April 17, 2020 Naomi Feinstein Plantation, FL
Staying in contact with friends during quarantine
My family and I have been quarantined together for a month now. We are starting to feel the effects – there is some increase bickering and fighting with four of us fighting over rooms for zoom meetings, online classes and business calls.
Having barely seeing anyone else besides the six of us, we all could use some time apart. However, knowing the importance of staying home, I found some different ways to spend time with friends while not putting anyone at risk.
Last week, for instance, my friends and I played the game “Psych” over facetime. The game has a number of categories, which offer a range of trivia questions, where each person creates fake answers based on the individuals playing. This simple game on our phones can provide some much-need laughter and happiness during this highly stressful and uncertain period.
With my study abroad being cut short, it was upsetting that I had to say goodbye to friends I had met after such a short time together. Instead, we now hold weekly Happy Hours via Zoom to get our minds off coronavirus for a few hours of the day. While we physically cannot be together, Zoom is a great substitute.
Additionally, I am trying to stay as active as possible through this quarantine. To make it a bit more social and engaging, my friends and I are facetiming on our daily walks to catch up. It’s a nice distraction from the blazing sun and humidity as I am walking around my neighborhood day after day, lap after lap.
On top of my “Facetime Walks,” I also encourage some of my friends to do workouts with me. Once again, we use Zoom to share screens and do a workout together. We like to do one of Megan Roup’s dance cardio workouts or Melissa Wood’s sculpt and Pilates classes. I definitely miss my favorite workout classes, but this is a nice substitute. I can be five minutes into a workout by myself and quit but doing it with friends forces me to push myself.
Thank you to Facetime and Zoom for providing some normalcy in our lives, allowing us to see familiar faces and hear familiar voices. This has taught me to reach out to people even if I haven’t spoken to them in a few months.
Picking up the phone and checking in on someone can be an easy, mindless task that can go a long way — you don’t know what people are going through during this unprecedented time and a simple phone call could make someone’s day.
To read more blogs from our correspondents, click an area on the map below:
