Life is lovely, and it has plenty of joy and happiness if everything goes in the right way. However, sometimes, life can be very overwhelming with challenges. I crossed the Atlantic Ocean to move from Guinea to New York, and I left my family, the people I like the most, to fulfill my dream, which is to pursue post-secondary education and live the American dream. My first objective was to finish High school. Two months before my high school graduation COVID 19 arrived and changed everything.
During the beginning of March 2020, I was still attending school, but in mid-March, I stopped going to school like everyone because the cases of COVID19 were increasing. I stayed at home alone, and everything was closed, even the local restaurants. This hurts me because I live alone, and I used to buy my food from stores and restaurants because I do not know how to cook. I stayed at home for weeks starving. On March 20th, 2020, I decided to do something to save my life because I could no longer live without being nurtured. So, I did research and watched a few videos on youtube to learn how to cook. After days of practice, I finally made my dinner, which was an excellent step for me. On April 15th, 2020, the governor of New York announced all classes would be remote. So, from then, I was trying to find a computer to restart, taking online courses, but I could not buy a computer because of my financial situation. My High school counselor landed me a computer to finish my high school senior year. When we restarted the classes, it became challenging because I did not know how to use a computer very well, and also, it was new to me. Even my teachers were a bit disorganized because most of them had never experienced or teach remotely. With time I was able to communicate with my teachers and to do my assignments.
On May 28th, 2020, I completed all my classes, and I received all credits necessary for my graduation. I was hoping to celebrate my graduation personally with my family, friends, teachers, and those who helped me morally and financially. Unfortunately, COVID19 was still spreading and affecting everything in all aspects of social life. Therefore, the school staff concluded to do our graduation online because of the fear of spreading the virus. When I was informed the graduation would be online, I was very disappointed because I deserved better graduation.
In sum, we celebrated our graduation online on June 26th, 2020, and it was less enjoyable because I did not have the opportunity to thank my teachers and even do not get to say goodbye to some of my classmates with whom I used to spend most of my time. A few days after our graduation, I realized that the school staff did a remarkable job of doing virtual graduation because everyone might get the virus, and this could lead us to lose our lives. Through this experience, I learned, my health is more important than anything else because millions of people got infected, and many dies because of the virus COVID19.