2 Years since Day Zero

Friday the 13th of March happened exactly 2 years ago as of today. That day was Day Zero of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

I was a high school senior at that time and the school was buzzin' that week about coronavirus. None of us... And I'm talking staff and students alike... None of us were scared of this coronavirus, and to this day, I'm STILL not worried. ...Word came out that all schools were being locked up for 3 weeks so we thought, "All right! A well-deserved break!"

But once the school day was done did I realize something was really up. At the grocery store with mom, we saw all the produce aisles completely EMPTY. Not to mention the toilet paper. I guess that not everybody was as calm as my school. Then on the weekend, we got 2 calls: The first one extending the quarantine from 3 weeks to 4, and the second call extending the quarantine INDEFINITELY.

We in the class of 2020 put on brave faces knowing that we couldn't go back to the schools from which we were graduating. Some people were glad to leave, some I heard don't even care, but I know that a lot of us were pretty upset that our graduating year got cut short. ...I know I was. I made that year the most exciting school year ever for me, and I was hoping to have actually FINISHED it.

...But I definitely did my best to move on from that. Like any normal kid, I LIKE hangin' around the house all day and doing all kinds of fun stuff. But it DID make the next school year harder. Messing around with college paperwork made me wish I NEVER had to leave high school, and like one of the posts in my Battle Morale might indicate, the online classes did NOT help my eyes!

...Fast-forwarding to the present day, though, the Class of 2022 is up next, and believe it or not, I'm a part of THAT now too! I'll have my associate's degree completed by the end of the summer!

...Did I just say Associate's Degree?? As in a 2-year college degree? THAT'S CRAZY! ...I dunno

what's crazier, that I'm already in college, or that I haven't known college outside the shutdown. At least not yet. The first full school year during the shutdown was all online for me. I almost never left the house. This second school year during the shutdown has been a mixture of both online classes and in-person classes.

Perhaps next year will be completely in-person again, just like old times. Of course... just last summer, at least where I live, the mask requirements were lifted BEFORE my family went on a camping trip, and by the time we got BACK, everyone was wearing masks again. And NOW, the mask requirements just got lifted again. ...For NOW, that is...

The entire worldwide crisis has been far too unpredictable so far for ANY way of knowing what Year 3 of the shutdown is gonna be like.

...OK! That's all I got to say. Now I hear myself say, "It's great that you summed this all up, but what does it have to do with this HQ?"

Well, without the shutdown, I don't think I would even HAVE this HQ right now, and that goes the same for my YouTube channel.

Before the covid-19 madness, I never thought I'd EVER start Youtubing OR website-building. ...An era of endless computer use REALLY makes a difference, doesn't it?

I know for a fact that the shutdown led to the YouTube Poptropica Month parties of 2020 and 2021, which led me to make my channel and my first upload, "Poptropica's Legendary Sword Fight", and the rest is history. ...It's been almost 18 MONTHS now since my first video. A whole year and a half! To think that within that time span, what started as one video became over a HUNDRED videos, plus a website that is now LOADED with pictures, posts, and buttons!

WOWzers... To think I've heard some people say they haven't done ANYTHING since the shutdown first began... I can't even BEGIN to describe what all I've been up to with THOSE people!

Only now do I realize how far I've gotten these past 2 years. But you can bet that I don't plan on STOPPING anytime soon!

(Speaking of not stopping, so much for not frequently posting after my movie mission! ...But you see? there's no WAY of knowing what will happen next in this shutdown era!)