain all over your body. It just makes your miserable lockdown life even more miserable. How terrible.

 

List B – you love lockdown.

 

  • Don’t be so happy that it’s lockdown and you tear the house down at 2 am with your disco music, then sleep till 4 pm. Keep up a good schedule. You don’t want to miss your zoom classes because emails will get sent to your parents, who may have you do all the chores in the house for a month. You will fall behind on your learning and end up staying back a year in college or drop out completely (well, maybe a bit extreme, but you get my point).

 

  • One thing I do: sit on a chair from 9 am to 11 pm. I highly recommend that you don’t do that. Because you will end up in one of two situations. One: your eyes are sore, your legs are aching, and your neck is throbbing with pain. Two: your neck is throbbing with pain, your legs are aching, and your eyes are sore. So don’t do that or you end up like me, with eyes that I can’t even open in the morning and my brain feeling like it’s going to explode. 

 

  • This one might sound a bit ridiculous so take it as an entertaining tip: don’t overload yourself with endorphins such that you end up crashing down your bed because of your massive increase in hormone weight each day (albeit endorphins probably don’t work like that). Don’t be so happy that when lockdown ends, your brain crashes and all your happy chemicals get sucked out—you become a sad, lonely child.

 

List AB – type A+B.

 

After days of surveying different people, most I found out are type AB. Even myself—type AB. This section is a bit less ‘imaginative’ than the other ones and includes much more ‘useful’ tips.

 

  • I suggest you get at least 8 hours of sleep. Stop playing video games, watching Youtube, scrolling through TikTok in your bed when you’re meant to be sleeping. 

 

  • If you always forget to attend zoom meetings, use alarms or time bombs. Say if you have a zoom at 9:00 am and you eat breakfast at 8:40 am, then add an alarm on your phone at 8:55 am telling yourself you must go prepare yourself for your upcoming zoom. 

 

  • Fill your brain with only ‘you love lockdown’ thoughts. Now turn up your favourite music playlist. Do some star jumps. Dance to the music. Try doing this for 10 minutes. Surely you are gonna feel more energised than before. But, if that didn’t work for you or it just sounded too boring to try, read the next bullet point.

 

  • Leave your brain with ‘you hate lockdown’ thoughts. Now release all your negative thoughts into the empty atmosphere around you. Punch the air, kick it, go for a sprint down your driveway. Hopefully, you just gained some crazy kung-fu skills and punched the heck out of your negative thoughts.

 

List C (1.0) – a lonely, melancholic soul.

 

I hope no one is reading this section. But maybe you are just curious.

 

  • Sleep. You don’t want to be as pale as a ghost in the morning and scare the hell out of people. You don’t really want to have absolutely no energy in the morning and faint while carrying your mug around the house. Because your mug will break and you will end up in hospital. Get in your bed and shut your eyes.

 

  • Don’t live your day without food. Or without water. As mentioned in the bullet point above, if you don’t sleep, you will look like a vampire. But if you don’t eat and drink, you will become a vampire. You will suck your own blood and drain your veins and arteries until you have no more.

 

  • Exercise! I would respect you if you exercise regularly every day and gain enormous muscles like a bodybuilder (wouldn’t expect you to do that though). I would, however, expect you to take a stroll around the house or maybe creep around the house avoiding eye contact with anyone. I just hope you don’t lie on your bed or sit on your chair 24/7. (Still sparkling with hopes that you will try to gain those muscles for my eternal respect).

 

List C (1.1) – a crazy, mindless soul.

 

  • Don’t go out of control and do solo karaoke in your room 24/7. Singing is cool! Singing elevates your mood! But remember that your family probably doesn’t want to hear you yelling BTS fan chants in the middle of their sleep. You also probably want to go to sleep to have energy for another crazy tomorrow. So, to sum it up, sing (but not too much)!

 

  • Keep yourself active. Well, since you are type C (1.1), I imagine you are actively keeping yourself occupied while not doing any school work. But I recommend you add some exercise to your non-schoolwork to do list. One, to keep fit. Two, to expend your seemingly endless energy.

 

  • You must continue to express your crazy mental state. Well, not exactly continue; but keep parts of it. Keep your crazy energy and hyped attitude. Throw out your malfunctioning nervous system though, to take out the constant ongoing mood swings you have. Hopefully, we will get a not-so-crazy-but-still-somewhat-crazy you.

 

 

A good sleep routine. Water and food. Learning. Exercise. Lastly and most importantly—be happy. If you were smart enough, you would’ve realised all the lists are similarly teaching you the same things. Hopefully, you got some cool tips to get you through these tough times. I wish you a happy time surviving potential future lockdowns!

 

Written by Kelly Ma, and edited by Alana MacKenzie. Published on 28/09/2021. Header image from Unsplash courtesy of Charles Deluvio.

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