When news about the Corona virus first reached the news outside of China I wasn ́t even in University yet; it seems like a lifetime ago.

At the time I was traveling South East Asia and enjoying a year of backpacking. Then suddenly Coronavirus hit Indonesia and in less than 10 days all international flights were cancelled and I got on one of the last flights to Singapure. From there on I desperatly tried to get home to Germany and finally got a connecting flight to Germany via Hong Kong. It was such a surreal experience to be on a plane with only 20 other passengers and pass time at a completely empty terminal in Hong Kong. I was scared to get infected, was alone in a foreign country without knowing its language and the airport personal was dressed in alienated hazard-suit-like gear. The experience really traumatised me.

Arriving in Germany I felt like on another planet again; no one was wearing masks and they were talking about this foreign virus which wouldn ́t affect them. Only to completely shut down the whole country 10 days after.

The first Lockdown was hard for me, because all my old school friends studied far away or in other countries, such as Poland, Netherlands and Russia, and I had to move in with my parents again and event hough I love them, it was a mentally stressful time to see each other 24/7 after being separated for months. Luckily my parents live on the countryside so I could spend all my time outside working out, running or reading in the sun. Besides that I produced a lot of art for my University application, homeschooled my little brother and drove my father to doctors appointments. But I still felt a little depressed without a real purpose or goal to work towards to, without a structured day and isolated from my friends.

In May, after the first shock about Corona was overcome, I began working in a bakery and continued to do so throughout the whole pandemic we already faced.
Finally in October University started and I was excited to meet new people after such a long time of isolation, but after a month the whole country faced another Lockdown. This time I was prepared way better mentally and kept myself occupied with studying and working.

Luckily Corona didn't affect my family and me too bad; my parents kept their jobs, my grandparents socially distanced themselves and my brother recently started school again (just to be quarantined again after a Corona case in his class). We didn't loose anything, had no shortage of anything and could still enjoy the outdoors. I realised that mankind is strong and can overcome even highly difficult situations. We are always moving, developing and finding new solutions to every problem we face. The pandemic has become our new „normal“ and we learned to cope with it in many different ways.