Rona Journal Week 1

4/5

With nothing else to do, my family wants to watch movies together every night, but the problem is we all have such different tastes. At the start of quarantine we took an hour each night just deciding on a movie, which usually ended up being a mediocre movie at best. However, now we have this complicated system that only my family would do to decide what to watch. First we made a group list with movie suggestions from all of us on there. Then, each night, we each choose three from the master list and make a new list for the night. From there we all have two vetoes and we go around in a circle vetoing others movies. After the vetoing there are four left and we take the matter to a vote. 

Our master list of movies

After some complaints, mostly by me, we have refined the system even more. Two new rules were set in place: everyday we rotate who starts the vetoing and voting, and we capped the master list, so it wouldn’t get flooded with new things and we would never get to movies that were on there from the beginning. 

Sometimes we get to watch what I want: like Mamma Mia 2, Blackkklansman, and The Purge. Sometimes people veto mine, like my mom who vetoes The Hangover every time. When this happens I either really enjoy these movies: like Batman Begins, Guava Island, and Snowpiercer. However sometimes the movies are weird and a struggle to watch: like Rushmore, Big Lebowski, and Shawshank Redemption. 

Recently my mom brought up this interesting new point. No one, other than her, wanted to watch Gone with the Wind, so we allowed her to cross this off, because it is her pick, and replace it with The Talented Mr. Ripley. This was an appealing idea to me because I put down Crazy Rich Asians, which I have seen before, so I proposed that I replace it with Jurassic Park. No one opposed this so I replaced it, but then my brother, in a mood, grumbled, “Ugh. I wanted to see this movie but now I will never see this because I’m not being forced to watch it. I don’t even want to watch Jurassic Park again.” To which my dad, also in a mood, grumbled, “I don’t wanna rewatch that either. It’s gonna be the last thing on this list we watch.” In order to appease them, I came up with the idea of crossing off LaLaLand, which I have also seen before and put down, and replacing it with Crazy Rich Asians. 

Since we are all so bored, this list has become a game to all of us: a game you win by getting your movie chosen. My family really enjoys trying to win the game, we do everything from making side deals, vetoing done in spite, making it a tie vote in order to flip a coin, pandering to the others before the voting. Yes, this is way too complicated of a way to make a simple choice, but it has surprisingly turned into the highlight of my day. 

4/8

With nothing else to do, I have been keeping up with my track schedule. Since I am mentally weak, I wouldn’t be able to complete the workouts without my running group. Don’t worry, it’s just the three of us and we stay well over six feet apart. I try to say hi to everyone we pass during these runs because I love it when people say hi to me while passing by, so why not give other people the joy of an unexpected hi. 

Since I run daily, there are many different interactions I have. Sometimes they are really nice back. Once I was running and I was completely out of breath and this lady holding a baby said, “You got this! We are your cheerleaders!” Another time I was running and I said good morning to this guy, but it was the afternoon, and he was a little confused. This run was an out and back however, so when we saw him again I said hi again and yelled after us (in a nice tone), “It’s the afternoon!” Another time we were running past this group of ladies at an outdoor workout class and they cheered for us. Some people are just so nice! These are just a few of the nice people I encountered. 
Most of the time people outside are really nice and at least say hi back. Other times people don’t say hi back, which is a little disappointing but understandable. They might be in the zone or caught off guard by some stranger yelling hi at them. However some people go out of their way to be rude to us. I can only think of three instances: all 50-60 year old women on power walks. The first instance we passed someone and I said hi. In response to my hello, the first lady grumbled, “What is wrong with teenagers these days! Can’t they run alone!” In next instance a lady was walking in the middle of the sidewalk and there was no no way around her: we were boxed in! So we yelled, “excuse us” multiple times. She didn’t move over at all, so we quickly ran past her. While we passed her however she grimaced while saying, “Ugh! Stay away from me!” She gave us no other choice, what did she expect! 

The last lady was the worst encounter. We had just finished a run and were doing stretching/abs in the parking lot. We were like 8 feet away and doing a plank when my friend noticed someone taking a picture of us. I yelled, “Excuse me please don’t take a picture of me!” Then she just walked quickly away. One of my friends and I would not let this stand so we chased after her to ask her what that was about. When we caught up to her she looked shocked: she probably didn’t think we would stand up for ourselves. My friend said, “Did you take a picture of us?” She said no, but I misunderstood her no for a yes, so I said, “Well I don’t really want to be on some strangers phone. Can you please delete that?” She yelled back at me, “I didn’t take a picture of you but I wanted to!” To which my friend asked, “Why would you want to take a picture of us, we were six feet apart.” She looked shocked for a second then stomped away while saying, “Well you guys shouldn’t even be together.” The worst part was that while she was lying about not taking a picture of us, she was taking a picture of teenagers ten feet apart in the parking lot in their cars! However, don’t let these few rude ladies distort your vision of people in the world at this time.

4/9

 Since we have been out of school my lifestyle has shifted back to my summer lifestyle. For example I am in my hammock all the time, even while writing this. I have a hammock that, in summer, I take to the beach and string it up with my friends (who all also have hammocks). The only difference is that I don’t go to the beach, I go to the park outside my house, and I am not with my friends. 
Another summer thing I have reverted back to is my unhealthy habits. During school I have three healthy meals and a snack everyday. However now I eat whenever. Today I ate some Goldfish for breakfast at nine, lime chips and salsa, strawberries, and lemonade for lunch at three, then shrimp scampi at six. I also drink barely any water during summer. During school I drink about seven water bottles then I drink a bunch of water at home. Now I drink like two cups during every “meal”. I also go to bed not freakishly early during summer. I do early bird during the school year, so I go to bed around eight thirty or nine every night in order to get nine or ten hours every night. However, I go to bed way later during summer, like eleven or twelve which is a normal time for other people, but not me. I still wake up pretty early (around seven or eight), which means I am getting around seven or eight hours every night. I also am going on a lot of runs right now so it’s not great that I’m not being as healthy because it’s way harder to run.

I know that I’m super malnourished in my summer lifestyle, but that’s fine with me. The only thing that is keeping me somewhat in school mode is online school and not being able to see my friends. However this is a problem for doing school work. I feel like I am super motivated during the school year, but now I’m not motivated at all. Losing this motivation has made me way dumber, for example I had a really hard time spelling bracelets earlier, so that’s not great.