The Experience Of Living In A World With COVID-19

Living in a life where no restaurants are open, no sporting events going on, no social gatherings happening, all schools being closed is very odd to me since I have never lived in a lifestyle like this before. It is really not that bad staying at home for a long period of time. The only time that I leave my house is when I need to get food or buy groceries.

As April begins tomorrow, I am continuing my schoolwork as I am trying to get good grades in all of my classes for the Spring 2020 semester. My freshman year of living in a college dormitory ended early, but I am completely fine with it. I am getting better sleep and find my classes to be a bit easier since the COVID-19 pandemic has increased.

Right now, I am fine. But I wonder how long it would be before I go totally insane. Like, how long can I live without going in public. The only physical exercise I can get nowadays is by going for a run or a jog in the neighborhood that I live. I have been watching a lot of television, playing a lot of video games during my time at home. I am hoping to continue writing articles and hope I can strengthen my podcasting skills as the people in my county, Allegheny County, will still have to stay at home until at least April 30th.

The next time the Pittsburgh Penguins or Pittsburgh Pirates play at home, you best believe I will be there. With all this happening, it is nice to know that we have electronic devices so we can stay in touch with our friends and family. Maybe, this pandemic can teach us a lesson that we should appreciate each other's company. I seriously believe that people will go on their phones less once this COVID-19 pandemic ends, because all most people can do now is go on their electronic devices to entertain themselves.

People have done a lot of social media challenges to keep themselves busy like the "See 10, Do 10 challenge". That social media involves a person posting a video of themselves doing 10 pushups on social media, and the person doing the pushups tags other people in their post so that those people are being challenged. And, it is nice to see people that I barely would expect to see do pushups actually do them.

For some of my other friends, they seem to be bored out of their minds staying at home and I feel bad for them. The people I do feel bad for is the NCAA spring athletes that could not participate in their designated sport because of COVID-19. However, it is nice to see the NCAA give those athletes another year of eligibility. I also feel bad for the NCAA basketball players that could not finish their conference tournaments. The Robert Morris Men's basketball was supposed to head to March Madness because they won their conference, Northeast Conference, but that is not going to happen because of the NCAA cancelling the tournament. You also best believe that I feel bad for the people dying from COVID-19 and for the people that have lost their jobs because of COVID-19.

I do expect the NBA, MLB, and NHL seasons to resume in perhaps the beginning of June at the latest. I also believe the 2020 NFL season to begin as scheduled and expect no delays at all.

I hope everyone continues to stay healthy during this national emergency as I hope this nightmare will end soon.

Brentaro Yamane: bythebossandgoat@gmail.com and Twitter @BYHilton13