A day in the life of a “quaranteen”

Sarah Kim

Making Dalgona coffee has become a popular quarantine activity for many.

7:30 a.m.: Your alarm goes off. School. Ha, what school. Time to turn off that alarm indefinitely!

12:08 p.m.: You woke up again two hours ago, but you’ve been playing Animal Crossing and can’t part from paying off your 98,000-bell debt to Tom Nook (curse that capitalist raccoon).

12:15 p.m.: When walking downstairs your leg starts cramping: stairs are intense exercise, and you haven’t walked that much in a couple of days. Mom offers some rice for lunch, but you aggressively decline and choose bagel bites instead. 

12:30 p.m.: Dalgona coffee appears on your TikTok For You Page 15 times in a row, and since your FBI agent seems to want you to try it, you succumb to the coffee gods. 

12:45 p.m.: The coffee kind of tastes bad, but you decide it looks aesthetic, so you take a picture, edit it on VSCO with full grain and post it on your Instagram story, hoping that someone will swipe up so you can remember what human connection felt like.

1:49 p.m.: You judge people for meeting their significant others and then report them to the CDC. 

2:04 p.m.: Your phone just died, but your charger is all the way on the other side of the room. Time to cry. 

2:12 p.m.: Your parents bust down your door and force you to go on a mandatory family walk. Your dad shoves a hand-sewn mask in your face and demands you to put it on. “It’s made from cotton, I heard that’s effective against corona!” he says.

3:07 p.m.: You could eat lunch … or you could make chocolate chip cookies for the 12th time this week. The better choice is obvious — and tastier!

3:35 p.m.: You search up Chloe Ting’s Ab Workouts in order to get that summer bod. Wait, is summer still happening? You do the exercises for 30 seconds, and then figure that quarantine will give you time to work out later.

4:42 p.m.: You go on shady websites to watch Call Me by Your Name for the fifth time. Your Timothée Chalamet addiction is only increasing from here.

6:54 p.m.: You switch over to Netflix and watch Tiger King. Carole Baskin killed her husband, there’s no question about it.

8:03 p.m.: You see another quarantine bingo on your Instagram. No one cares about how many times you cried, Emily.

8:15 p.m.: Your parents make homemade food because you can’t get take-out anymore. Oh, what you would do to just have some In-N-Out. Maybe if you sacrifice some Lysol and hand sanitizer for Ms. Corona, she would be a little understanding. 

9:00 p.m.: You contemplate making a YouTube channel but decide against it. What would it even be about? Songs to cry to because you’re lonely, but quarantine edition? 

9:04 p.m.: You decide to open your dusty AP Chemistry textbook. Instantly, a flood of anxiety hits you like a wall. Well, guess you won’t be doing that again any time soon!

10:30 p.m.:You check your email and scroll past all the college emails — Ooh! Urban Outfitters is having a sale on shoes!

11:15 p.m.: After breaking your already-meager bank account, you decide to sneak downstairs to make some more whipped coffee. It still tastes bad, but you need something for energy to push you through watching TikToks until 3 a.m.

11:49 p.m.: You realize that you forgot to do your practice APUSH DBQ that was due for homework at 12 a.m. You quickly write a couple sentences that make no sense; it’s not like your teacher is actually reading them … right?

12:45 a.m.: You open your computer again and see a Tiny Desk concert on YouTube, and you decide to watch it since that Harry Styles concert is definitely cancelled by now.

1:24 a.m.: You lie down on your bed, listening to “Lost” by Frank Ocean for the 100th time today while simultaneously going on Etsy, trying to find vintage Levi’s that aren’t $100.

2:00 a.m.: After watching a “Vegan: What I Eat in a Day” video on YouTube, you decide to go eco-friendly … starting next week.