Looking Six Months Back

This article is part of a series of articles that were written last school year but were never published due to the pandemic. The Norse Code has decided to publish these articles to give insight into how people were feeling at that time.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put the world on hold. People are doing school and work from home. As this piece has been represented in the news, there is one thing that hasn’t gotten as much attention. People have hobbies and activities outside of jobs and school. New Berlin West has fifteen different sports and twenty-five different activities for high school students to take part in. Many of them, however, do not meet virtually. With less sports meeting in the virtual world, setbacks can arise. For example, sports teams without meeting have no set times for practice anymore. This can lead to athletes deconditioning; they lose endurance and flexibility. Both activities and sports are also fun for people, but can be hard to keep up with on their own. Self motivation, amount of space, and setting are examples of possible setbacks.

A solution to this problem is just simply using the internet. YouTube has countless workout and stretching routines individualized to any sport and level of difficulty. Even if someone’s quarantine setting does not allow for the full out sport, there is always something else that could help a person do a similar thing. One example would be running on a treadmill instead of running on a track.

Another idea would be social media livestream practices with professionals. Many professionals are doing livestream practices for the general public to watch on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. Tiler Peck, principal ballerina at New York City Ballet, has livestream ballet classes at noon Monday through Friday on her Instagram account: @tilerpeck. 

There are so many websites that have activities, many free. If a person is into computers, cybersecurity, or robotics, there’s things like Hack The Box. Hack The Box is a website designed to let people find security vulnerabilities through their challenges. These challenges have virtual machines that run intentionally vulnerable software. The object is to hack into it.  “Hack the box is a good way to learn for anyone interested in cybersecurity […] It can really exercise that [cybersecurity] mindset.” states Aaron Rosenberg, member of New Berlin West’s Cyber Patriots.

Every year, there is a middle school play and a high school play in the spring at New Berlin West. This year, however, they were both cancelled. With the website bwaycollective.com, there is the ‘Broadway Study Hall’. This has not only a full week of acting lessons from New York City casting director, Kate Lumpkin. It also includes a full week of each vocal and dance master classes. Vocal classes are taught by Broadway performer and producer Jamison Scott. Dance classes are taught by Broadway Dance Captain seen recently in Disney’s Newsies, Jack Sippel. Although the given dates on the website have passed, all classes are still up.

One last place to look is the popular app, TikTok. Although known for strange trends and memes, TikTok has been getting some videos since the quarantine order started about lessons, new challenges, etc. People post art and dance challenges, singing lessons, storytelling challenges, and personal stretch and workout routines. 

Students have given up a lot through this COVID-19 pandemic. School, sports, and activities practices are not happening until further notice. COVID made schools cancel things, but that doesn’t mean people have to cancel them for themselves. The internet is a tool that can be accessed and used to keep people doing what they love. The reign of ‘COVID The Canceler’ is no more.