Hi, I’m Yzanne! I’m 17 (almost 18!) years old, and although I am well aware that the majority of the population also had their life grinded to a halt on 23rd March this year, lockdown affected it perhaps a little more dramatically for Year 13’s than other teenagers.
I graduated from school in March, which stripped me of doing A Levels and enjoying the last few months I had with my friends that I’ve known for 7 years. We had a great last term lined up: exams which we all felt super confident about, prank week on the last week of term, leavers day, prom, results day and awards.
Not to mention that I had a weekend to Paris with some of my closest friends planned, a two-week long holiday in Greece with my family, a 10-day trip to South Africa with my Grandma and cousin, and a jamboree in Poland with a scout group all to look forward to. It was all set to be my most adventurous, filled summer ever.
It was a difficult initial shock for me and my friends, knowing that we were robbed of the opportunity to prove ourselves and be able to get into the universities we want. Although A levels are hard work, I enjoyed school and loved working hard, because I had a challenging but defined end goal, which was to get into Warwick University. It was especially different because I would work all of the time and had done for about 3 years – after school, at weekends, in holidays – so I wasn’t really used to anything else. Therefore, it was a real uphill struggle trying to find hobbies that I would enjoy or feel any kind of desire to commit to. I was searching on Pinterest for hobby ideas, reading blogs and making lists of things I could do, but it all involved the same sort of things: read a book, watch Netflix, have a “spa” day, take a bath, call your friends. None of these seemed like a hobby that would last me for 6 months until I would be off to Uni.
As the weeks went by, I eventually got into a groove and found different ways to stay productive and happier, as I found a direct correlation between the two. I’ve experienced a lot of trial and error in different activities, and just seeing what habits stick. I’ve tried painting, bullet journaling, sewing, knitting, cycling, learning Chinese and Spanish, working out, cleaning, online shopping, eBay’ing…most of which aren’t permanent habits, but that I’ll do from time to time when I feel like it. I have a bunch of stuff on eBay which is just ticks over by itself once I’ve put all the items on there (that’s a hack if you want to make some easy money). Zoom calls were organised weekly with my friend group, as well as a weekly facetime with my best friend, so that I didn’t become a sloth, let alone a lonely sloth.
I don’t think about school at all nowadays, which is huge progress from the beginning of lockdown, where the lack of a full-time commitment was the root of my gloom. However, quarantine has brought out my creative side, which I haven’t been able to explore for about 5 years now. I’ve bought a canvas, done watercolours, and been bullet journaling in this £3 journal I found on eBay. Although I’m hardly a Picasso, it fills my time and engages my brain, and it gives me something to commit to and be proud of.
What I’ve concluded from this “unprecedented” time is that, as a 17-year-old who has a lot more free time now than other teenagers, productivity is the key to having purpose. Something to wake you up at 9am instead of 1pm, and something that makes you use your brain like schoolwork would’ve done. It’s easy to expect a lot from yourself, looking back at your standards of productivity when studying, but you can’t expect to be moving mountains. You simply have to try little hills, instead.