Submitted by Gina R. Cano-Stump,
Assistant Principal
Calhoun Middle/High School
We miss our students! As part of Middle School’s Social Studies engagement activities, students have been asked to put on their “historian hats” and document the events of their lives in a daily journal. How has their lives changed? What added responsibilities do they have? What are their thoughts during this time? What follows is one example of a day in the life of an 8th grade student. 2nd week out of school.
Dakota Quick photographed with little brother Memphis
"Dark Days" by Dakota Quick
Tuesday March 24, 2020 -It is very crazy out in the big world right now. We have been quarantined now for like a week and half. This whole Corona Virus outbreak is pretty scary to me. I hope everyone starts staying in and this stop spreading. I never thought at the age of 14 I would be living through a world pandemic. Like I said, it is really scary, that medicine has come a long way over the years that we can’t even find a way to kick this virus’ butt and stop it from spreading. This last week I have come to know what home school is like, and I’d rather be in school. I really miss my friends and teachers. Today I’ll do my school work, feed the animals and then when all the work is done, I’ll probably spend the afternoon riding my dirt bike since the weather is nice. Really hope we can get back to normal life soon.
Wednesday March 25, 2020 - Well today I am doing schoolwork and I will not be doing a lot today outside because it is raining. I will probably just play video games and play basketball in my room, and playing with my brothers. I think that everyone is still going crazy about the Coronavirus. Mom is making us stay away from the news and social media for a little while. She says that’s grown up stuff to worry about and she will tell us what we need to know. She is trying to keep us from worrying. I really hope this goes away soon. If this never happened right now, I would be not only hanging with my friends in school but playing baseball. I miss baseball. Baseball is my favorite sport and it makes me mad that this virus might be taking my season from me. Life isn’t fair right now.
Thursday March 26, 2020 - It’s a really nice day today. Sun is out and it's supposed to be about 75 degrees today. Got to sleep in again this morning. That’s one nice thing about no school I don’t have to get up at 6 a.m. to get ready for school. Well today is probably going to be a we spend most of it outside day. Can’t go anywhere but our house, but we got 60 acres of land to play on. Another good thing about no school is I’m getting a lot more time to ride my dirt bike. Mom told us today that it will probably be the middle of April before we go back to school. which probably means we won't go back at all. This means when I go back to school, I'll be a freshman in high school. I never thought in a million years that the last few months of my 8th grade year I would be spending them being home schooled and not allowed to go anywhere. It sucks for all of us in 8th grade because we probably won’t get to go on our DC trip now. Something we have all been looking forward to doing all year.
Friday March 27,2020 - Well what can I say about today. It’s another rainy day in the state of West Virginia. Not too much different going on today. Probably another day inside playing video games, watching movies and maybe even a board game if we get that bored. HA,HA. Yesterday we did end up taking a walk up in the woods. My youngest brother Memphis was so cute to watch as it was the first time he has actually took a walk in the woods. We found a turtle which was really cool. After about an hour walking around the property we came back down and rode dirt bikes. I’m trying to perfect the wheelie. Still got some work to do on that. I was thinking about this yesterday and I feel bad for the people who live in cities an don’t have a yard or land to go out in. I mean my family has 60 acres of land I’m sure I can find something new outside every day and never see another person unless it’s my family. Those people who live in the cities have people all around them. How do they get out and get air? Can they go for a walk? If I lived in a city I’d be scared to go out because there are more people in a city which means I would have a better chance at catching this virus.
“Dark Days” by Lauren Lovejoy
Week 2: Day 1 - Today was a pretty uneventful day. My mom had to work so Kyla and I slept in till 9:01 and then I got up and worked on snow packets till around 11. Kyla stayed home to work on college classes while I and my Grandfather went to school to get food and get some things for my grandmother. When I got home I worked on more snow packets while my sister and grandfather worked on a fence. My grandmother is down with the cold so I called her for a while to see how she was feeling then I played some video games with an old friend. That’s basically all that happened today.
Day 2 - Today was a very hard and eventful day. Once again my mother had to work so me and my sister stayed home. I woke up this morning around 8 am, started my snow packets for the day. My Grandfather called me around 9 am and asked me to help him build fence, which him asking for help is not normal. So I got dressed and we started by loading all the posts that him and Kyla tore out yesterday, we took them to the burn pile behind our barn. My 10 month old filly, Shine thought she could help but she was just in the way. Papaw let me drive the Mule (ATV) back and forth from my house, his house, and our garage (all right next to each other) which I thought was fun. We dropped off the new posts and quit for the day. We ate supper, Grandmas homemade Potato soup and cornbread to be specific! I always eat quite fast so when I was done I had to deliver food to my sister. After that I went to my barn and hung out with my goats, they make the best company. A little off topic but I currently own 13 goats. Then I came back home and worked on this and the rest of my snow packets.
Day 3 - Today I woke up to my mother yelling, "Oh Lovejoy girls!" I didn’t really want to get up but, eventually I did. I got up around 9:36 am. I ate a bowl of Lucky Charms, brushed my teeth, and a few other things. It was a pretty day so Kyla, My mom, my grandfather, and I worked on fence all day. My job was using the spud bar to make a holes for the fence post to go in. Grandpa drove the post in, I tried this and I didn't succeed. We then made "H" support post to make sure the fence was tight. My job then was after my grandfather made the "X" figure with barbed wire, I drove staples into the post to keep the wire from moving. We didn't finish today. To add to this I got to drive the side-by-side basically all day. I only fell once and got caught twice, barbed wire isn't nice. While we were working my grandmother made us no-bake cookies and banana bread. She wasn't allowed to come outside because she has a cold. P.S. they were delicious. We then went to Exxon to get gas and some things for my grandmother. When we got home, we showered, and ate supper. We had a supreme pizza and a pepperoni pizza. We then calmed down for the night and went to bed around 10 pm.
Day 5 - Today, since it rained and I didn’t get to work on fence, me and Brealle Arthur Facetimed basically all day. We both woke up around 10 am and asked if we wanted to Facetime to work on packets/work. So we called each other and brushed our teeth and a couple other things. We began working on snow packets around 10:15. We talked about animals and several other things including our siblings and how much we missed school and each other. We took a break around 2 pm to chill and calm down. We took our photos for the day and began working again. She ran into a difficulty, her markers were water markers so she spent 20 mins looking for an actual marker or crayon. We both had difficulty on a certain packet so we called in reinforcements, aka Madison Bell. We have each other during our 7th period so we called her at 2:21 pm to resemble our class period. After we got done with that I went to my grandparents’house and messed around with the horses and rode side-by-sides for a little bit. We got some feed for my goats and we came home. I took a shower and went to bed around 11.
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