It was a challenging year

In this series of op eds, students reflect on how the past year has affected them.

It+was+a+challenging+year

Gabriel Sosa, Staff Writer

Being the introvert that I am, I can say that I wouldn’t go out with friends very often before Covid, in that sense, the Covid pandemic didn’t affect me much. One way in which Covid did affect me is my school life.

Going out with friends or even making friends with who to go out with has always been an obstacle throughout my life. During the summer break before my senior year at Hoover High, I realized that I hadn’t made an attempt to make new friends throughout the last three years of my school experience. One of the goals I had set for my Senior year was to at least improve my social skills if I still wasn’t up to make new friends. I wasn’t able to accomplish this because of going to school through my laptop instead of physically going.

Another way it has affected my school life is by making classes seem more difficult. Since we started taking classes online they have felt more fast-paced and it feels harder for me to ask for help. This pandemic has also affected my relationship with family both in a good way and a bad way. Even though I wouldn’t go out with friends, I’d often hang out with some of my cousins since we lived relatively close to each other, but since the quarantine, we haven’t really been able to visit like we usually do for holidays, barbecues, and movie nights.  We could only interact through video games and talk through calls. Though the pandemic has distanced me from my cousins, it has made my family at home feel closer.