It all started on Wednesday, March 11 when The Renegades marching band canceled rehearsal due to the coronavirus. Later that same evening when I was talking to my mom at home, she said that my sister’s school, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, had canceled classes. She also explained that my school, Columbia College Chicago, was also going to get canceled. The next day, March 12, I was in a panic that the school was going to close down. That day I found out that school was going to be canceled starting on Monday, March 16 until further notice.

Friday, March 13, in my “Drawing for Animation II” class, I noticed that a good chunk of my classmates were not in class. I was starting to have more mixed emotions about not coming back to school and doing online classes. I felt like the world and my life were going to change. On my Metra train ride home, I noticed that less people were riding due to staying home. Since I also take the Metra to my job in LaGrange, Illinois, my aunt told me not to come to work until the madness calms down.

Now, not just school was canceled, but I also got kicked out of work. The first week of staying home was going to be a nightmare, but I had to realize that there’s things to do when you are locked inside of your own home. You have to stay positive during this madness and think of all of the good stuff. Now, my biggest challenge during this corona-madness is doing online classes on Zoom—it sure is not going to be the same as being in person. We’ll get through it, and at least it will be over in a month.

Let’s hope in the fall we go back to regular school and don’t have to do another semester of online classes. Let’s pray that this corona-madness will end in mid-May or Memorial Day weekend, so we can go back to our normal lives.