An extrovert’s guide to surviving quarantine

Photo by Carolyn Wang

“And so Cookie, that is why she wasn’t invited to my birthday party.” For reference, Cookie is my dog. She also happens to be the only one in the house who can still listen to me talk for three hours straight.

When quarantine started, everyone was so happy, and quite frankly, so was I even though I lean heavily in the direction of being an extrovert. That week, everything was peaceful and zen. I watered my plants, tried yoga and tried to become as posh as Jameela Jamil from “The Good Place.”

It was amazing, except for the fact that it only lasted for one short week.

Since that one week, I have been bored out of my mind. Even though I was watering them, the plants started to wilt. Turns out that when I was talking to the plants, which is not as fun as it seems, I wasn’t really paying attention to where the water was going, and accidentally watered the ground instead of the plants. At least I didn’t kill the weeds!

Yoga was pretty much the same. After about 10 minutes, I gave up increasing my flexibility score and started increasing my Snapscore instead.

Oh, and being Jameela Jamil is so much harder than it seems.

So, I decided to do what any sane person would do: Spam my friends. After texting my friends “Hi” about 300 times, and ranting on Facetime for an hour, they told me that I should pick up a new hobby.

After brainstorming, I narrowed my list down to playing pop music on the piano, roller skating like one of those boss TikTok girls, baking things without burning them, playing video games, reading non-fiction books and binge-watching Netflix. But sadly, according to my mom, binge-watching Netflix doesn’t count as a hobby.

One by one, I tried different hobbies and grew to love some of them, while absolutely hating others. Let’s just say that NBA 2K20 is not my strong suit and reading “Midnight in Chernobyl” was my personal insomnia cure.

On a positive note, throughout the summer, I learned how to play some of my favorite pop songs such as “Ghost” by Halsey and “Silence” by Khalid on the piano, and played them so much that my younger brother blocked them on Spotify, claiming that I ruined the songs for him.

Equally positive, I learned how to roller skate, even though I still fall down a lot. So next time you see me rollerskating past you, know that I am going that fast because I don’t know how to stop and I will probably crash into a tree.

I even learned how to bake, a talent that surprised a lot of people. The last time I baked before quarantine was for my 7th grade science class, where we accidentally added some questionable ingredients to some cupcakes. So if anyone in that class got sick after that day, it was probably my cupcakes, and for that I am sorry. That said, I have burned the cookies all five times I have tried to make them, but don’t they say the sixth time’s the charm?

Seven months into this quarantine, I can say I am a changed person and perhaps even a better person. I’ve learned new skills, had hour-long talks with my dog and ate a lot of ice cream.

But seriously, stay inside and stay safe. Because the sooner quarantine is over, the sooner I, and all the extroverts in this world, will get our sanity back.