Diary Entries

Never in my life had i thought i would ever be experiencing something like that which is happening right now. It has showed me the value in face to face education with a structured normal school day. Whilst in lock down with covid restrictions in place really affected my learning capability. It also greatly restricted my ability to socialise with friends from school. Getting back into the swing of things and getting used to a normal school`day has been difficult to say the least and is still a very hard thing to get use to.

He really did look like a tourist, with a camera around his neck and a bottle of sunscreen sticking out of his tote bag. The portly man sat on the terrace, sipping lemonade and pretending to look at a glossy cruise brochure. His sunglasses masked his eyes, but I knew he wasn't looking at the brochure: he hadn't turned a page for the last ten minutes. As I brought him his clam chowder, he coughed up a "thank you" and looked at me briefly. I tried not to stare at the tiny scar across his left eyebrow. I walked back inside with my empty tray, shaking my head. He looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place him. Then it hit me. The car accident. The mysterious stranger who helped me out of my smashed car, just before it exploded. I rushed back to his table. He was gone. I moved his saucer and found his tip, along with a card: I am deeply indebted to you. The night of your car accident, I was on my way to rob a jewelry store. Saving your life brought things back in perspective. I now live an honest life, thanks to you. God bless you! Mr. D. I shivered. The night of my car accident, I was heading for an interview in a shady dance club. Seeing human kindness through his heroic gesture turned my life around and brought faith back into my life. I unfolded the tip he left. Among the singles was a grand with a pen mark underlining "In God We Trust." I said a silent prayer for him and got back to work, smiling.

Today it was raining. My friend is sitting next to me. It is currently 3:02 pm, and our school finishes at 3:25 pm so I get to go home soon. I have to catch the bus home, so I will get home at 4:16. But then I can have a hot shower, which is good because it is cold outside. I have two huskies, the first one is named Bear. His birthday is on the 20th of February and he is 4 and a half years old. He is black and white and has one blue eye and one brown eye. My other one is named Rose, her birthday is in August sometime and she is 2 years old. She is red and has one blue eye, and one amber eye. Today I had Geography, P.D.H.P.E, Science, Math, and English. In Geography we went to the library and worked on our extended response assessment tasks. I don't really mind writing essays, which is a good thing, I guess. In P.D.H.P.E our normal teacher wasn't here so we had a substitute. We did some work in groups and then we watched a movie called "Remember the Titans". We didn't get to watch that much of it because the bell went. In Science, one kid proposed to this girl. And then this other kid held a raffle. He wrote all these numbers down on a piece of paper and then handed them out. But then our teacher got mad at him and one of the kids had to stay back at lunch. In Math out teacher was late to class. It was only a single period so I didn't really do that much work. I was turning around to talk to the girls around me. And now here we are, in English.

This morning I woke up during these unprecedented times. My leg hurt, as it always has since the start of the unprecedented lock-down. Life in my town has been relatively unchanged since the end of the unprecedented isolation schooling, everything has almost gone back to normal. I got ready for school, packed my bag, had a shower, avoided any unprecedented disasters involving dogs or any other things around the house. After I was ready, I went out of the house with my sister to witness an unprecedented amount of ice on the windscreen of her car. We grabbed hot water from the tap and splashed it on the windscreen, an unprecedented amount of it splashing back onto me. After this, the ice had melted and we were able to leave. My sister drove us to school, which had an unprecedented amount of people in an unprecedented amount of cars trying to find a park. My sister tried to turn into a park, however the unprecedented amount of rain led to an unprecedented sharp turn, almost spinning us out. She rose to this unprecedented challenge, however, and corrected herself saving us from any danger. The unprecedented rain still hanging about led to an unprecedented challenge in getting into the school after getting out of the car. Our response was unprecedented as well though. We ran at an unprecedented speed and made it to cover in an unprecedented time. Finally, I could get to learning! No more unprecedented challenges, no more unprecedented hurdles, no more unprecedented times. However, we all know that in unprecedented times, unprecedented issues will always follow and spring up in an unprecedented fashion. I am writing this and am only just seeing how the word count has sprung up in unprecedented time. An unprecedented thank you for reading.

My life has been pretty great so far and even the bush fires and the pandemic haven;t affected my life drastically. Yes I do love my sport and when it got canned for the year I wasn't too happy, but it's ok, I know that everyone has to do their part. All the tests and assignments have been a little overwhelming but as I said before, it's all part of the recovery from Covid-19. Lock down did end ages ago but I feel like for some people the long term affects will stay with them for a long time. I've seen this firsthand and do feel sympathy for them because I for some reason am not in their situation. Don't get me wrong, the work that we got given for online schooling was way too much and it did get to me. Thank god i didn't get too many different subjects to complete at home otherwise I may have been much worse off. Back to now though. Recently I've had trouble with certain social aspects of schooling and I've had to re-access where I stand. I feel like ever since the lock down people's moods and personalities have altered. Although I just have to accept that there's nothing in the world I can do. On top of this lately I've had my mind on one person in particular. Yeah you know what I mean😁but that's not going anywhere so I guess it's back to being one of those popular kids who doesn't have the guts to take action. Yeah, that basically sums up the recent times for me. No guts. I just gotta look to the future and hope that one day I'll change. But until then, I've still got me, my friends and more importantly my sport. 🏈 🏈

In high school my friends and I were messing around with a Ouija board one night. We had done it before and nothing remarkable had ever happened. We usually did it to try and scare each other or our girlfriends. We all thought it was a joke. That night there was no one else home except the 7 of us and we were all together around the board. One of the girls there wanted to try it. She had never done it before. This time was different. The board misspelled some of the words the same way every time. It gave answers that seemed really historically accurate for our town (things we neither knew or cared about). Long story short, the “spirit” claimed it was a 10 year old boy who had died on the property in the 1800s and was buried there too in an unmarked grave (my friends house was on a farm in the edge of town). We were all a little freaked out because the board had never been so detailed and consistent. However, we were still skeptical and we were all assuming one of us was trying to scare the rest. Finally, my friend asked if the spirit could do something to prove he was there with us. It went to Yes and then spelled out k-n-o-c-k. Then the planchette stopped moving. We just all stared at it silently and then there was a rap-rap-rap on the window right next to us. The lights were on outside and there was absolutely no one out there. We never touched that f-ing board again.

Covid-19 has been a big problem this year and has affected everyone. Luckily, I live in an area where Covid-19 isn’t too bad, but unfortunately many people weren’t so lucky. For a while Covid-19 was just something I’d just seen on the news, and I didn’t think too much about it. In March everything changed, Covid-19 was spreading, and it became a real problem in Australia. Near the end of March NSW was put into lockdown and my school was shutdown. At the beginning I wasn’t allowed to see my extended family often, especially my grandparents. I couldn’t hang out with my friends and my sport activates were cancelled. Lots of shops closed down and my parents couldn’t even go to the food shops often. When they did, they could only buy a certain amount of items. There was a shortage of many items e.g. toilet paper and general cleaning items. As time went on Covid-19 slowed down and the restrictions eased. During April the amount of daily cases dropped a lot and it seemed like the situation was beginning to stabilize. During June school slowly reopened and a lot of the restrictions were lifted. Unfortunately, ever since July the amount of new cases has been increasing rapidly in Victoria. Luckily Covid-19 has mainly disappeared from NSW.

The year of 2020, to say the least, has been interesting so far. Especially since it all happened in the time span of when I was a new student at my new school. The sudden change from physical to online school was frustrating, and at the beginning it didn’t seem as though anyone, students or teachers, really knew what was going on and how it was going to progress from there. It was definitely a drastic change, and not just school-wise. Not being able to see your friends or go on beach patrols was definitely a quick blow of reality, but after sometime (even though it felt like months and months), everything calmed down and everything ended up going almost back to normal, considering we still have to maintain distancing and what-not.

Covid-19. What a hate, what a stress. All the fun. All the play has never been less. Just go hide inside, no products to be sold. Except for those darn masks. they will never get old. But how about our friends? They’re nowhere to be seen. Maybe to catch up, or just call on our screen. But not just this virus. all the fires burned down homes The year 2020. Gets worst, as it goes George Floyd was just a man, that got put out of our sight. The words “I can’t breathe” has caused a world, to ignite Protests on the street, the rage just has not left The police just do their job. but to some people, they are a threat The words “black lives matter” will always, stand up strong Us people, need to respect, because racism has been here too long. Our legend, Kobe Bryant, is always in our heart. But his journey above our world, has just made its start. I may just be a kid, but I know what has been done. All our struggles from 2020, have yet to begun.

COVID. Where to begin? It has been very hard watching from afar as I see the news day by day. Numbers are rising and my cousins in Melbourne have been put into stage 4 lockdown. In South Africa my 8 and 5-year-old cousins cannot even leave the house. I felt bad about it but I was aware it was in a different country. Suddenly Victoria closed and I am so worried it is going to happen to Sydney next. I cannot stand to be put into lockdown again. The sleeping late and no uniform was fun, but school was so boring and I missed seeing my friends and grandparents in person. When COVID first came around the shops were running out of ridiculous things like toilet paper. Hand sanitiser became highly valuable and very expensive. COVID has been a very valuable experience for children and adults all over the world.