When COVID-19 struck and school was closed down on March 13, 2020, I had no idea what I was going to do with myself outside of school. My life seemed to revolve around The King’s Academy, given that that’s where my friends are and where I do my after school hobbies, including dance, theatre, and any other given clubs I’m a part of. Leaving school for the rest of my junior semester seemed scary at first but I decided on the very first day of quarantine I would make the most of it by learning a bit more about myself and challenging myself to try new things; and since then, I still love practicing these activities I never thought I’d try. I had asked for a ukulele for my sixteenth birthday back in 2019 but I never actually learned how to play it. Feeling inspired by new artists on social media apps like TikTok and Instagram, I thought I’d finally sit down and learn how to play now that I’d be out of school isolated in my house. After researching how to play the ukulele, I found that many artists said that you should find a song you really like and just learn how to play that since it’s obviously something you’ll enjoy learning. Then keep learning how to play other songs you like and eventually, you’ll learn more and more chords, thus leaning your way around the instrument. So, I decided to start with the song “Grow as We Go” by Ben Platt, which is only composed of six simple chords. After learning these chords and practicing the transitions of my finger placements on the strings, I was able to play this song I love so much. I continued this process for at least a half-hour every day, learning more and more songs including but not limited to “Over-The Ocean Call” by Lizzy McAlpine, “White Flowers” by Olivia Rodrigo, “Clouds” by Zach Sobiech, “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson, and “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz. After learning a bunch of songs I love, I decided to really challenge myself and come up with my own chords, melody, and lyrics to create my own songs. I’ve always liked writing short little stories when I was younger, so I had some fun with this while I really pulled my creative muscle. I even somehow found the confidence to share some of these with my friends and I’ve loved hearing what they think about things I’ve written. To this day, I still practice and try and learn new songs every day. I’m also working on taking this “I’m going to challenge myself” mindset and applying it to my everyday life things by telling myself “I’m going to accomplish this today.” I’m really grateful for quarantine because it’s when I finally learned how to play an instrument (which for years I have been telling myself that I want to learn an instrument before I leave for college) and I started learning how to create little challenges for myself every day so that I can work on not procrastinating and keeping my mindset positive.

Photo Credit: Karen O’Leary