Parker Hopkins

Thursday, May 28, 2020

The last day. I can’t believe it’s here. It’s surreal, at least to me.

This doesn’t feel like my last day of high school. There’s no exams, no big senior picnic. It doesn’t feel like it’s over.

I just got off my last English class call, and I’m not going to lie, I started crying. English was one of my favorite classes, especially because I had Mrs. Kevonian. She was always so funny, and made class super fun. (If anyone is thinking of taking AP Lit in the future, do it, you won’t regret it.)

I don’t know what I’m going to do now that I won’t have schoolwork. I literally had no life outside of school.

I’m not sure if any of my teachers will read this, but if they do, I want to say thank you. Thank you for making my senior year great, and for helping me grow as a person. I’ll miss Utica so much.

I also hope all my friends (and the people that I was too shy to become friends with) do great in their futures. Because, honestly, if we can make it through senior year in quarantine, we can do just about anything.

This is Parker, Digital Editor-in-Chief, signing off for the last time.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Over the weekend, when the weather was nice, I took my door off my wall. This seems like an odd thing to do, but I really wanted to paint it, and I wasn’t going to do that while it was standing up.

I may have mentioned in an earlier blog, but we have a lot of extra paint (looking at you, Wal-mart, for sending us four gallons of yellow). The other day, I was doodling during a zoom, and ended up with a pretty cool and colorful pattern. My mom suggested I paint it on my door, or maybe even the front door. So that’s what I did.

The design was vaguely based off my interpretation of a door in the podcast that has taken over my life. Its basically a windy patchwork of colors. I have reds, greens, purples, pinks, yellows, oranges and blues. Those colors make it seem like it’d be ugly, but I think it actually looks really cool and funky. I’ll try to remember to upload a photo later.

Thursday, May 14, 2020

I went to Target for the first time in two months today. It was very weird.

Ever since the stay home order was announced, I haven’t gone into a store. I’d drive my mom up to the grocery store and wait in the car, because I didn’t see the need in both of us going in there. And then I really didn’t want to go in once the mask order was put in place. We only had surgical masks, and I can’t stand the texture of them.

However, I braved the discomfort today to go into one of my favorite places. We went in for two reasons: to see if Starbucks was open (since the one at Kroger wasn’t) and to get a book. Neither of these things happened, but I still spent $40 on a shirt, headphones, foundation and sour cream. Amazing purchases.

After that, we went to another Kroger to see if they had the few things we hadn’t gotten at the first one. They did! My mom came out with a bag of chicken and hands full of Starbucks. It was wonderful.

Once we got home, we watched a questionable horror movie, because apparently that’s what we do now. It was pretty good, but there were certain plot points and things that didn’t add up. Also the ending was absolutely terrible. Why are we still doing freeze frame shots in 2019?

A bit later, there was a theatre zoom to read through a script. I didn’t do any reading, but I listened, and the play is really good. I hope Mr. K decides to do it next year.

Wednesday May 13, 2020

I actually did things today!

I started the day off with a short zoom meeting, which was actually way shorter than I thought it was going to be. )Once that was done, I had to go to my grandparents’ house to cut their grass. Right when we pulled in to the driveway, my mom got a text from one of my sisters. She and her boyfriend were stopping over to pickup a photo album and drop off the rest of my mom’s Mother’s Day gifts. Luckily, they were just leaving and they live an hour away.

So, I rushed through cutting the grass, and probably did a poor job, but I got it done. And I did so without passing out, like I thought I was going to do. I also got to see the birds that are nesting below the deck, which was amazing. I love birds.

We ended up getting home about ten seconds before my sister pulled into the driveway. They stayed for about half an hour, and laughed at a few of the family photos. My sister wanted to make some copies for the rest of the family.

Once they left, I took my AP Lit exam, which was not fun. It was a decently easy prompt, but I completely forgot how to write an essay when the test started. I got through it, though, and maybe even did decent.

Friday, May 8, 2020

Today, I did something I haven’t done in almost a year: I played “The Sims”.

Now, I used to be an avid “Sims” player. Ever since my sister first got one of the games when I was six, I’ve loved it. My only problem with it, was that I have the attention span of a flea (note: I do not know the attention span of a flea, but seeing as I believe they live short lives, I can;t imagine it’s very long). To play this game, you need to be willing to watch your characters grow and age, and my brain isn’t built for that.

It is, however, built for the character creator. I love that thing, I can (and do) spend hours making the perfect characters, just to never play as them. Today, I did this by creating my interpretation of the characters from “The Magnus Archives”, but only because I needed to one-up my boyfriend. So, I spent a good five hours making the main eight characters, with plans to create more tomorrow.

Also, tomorrow, I get to see my previously mentioned boyfriend when he comes to finally drop off a book he borrowed from me back in December. I’m very excited.

Wednesday, May 5, 2020

I actually did most of my homework today, which was a first for me. Usually, I put it all off until right before it’s due because I don’t have motivation, but that wasn’t the case today. Safe to say, today was productive.

While I was on a zoom call, my angel of a boyfriend, who I will not shut up about, dropped off a gift on my porch. I was sad that I missed seeing him, but I wasn’t exactly going to just leave the call, especially since he didn’t tell me when he was coming. The gift was an incredibly cute dandelion flower crown that he’d made himself. When I say I teared up, I really mean it. SO I wore it for the rest of the day.

After school time was over, my mom and I brought Tink outside so that we could shave a matted part of her fur. She’s a rescue, but she wasn’t very well taken care of in her last home because he owner was too old to look after her much. When we got her, she had mats all over her body, and it was months before she finally let us brush some of them out. A couple haven’t been able to be brushed though, so I grabbed my clippers and got what I could before she tried biting my mom.

Once we were done traumatizing Tink, we let her and the other cats outside for a bit. While they were all wandering and exploring, I grabbed my camera to take a couple of shots of them. They turned out really cute, and also a little stupid because my cats are all idiots.

Gallery • 5 Photos

Parker Hopkins

Tino discovers a bumblebee, and is not pleased with it.

Friday, May 1, 2020

I barely got off the couch today. Like, I was on the couch all day, save for an hour-long zoom meeting and about an hour that I spent on the swing outside. And somehow I’m still tired.

My lovely brain decided to wake me up today around six in the morning, when the sun was just starting to come in through my tiny window. I then proceeded to lie there awake until about eight in the morning, when I got up just long enough to grab some food. Then, I blissfully fell asleep until eleven.

I was supposed to go cut my grandparents’ grass today, since they’re old and have a slanted backyard. However, I had such a pounding headache from my lack of sleep last night that I had to move it to tomorrow. My grandma didn’t care – she was actually happy because she had just woken up from a nap and “felt like taking another one”.

We also had an ITS meeting today, where we went over elections for next year’s executive board. During the meeting, my cat, Tink, was napping on my bed. I know this because about half way through the meeting, she started snoring. Very loudly. Like, loud enough that I thought she was choking or something. She wasn’t, and she was upset with me when I woke her up to check on her.

The rest of the day was spent lounging on the couch or outside listening to “The Magnus Archives” and being half-asleep. That is also how the night will be continuing. It’s very important business.

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

I love my friends. I love that they know that I’m definitely watching “Jeopardy!” and that they can text me about this. Specifically, I love Abby and the fact that she also watched “Jeopardy!” and was texting me about the episode. It was, honestly, the highlight of my day. I miss her.

I’ve been thinking about my friends a lot the last few days. The other day I got some pictures delivered so that I can start putting them up around my room. I have a couple of different areas for them.

On the side of my bookshelf closest to my bed, I have what could be described as a stalker shrine. It’s a bunch of photos of my boyfriend, because I am gay and I miss him and he also makes very stupid faces whenever I have a camera pointed at him. It’s very cute.

On the other side of my bookshelf, I have photos of my family, mainly one of my sisters. Whenever we’re together she is always trying to get me to take selfies, but I never give her the satisfaction of actually smiling for them. I also a few of my mom and I, and of my brother-in-law with my sister.

On the side of my dresser, I put all of the photos of my friends. I have Abby and our friend Amber at the top, and then my best-friend-slash-cousin and her grandma, and then an assortment of my friends from theater. I’ve also got a photo from last year’s prom, since some of my then-senior friends invited me.

Now, I’m listening to, you guessed it, “The Magnus Archives” because I’m thoroughly obsessed. Like, constantly thinking about it obsessed. It’s also really nice because my boyfriend really loves it as well, so I get to enjoy something that I know he really likes. I think it helps me deal with not being able to see him.

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

We took the cats outside again today. Or, more realistically, Tino snuck out the door when my mom left for a run, and proceeded to sit in the yard for almost two hours without me knowing. Then, once my mom got back, I put him on his harness and walked around outside with him for a little bit before one of my classes.

I’ve been crashing the Advanced Theater zooms, though it’s not technically crashing if you’re invited , right? I’m not technically in Advanced Theater, but I’m in Stagecraft, which is in the same hour with the same teacher. Because of this, I tend to enjoy watching the others do their performances, and I love to hang out with them. So, I’ve been crashing their meetings and doing some of their assignments. It’s a lot of fun, especially since we mostly just talk about whatever is going on in our lives.

Today, I also got to go to my sister’s island in Animal Crossing, because her turnip prices were 475 bells (which is a lot for those of you who don’t play) and I needed some money. I also got to run around and cause havoc on her island with her villagers which is always fun.

Now, I’m going to go to bed a bit early, because my attempted nap for the day was interrupted by my cat loudly yelling at me to let her out, which I consider a war crime in this household.

Monday, April 27, 2020

Today was supposed to be the day of my last strike. (Strike – taking apart the set of a theatrical production). It’s kind of bittersweet, I guess.

I’m not going to lie, I was not excited for Freaky Friday. I was terrified, in fact. It would have been my first time performing, and I was absolutely mortified at the thought of hundreds of people seeing my poor attempts at acting and hearing my voice. The fact that the musical was supposed to be this past weekend didn’t really hit me until today.

I’m more upset for the people who were really looking for ward to the show, namely Mr. K. It was supposed to be his fiftieth production at Utica, and the poster would have finished off the wall in the Auditorium’s lobby.

I kind of wish that I was more upset by the fact that I never got to enjoy my last musical, but between my own anxiety and other issues with some of my friends, I’m not. Of course, I’m sad that I never got to fully appreciate my last cast dinners, or my final senior bow. But I’m not sad that I never made my stage debut, because I can’t see that having gone any way but horribly.

Friday, April 24, 2020

We took the cats outside again today. All four of them came outside, which was very chaotic because my mom and I had to keep track of all of them.

I was surprised when Pi came out, because she’s very skittish and hasn’t ventured into the yard before. She was actually very funny because she just kept meowing at everyone nd everything. She even made it into the front yard, and almost the neighbor’s yard while I was distracted.

While they were outside, I decided I’d do some photography, since it’s been a while. I mainly took pictures of Pi and Joey, because they were the ones that stayed near me the most. I haven’t gone through the photos yet, so hopefully they’re good.

I also listened to a lot of “The Magnus Archives” today, since my mom bought me fake airpods. I prefer to listen to it either while alone or with headphones, because my mom tends to be on the phone or reading, and I don;t want to interrupt her.

She went on a walk this afternoon, so while she did that I had the bright idea to close my eyes with the podcast playing. Then, I woke up at the very end of the episode I’d been on, with no memory of what had happened. So, I paused it, and fell back to sleep until she got home.

Today has felt a lot like a Sunday, for some reason. I think it’s because I didn’t have any classes, and I just felt lazy most of the day. The Sunday Vibe was very strong in my household, it seemed.

Thursday, April 23, 2020

I started my day by waking up bright and early at six in the morning. It was really lovely.

After almost an hour of laying in fear because I realized that I’d never turned my nightlight on and I thought there was going to be something evil in my room, I ifnally managed to go upstairs for a few minutes and get a snack. I then returned to bed and fell asleep until almost ten.

THe day passed by pretty quickly. I had two Zoom meetings right after one another, and then a third that I joined about 45 minutes later. They were pretty interesting, especially my English one because we got to talk about “Frankenstein”. I also got to see most of my sixth hour class in the third Zoom, which was really nice. I’ve missed them.

After the Zooms were over, I drove my mom to pick up some things from my grandparents, then to Target for a pickup, then to Kroger to shop, then back to my grandparents to drop some food off for them. While waiting for my mom in the Kroger parking lot, I wrote a monologue. Mr. K had assigned the advanced theater kids to write monologues last week, and they were supposed to be due tomorrow, so I thought I’d write one too, for fun.

When we got home, we found that we had gotten a few packages. The only important one was the harness we ordered for one of our cats, which I quickly put him in. He was more interested in it than I thought he’d be, as he actually walked around when I let him outside. (Before, when we had a harness for him, he would just flop over on the ground.)

The rest of the day was spent on Animal Crossing and Youtube, until dinner.

Two of the shows that my mom and I watch had their season finales tonight, so we watched those after dinner.

Now, I’m listening to what might just be the worst episode of “The Magnus Archives” because it’s about spiders and I absolutely detest spiders. I’m going to have nightmares tonight.

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Happy Earth Day!

I celebrated today by hanging outside with Tino for a little bit. He’s been sitting at the dor meowing at us to let him out for days, so I finally relented. While he ate grass and rolled in dirt, I put together a little bird house. My mom had gotten me this birdhouse building kit a while ago, and I finally got around to putting it together. Now I just have to finish painting it.

Since it was too cold to stay outside for long, I came in rather quickly and started working on my room some more. My mom and I moved my desk back into my room, and I spent a good hour organizing everything. During this time, I also started listening to “The Magnus Archives” since my boyfriend has been talking about it for months. (I still have to finish the other podcast he suggested, though. Oops).

Just an hour ago, I dyed my hair (again). It went from blonde to a pink-blonde. It was supposed to be salmon, but I think it looks more pink than anything else. The only parts that are still blonde are on the sides of my head, where the dye stuck to my scalp more than my actual hair. Hopefully it looks better tomorrow.

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

My therapist said that she was proud of me today. The past few days, I’ve been having a burst of energy and motivation, which is very unlike me, but was something that my therapist and I were working on.

This motivation has manifested in the completion (or near completion) of my room. I’ve gotten the walls all painted, I’ve moved my bed, and I’ve set up/fixed my bookshelves. I even moved my dresser into the room by myself, which was quite the project. Yesterday, I went so far as to clean my carpet, which was also a project because I didn’t know how to use the carpet cleaner vacuum thing. But, I did it.

Now, I only have to wait for some photos to arrive, set up my desk, and figure out if I want to hang anything on the walls. Oh, and build a little table. Because that’s something I’m going to do for some reason. (Not really some reason, I have a gap behind half of my bed that I need to fill to stop my pillows from falling back there.)

I had three zooms/meetings today, which was rather stressful, but I got through them by playing Animal Crossing in the in-between time.

I’m really tired, so this is all I’m going to do for now. If I remember to do this again tomorrow, I’ll also try to remember to talk more about my cats and their adventures outside.

Friday, April 17, 2020

It was a long day.

I went to bed last night, thinking that I had to be ready for an early morning (or early to me, at least) English zoom. Like, when I’d be getting out of bed early. In preparation for this, I made sure to wear a onesie to bed so that I could just wake up and join the zoom without having to get dressed. This was in vain, however, because a Remind from around eight in the morning (which I saw after I woke up an hour later) said that the meeting was moved to Monday.

You would think this would be a good thing, but I have a habit of staying awake once I wake up, so I was unable to return to sleep for the next hour. I decided to get my “Frankenstein” reading out of the way for the day, at least until my next zoom.

The second one was at eleven, and was for anyone in theatre. This was chaotic. I’m sure you’ve seen (and definitely heard) us theatre kids at school. Now, imagine us all in one zoom call, after not seeing each other for weeks. Everyone was talking. Non-stop. It was nice, though, because I got to see some of my friends, and most importantly, Mr. K, Mathis and Maddy. I hadn’t quite realized how much I’d missed them (and the chaotic theatre energy) until today.

After that, I did a bit more painting in my room. At this point, I’m just trying to waste time until the yellow paint gets delivered by touching up things that doesn’t really need to be touched up. (Also, while I was doing this, my dumb cat, Tino, decided he was going to bonk his head into my wet paintbrush. Great fun.)

My mom got home from work not much later, with great news: the lesbians down the street had put more furniture to the curb. SO we, once again, hopped in the car and garbage picked. This time I got a bookshelf (now I have three) and an ottoman (which I will make into a cat throne).

Once we got back home, my mom helped me move my bed into the closet-area of my room. Years ago, the closet doors had broken, so I’ve never used the closet as a closet. Instead, I’d had a desk there, but now I decided I wanted a more alcove-like space for my bed so viola. We’ll have to move it again, though, once I get the yellow paint. Or at least the mattress and boxsprings.

The rest of my day was spent going through photos from theatre and playing Animal Crossing, with a short intermission of driving my mom to Kroger. I really enjoy getting to drive to Kroger and just sit in my car, because it allows me to really jam out to my music (today was “Cats”, again). I also get to people watch, which is especially fun when the news is there (like they were today).

I got the Final Jeopardy! question right tonight, which I was very proud of. The category was “Historical Figures”, which I was pretty confident with, but my answer was still a guess.

Now, I’m either going to color for a bit, paint for a bit, read more “Frankenstein” or some combination of the above. Goodnight!

Thursday, April 16, 2020

Today hasn’t really seem like a full day. Like, obviously, I know that it was, but I don’t feel like I’ve done enough for it to have been a whole day.

My mom worked the second shift today, so she was home in the morning. She had to run to a store because our Kroger pick-up was pretty terrible, and on the way home she grabbed me some breakfast from McDonald’s. It was a godsend. I haven’t had McDonald’s pancakes in years.

After I ate, I read/listened to a bit more of “Frankenstein”, but I didn’t get through more than two chapters before I started getting drowsy. So then, just after eleven in the morning, I took a nap.

Once I woke up from my nap, about an hour and a half later, I continued painting my room. The white from yesterday did a pretty good job at covering the purple, but certain walls still needed a second coat. I got my supplies, kicked my cats out of the room and turned on some “Mamma Mia” to get to work.

After a few hours of painting, my sister texted, asking if I wanted to visit her island on Animal Crossing. I then proceeded to spend the next few hours sinking into my couch and catching various bugs and fish.

Once my mom got home from work, she realized we had to go, yet again, to the store because we can never just make one grocery trip in a week. Since I hadn’t gotten out of the house all day, I decided to drive her up there.

On the way there, we noticed that our neighbors down the street put some furniture out to the curb. Now, being the garbage pickers that we are, my mom and I decided to stop there after we went to the store – the furniture couldn’t have fit in my car so we needed my mom’s. We ended up grabbing a really nice dresser, that either I will take for my room or my mom will use as a buffet in the kitchen – it really all depends on if we’re feeling strong enough to get it downstairs (we could barely get it in the car). Since that was all that we could fit in the car, and the neighbors were outside loading up their truck, we decided that we’d stop back over there tomorrow to see if we wanted anything else. I think i saw a bookshelf and a small ottoman that would be very cute for my cats.

Now, it’s just after dinner and my mom and I are watching “Supernatural”. I’ve been trying to get back through the seasons on Netflix so that I can watch the final season by the time it ends. I probably won’t get through it that fast, though.

There was no “Jeopardy!” tonight because apparently Michigan’s senators think that the coronavirus is more important than the College Tournament Finals. I’m a bit (more than a bit, really) upset because “Jeopardy!” is the one thing I truly hold dear to my heart.

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

I actually got work done today. Like I woke up and did schoolwork. Wild.

My day started like this: I woke up around eight in the morning and stayed in bed until my alarm went off at nine. After that, I got somewhat dressed and sat down to do homework.

I read/listened to the audiobook of “Frankenstein” for a while, because my brain can no longer tolerate reading, apparently. Then I responded to Mrs. Greico and did my Finance notes. That was all that I was assigned to do as of this morning, so after I was done, I played Animal Crossing.

After a while, as it got closer to when my mom would get home, I went down to my bedroom and moved everything that I could. Most of my furniture went into the closet and the few things on my walls got taken down. Then, my mom got home with the long-awaited paint.

I spent a majority of my day going over dark purple walls with white. It’s weird. My room has been purple and black since freshman year, and seeing the walls as a lighter color is kind of shocking. I can actually see in my room now, which I couldn’t really do before because the little light there was got absorbed by the dark walls. Now it’s reflecting off of the single coat of white paint that I did today.

I got all of the walls painted, but I will have to go back over them tomorrow after school. As for tonight, I have no clue what I’m going to do because my room is all out of whack. I’ll probably be able to sleep down there, at least once I re-setup my night light. (Yes, I have a nightlight because the basement is scary and I’m way too into scary things and so I get scared very easily. I also sleep with stuffed animals still, so sue me.)

I’m writing this as I watch “Jeopardy!”. Right now is the College Tournament, which is possibly my favorite of the recurring tournaments, because it’s the one that I would be able to do. As in, next year, I will hopefully be on the College Tournament.

Now, my mom is about to bring dinner out so that will have to be all for today.

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

I’m back. Maybe. Hopefully.

The last two weeks have been hectic to say the least. Lots of meetings, appointments, having to go help my grandparents, family things, school things. So I totally forgot to blog.

Sunday was Easter, and even though I’m not religious my mom and I still celebrate the more childish aspects of the holiday. She got me a basket, hid it, made me find it, quite fun. She got me a fairly realistic looking chicken stuffed animal, which I greatly appreciated.

I also had made a basket for my boyfriend, which I’ve been working on since before school was called off, so I dropped that off at his house as a surprise. (He was quite surprised and ended up dropping one off for me a bit later).

My mom and I have been doing a lot of cleaning over the past few days, which lead to my finding of an old cookbook, also known as my new Bible. With this new blessing, I made some chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies and challah bread. The cookies turned out great, and I ended up dropping some off to some friends (Abby if you’re reading this I love you and I miss you). The bread didn’t turn out as great, at least not looks-wise. It tastes good though, so I think I did okay.

Like I mentioned before, my mom and I have been doing a lot of cleaning. We cleared out most of our garage (which was quite the task), and a section of our basement (a disgusting mission). I’ve also cleared out most of my room, as I’m going to paint it and give it a bit of a makeover. Since I’m staying home for college and won’t have a dorm, I figured I still needed some kind of room change.

I made a playlist that was supposed to be specifically for painting my room, but has since changed into my new main playlist. It consists mainly of “Mamma Mia” and “Cats” songs, because yes, I enjoyed “Cats”. So from now on, my coronacation music is basically ABBA.

Now, it’s almost my bedtime, so farewell for now.

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Whoops. I forgot about this.

I spent most of the last few days being depressed. I miss school, I miss my friends, I miss being able to hear and see other real live people besides my mom. I miss being able to just go to the grocery store when we run out of something super simple like vanilla, which is something you never think you’ll run out of because you only ever use little bits of it, right? But then you’re in the mood to do some hardcore baking and you look at the ingredient list and it says, plain and simple ‘vanilla’ and so you go looking in the baking stuff but there’s no vanilla, so then you go looking in the spice but there’s no vanilla, and then you look where the spices used to be and there’s no vanilla, and then you tear the whole kitchen apart and there is no vanilla.

Needless to say, the last few days have been rough. But today, I found a bit of motivation.

Today is Transgender Day pf Visibility. It was started in 2009, and is a day to support trans, non-binary and twospirit individuals. I decided to do some educating with my TDOV but making a twitter thread about a few historic trans people, a few trans people currently in pop culture, and a bit about books centering on transgender characters. It was therapeutic to me, because I really enjoy spread information about trans people, events, and our community overall.

After I did all of that, I decided to get started on a small painting project that I’d been planning. Since it required a couple of coats, I alternated between that project and taking up carpentry – I fixed a small hole in one of our walls. It made me feel really proud and actually useful for once, which was good for me.

Not long after those projects, the Arrow staff had a Zoom meeting. However, every time someone tried to speak to me, or I tried to speak, my Wifi decided to play some hide-and-seek. I probably ran back and forth from the router at least five times. Thankfully, I got the things I missed from Abby. (Bless her soul).

After the meeting was over, I did some Finance work, before turning back to my PS4.

So, a quick thing about me: when I was really young, maybe five or six, my sister used to play “Resident Evil 4” on our Wii. (Rest in peace, where ever you are, Wii). As the younger sibling, I never got a turn to play, not that I would have wanted to. Instead, I watched her play it. I could recite the entire game, where the enemies were, what the plot twists were, everything. But I was always too scared to play it myself, so the knowledge just sat there until it disappeared from my short term memory (shout-out to Greico for teaching me about memory).

Or so I thought. You see, about two or three years ago, I found a copy of “Resident Evil 4” for less than twenty dollars. It was almost summer, probably April or May, and every day after school I would go to my friend’s house and we would play. It was a single-player game, so we would switch off each time we died, or if we got to scared. (All this talk of being scared of a video game probably makes me sound like a baby, but I mean, I pretty much am). We finished the game in 24 hours (not consecutively). And with that, my love for the “Resident Evil” franchise was born.

‘Why is this relevant?’ you may be asking. Well, dear readers, it’s relevant for a couple of reasons. Reason one is that it’s my blog and I get to write about what I choose. Reason two is the remake of “Resident Evil 3” is coming out on Friday, and the demo was released last week. And today, I finally played it. It took me just under half an hour to finish, but it was worth it. (I’m very excited for the full game, even though I won’t be able to get it for a few months).

And now, I have to write an essay. Hopefully, I’ll remember this blog exists and actually update it daily from now on like I’m supposed to.

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

I came to a realization today: I really miss school.

Well, like the people at school. Actually mostly my teachers. Really, I just miss when Mrs. Kevonian would get so annoyed with our class talking about communism everyday.

I realized this today, when we had our first Zoom class. It was chaotic to say the least, seeing as it was made up of 35 students and one teacher. And there were communism jokes made, of course. Someone even brought their dog into their lap so that we could all see, which prompted Kevonian to say that we could have a ‘bring-your-pet-to-class-day’ next time we met. (I am most definitely doing this).

We mostly just went over the same things that other classes have been over. AP stuff, do we think we’ll be going back to school, what do we do if we don’t. However, we were also told that we are still proceeding more or less as Kevonian had planned, and that we’re still going to read “Frankenstein”, which I am incredibly excited about. I’m even excited that we still have to write some form of an essay on our individual books that we read. (I can’t wait to make her read five hundred words detailing how “The Metamorphosis” is about communism, just as a joke.)

Before the call, I had been working on my psychology packets, but I ultimately gave up and continued world building for the script I’m trying to write. I have had the idea for it for over three weeks and have yet to write a single word of the actual script.

During this time, I was listening to (and don’t make fun of me) a podcast, called Wolf 359. It’s about a crew of people on-board a spaceship orbiting a star. It’s very funny and very good, and I highly recommend it, if you’re into that sort of thing.

After the Zoom meeting, and an hour and a half long nap, I went to (finally) do actual work at my grandparents’ house. A few days ago, they’d gotten a few trees removed from their front yard, which left a big mess of woodchips throughout their lawn. My job was to remove them and dispose of them, which seems easy. Except for the fact that the rake I was given was mostly broken, only one of the brooms worked, and the snow-shovel was crooked and didn’t sit flat on the ground. Nevertheless, I got it done, and was given a compliment on my grandparents’ house while I was at it.

(Side note: it is incredibly awkward to be given a compliment on ‘your house’ when the house is, in fact, not yours.)

Now, after I finish writing this, I’m probably going to read more of the book I have been ignoring for no reason.

I will update on whether or not this book is also about communism tomorrow. (Spoiler alert: it’s probably not)

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Today felt like a week.

It’s probably due to the combination of boredom, lack of sleep, and lack of things to do in my house, but today has been way too long. Just thinking about what I did today for this blog makes me feel like a wise elder looking back on their life to bestow wisdom upon the younger generations. I should not feel like that.

I believe I started today with a Microsoft Teams videochat with my AP Environment Science teacher. It was pretty rough. Nobody, including the teacher, really seemed to know exactly how to use the program, plus there was someone eating incredibly crunchy food into their microphone the entire time. Not cool.

Once that meeting was over, and I got super stressed out due to boredom, I took a ‘nap’. Really, I threw a blanket over myself and thought about all of the things I could be doing if I had the motivation while simultaneously hurting my neck from being so curled up. This lasted approximately two and a half hours. Not fun.

After hours of sitting around on my phone, doing pretty much nothing, I had another videochat meetup on Zoom with my AP Psychology class. This meeting was more fun because Mrs. Greico struggles with technology and had to enlist help from “IT support” (which I believe was her daughter). Pretty enjoyable.

Once psych was over, and also because I’m a big nerd, I started making a Dungeons and Dragons character. Apparently, this is the best way for me to completely lose track of time, because I did not realize that hours had passed until my mom got home. Note: I don’t have a group to play a D&D campaign with, so this character will probably go to waste, like many others I have made. Very creative.

Just a few minutes ago, one of my cats, Pi (right), just came racing up the stairs from the basement (where my room is) making real cat sounds (she usually can’t make more than a squeaking sound), so now I have to decide whether or not I feel like getting attacked by whatever demon monster scared her in order to go to bed. Very festive.

So, I guess if I don’t get possessed or murdered by the demons taking over my basement, I will be back tomorrow with another update.

Monday, March 23, 2020

I meant to update over the weekend, I really did. But then, I forgot, or I didn’t know what to write. So here we are.

Saturday and Sunday are basically mashed together in my head, because I’m losing track of what day it is. However, I do know that over the last two days, I did some things.

I believe on Saturday, I went to my boyfriend’s house for a a bit, and we ended up playing Trivial Pursuit with his mom and grandma for three and a half hours. It was really fun, even though we got most of the questions wrong. I still won, though, so that made up for me feeling like an idiot.

On Sunday, I drove to Oakland, just to get some more driving time in. After that, we stopped at my grandparents’ because my grandpa made me pudding. We sat with them and chatted for a while, and then went back home, where I sat and played video games until five. Then, since it was a weekend and my mom is against cooking on the weekends, we ordered Thai food and went to pick it up. It was delicious, and I’m beyond glad that we did that because the Thai place closed this morning.

Last night, after eating, I started a new book, called “Red White & Royal Blue” by Casey McQuinston. It’s about the First Son of the United States who has a supposed rivalry with one of the British princes. It’s very good, though I’m only three chapters in so far. I’ve actually been meaning to read this book for a long while but could never find it in stores, so I ordered once I realized I would have a lot of free time on my hands.

As for today, I did minimum amounts of work, and played minimum amounts of video games. I napped, a lot. And watched TikTok, a lot. But mostly, I ate way too much food. As in, eight Bagel Bites for breakfast, two potato skins for lunch, two more potato skins an hour later, eight chicken nuggets and another potato skin for my first dinner, and a chicken sandwich and more potatoes for second dinner. Plus a bunch of chips and cookies in between.

Earlier tonight, since it’s Monday and “Prodigal Son” was on, I went to my boyfriend’s house, once again, to watch. (I’m actually writing this just after getting home from there.) The show is really good, and I enjoy it because even though it’s full of twists and turns, I can still tell what’s going to happen, or who’s the real suspect. Tonight’s episode marks at least the third in this half of the season that I’ve called correctly. Basically, what I’m saying is, if there are any “Prodigal Son” writers or producers or et cetera reading this, please hire me.

And now, I’m going to take leave of this blog for another day. It’s either bed time or reading time, and I have yet to decide which will win.

Friday, March 20, 2020

Day Five: The day I really lost it.

I don’t know that I’ve ever been so bored in my life.

After getting up, doing my homework, and playing more video games, I did the only thing left for me to do: nap. For two hours. And then, I played more video games.

I also finished “The Metamorphosis”, and nobody can convince me that it’s not about communism.

Then, I played more video games until my mom got home with dinner.

Once dinner was finished, I alternated between TikTok and more video games.

And now, I’m writing this just minutes before bed because I totally forgot about it.

The next few days better not be this boring.

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Today, finally, I got to leave the house at a reasonable time, for a reasonable reason, because today I finally got to go see my therapist.

I was supposed to go on Tuesday, but due to everything that’s going on, the whole office had to deal with getting clearance just for the workers. So instead, I went today. And apparently, I’ve made my therapist proud due to my calm composure throughout all of this corona stuff. So, that was amazing to hear.

After I got home, it was lunchtime, so I ate some Bagel Bites, which are without a doubt the best food on the planet. After calculating how many days-worth of heavenly pizza bites I had (a five day supply if I only eat eight a day), I sat down on my table, and started up my PlayStation again.

A quick thing to know about me: when I start playing a game, I don’t stop. For days on end I will sit in the same position, with limited movement and food, staring endlessly at my TV screen until I finally get sick of whatever I’m playing. The one good thing about doing this, is that I tend to drink a lot of water, since water bottles are easy to pile up on the table. So, even though I lose sleep and forget to eat, I manage to stay hydrated.

Once my mom left for work (her hours got moved around because her work could potentially be shutting down for a while), I finally started on my homework.

For AP Lit, we had to choose a book to read form this really long list, in order to prepare for the AP test. I chose the novella “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kakfa, and it was the best decision of my life. The book itself is only about 47 pages, but the story is absolutely wild. Basically, this guy wakes up one morning and realizes he is a human-sized bug. That’s it, that’s the whole story. Since it’s only three chapters, I’m almost done with it. I can’t wait to write an essay on this.

After I finished today’s chapter, I sat in front of my TV some more, then moved to the other room to watch more TV, then back to play more games. I played until I couldn’t anymore, out of fear (I am a big baby, and although I love playing horror games, I still get very scared.)

By that time, my mom was almost home, so she made dinner while I watched TikToks. Then we ate and watched “Jeopardy!” (I got Final Jeopardy! right, so I think I did pretty good today), before going on a bit of an adventure.

You see, we didn’t prepare too well for this whole coronacation thing. Sure, we got food for the week, but that’s it. We forgot about cat treats, hygiene stuff, and, most importantly, coffee. So once we finished dinner, we ventured out to Wal-mart.

And they were closing as we arrived, so we ventured out to Kroger. The parking lot was nearly empty, which was shocking to me, as I don’t think I’ve ever been there when it wasn’t packed. My mom and I ran in (literally, since it was raining) and quickly found the things we needed. Most of the aisles had very little left. There was maybe one loaf of bread, two rolls of paper towel, it was like a ghost town.

Now, after finishing this, I’m probably going to get ready for bed. And yes, I know it’s barely even nine, but I usually go to bed by half past eight, so this is surprising for me. Honestly, most days, once “Jeopardy!” is over, I get ready for bed. I have friends who can vouch for that, too.

For now, dear readers, I bid you adieu and goodnight. Stay safe and healthy.

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Today is Day Three of no school, and Day Three of me losing my sanity.

I actually managed to get work done today, which was surprising because I had no motivation to do so yesterday. Granted, it was only one page of my psychology packet, but in my defense, I had to sit there and read about Freud for close to an hour. (Disgusting.) Since today wasn’t one of my scheduled literature days, I was done after psychology until lunch. And by lunch, I mean a two hour long nap that took up both my lunch and scheduled APES time. Luckily, no new APES work was sent out, so I didn’t miss anything.

Today, finally, my grandparents called me. To see if I wanted to go driving with them. Which I definitely did not.

So instead, after rushing to get showered and dressed, I sat on my living room table in front of my PlayStation. For a good twenty minutes I browsed games, looking for something both interesting and free. No such luck.

A bit of background, on my gaming predicament: I own a PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Since I’ve had my Xbox the longest, I have the largest collection of games. I have two Switch games, and approximately one PlayStation game. Now, you may be wondering ‘why not just play one of my many Xbox games?’ Well, about two months ago, after going back and forth a few times to a friends house, my only remote stopped working. (It seems that one of the essential buttons is stuck, but I haven’t had need to fix it. Until now.) Both of my Switch games were too calming for how I was feeling today, and I’d already beaten my one PS4 game. So I browsed.

And I browsed.

And I browsed.

Then, I tried to download a demo version of a new game coming out in a few weeks. But it wasn’t out at the time I tried, which was so, so very upsetting.

So, I browsed some more.

I browsed until I found a game for less than ten dollars. It’s called The Forest, and it came out a few years ago. Basically, after surviving a jet crash, the player has to collect supplies and survive and not get attacked by the weird cannibal people that live in the woods. It’s very terrifying for someone who prefers action-horror to survival-horror, but it’s also a lot of fun.

My mom got home a bit after three, extremely stressed out. She works in a surgery center, and most days the only thing she has to worry about is annoying children. Today, however, they shut down all elective surgeries indefinitely, so she and her coworkers had to screen others as they came into the building. All day. And now, since they removed all the supplies to the nearby hospital, she has no clue if she will be able to work next week. We’re lucky enough to have savings and family who are willing to lend us money if we need.  My heart goes out to all of the people and families who can’t work and don’t have the funds saved.

We went to my grandparents’ house again today, in an attempt to get some free dinner, pop and windshield wiper installation. In the end, we only made it out with the pop. And a small political argument.

Now, my mom is making dinner and I’m trying to rewatch Supernatural for some reason, until my boyfriend comes over later so we can watch one of the stupidest (and my favorite) shows on the planet: Legends of Tomorrow. The same show that made me cry for a whole hour earlier today.

Until tomorrow, this is Parker, signing off.

Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Day Two of no school in one word so far: boring. Day Two in two words: incredibly boring.

After waking up just after nine, the boredom hit me so hard I ended up taking a nap. At ten. Granted, I didn’t go to bed last night until close to eleven because I was at my boyfriend’s house to watch TV until ten. (My house doesn’t have many TV channels, and a new episode of one of my favorite shows was on.)

Yesterday, out of fear that one of my favorite restaurants, Khom Fai, would be closing soon, my mom and I ordered takeout. We went to pick it up after stopping by my grandparents’ house to help them, and as the person who has had a driver’s permit for three years and no license, I had to drive. This was all fine and dandy to me, I believe I’m a pretty good driver. However, it was less fine and dandy once it started raining, and we realized only one of my windshield wipers work. Needless to say, it was a very stressful drive.

I was supposed to go back over my grandparents’ house today to help them around the house, but they never called me. So instead, I took a two hour nap that felt as though it lasted an entire night.

Once my mom got home from work, we went out driving, because not even the coronavirus can stop her from forcing me to drive. Driving gives me too much anxiety, I’ve realized, especially when my mom is trying to tell me where to go without any sense of direction.

Now it’s almost the most important time of the day, and my one true solace in this mess: Jeopardy. Almost every weekday, my mom and I stop whatever we’re doing at 7:30 to watch our man, Alex Trebek, and usually feel incredibly stupid when we don’t know the answers.

Hopefully tomorrow will be more interesting.

Monday, March 16, 2020

Today marks Day One of our state-required break from school due to the coronavirus. I’m kind of worried about how the next few weeks will play out, especially since it was just recently announced that restaurants would be closing. I don’t know if I can survive the next three weeks without takeout, so hopefully that will continue to be an option.

I’m the kind of person who needs a constant schedule and routine, and without one I tend to get really on edge. To try to combat this, and also a suggestion to others who feel the same way, I’ve set up alarms for each of my classes. This is to help me actually do the homework they’ve assigned, and to keep me on track with time. (I tend to lose track of time and not get off of my couch for almost a whole day if I’m not reminded.) I’ve set mine up for every 45 minutes, with a five minute break in between each one. I also scheduled specific times for breakfast and lunch just to make sure I stick to some kind of eating cycle.

So far, this schedule has worked. I’ve gotten my first packet for AP Psych done, and started reading my book for AP Lit. Since my other classes have yet to send out assignments, I’m free for the rest of the day. Free to do basically nothing until tonight. Fun.

Hopefully, I don’t get too bored with all my extra time. And hopefully this whole virus clears up pretty quick.