A Day in the Life of a Quarantined Teen

BY ROXY JONES

Hi! I’m Roxy Jones, and I’m a quarantined-teen!

Quarantine has quite possibly been the most interesting yet most boring period in the thirteen years that I’ve been alive. Staying at home all day sounds quite drab, but it has had many benefits that I’ve been able to see in the last few months.

Throughout the stay-at-home order, I’ve been lucky enough to have many great opportunities. I’ve been able to explore and expand my culinary talent in baking, exponentially improve my piano skills, and learn many new things. Having the once in a lifetime opportunity to stay at home all day for months on end has allowed me to learn more about so many things.

At the start of the quarantine, I began my study of a new concerto for the piano—Chopin Piano Concerto Number 1. I was invited to play with the Henderson Symphony in their 2020-21 season, and, hopefully, that will still happen! I expected it to take much longer for me to learn the concerto, but I am (thankfully) learning it at a much greater pace than I anticipated. Not having the constant hassle of driving everywhere and going out with friends or doing homework has proven to be extremely beneficial to my work habits.

However, that being said, the transition at the start of the quarantine was quite difficult for me. Not being able to see my friends or go to school was hard, and what started as a “two-week break” eventually morphed into a six-month stay-at-home order.

Roxy Jones

Being at home for so long every day prompted me to learn something new. Not wanting to waste all my time surfing the internet, I took an online high school economics course. I also wanted to be able to create videos and designs for the different technologies that I learn about, but the software that I needed was quite expensive. Since I had to pay for the software on my own, I began to bake specialty cakes for my family and friends’ birthdays and celebrations and created a “fund” for my software program. After the first few cakes, I collected enough funds to pay for the software that I’ve wanted for more than two or three years!

A family friend reached out to me to order a cake for a four-year-old girl named Luna, a big Star Wars fan, who has optic glioma cancer. It was so fun to be able to make a pink Star Wars themed cake with green icing in between the layers for such a cute little girl! Quarantine helped me to further my love for baking and has allowed me to exercise and strengthen my skills to the extent that wouldn’t have been possible without this time at home.
I am grateful for the opportunities that I have been able to get from quarantining for the last few months. Without leaving the safety of my home, I’ve learned so much and have been able to do so many new and exciting things. As I get older, I will always have the unique chance to say that I grew up in one of the strangest periods of modern history. I was quaran-teened!