QuaranTime a 21st century breakdown

Today 31st of march 2020 is the second week of massive quarantine in Indonesia that make most of the public places closed and people are encouraged to stay at home, some area even go further to prohibit their people to leave entirely. As a result, my campus, Universitas Negeri Malang enacted a policy that make the entire campus activity including classes and organizations must be held online. Here are few things that I've learnt during these 2 weeks of Quarantine.

1. Our curse become our blessings

Have you ever watched the video about smart phone and dumb people, this video show us how smartphone and internet have changed us especially in our way of socializing with people. Because we have to admit that since the emergence of social media people become more isolated with one another. We no longer chat with people when waiting for train, waiting in line or even with our neighbor. And of course as a youth of this era, I really feel it, when I was on a train I could see the contrast between those whose on their phone and those who are not. "Smartphone and Dumb People" video indeed have a point. The advancement of our technology also brings a "curse".

However with this quarantine that “curse” now become our blessing. We cannot physically stay in touch with some people but our smartphones have made it possible to stay in touch with other people without meeting them physically. Not only via text message but also using voice or even face to face. So, what used to be our curse is now our blessings.

2. Even introvert need social interactions

I am an Introvert and the common stereotype is that introvert is less socially active and talkative compared to extrovert. So, this quarantine must not be a big deal right for introvert?. Wrong, because human is inherently social creature and human interactions is important in our lives, regardless of introvert and extrovert. This is what I really feel in this past quarantine. Here, in Blitar, Police patrol every night to make sure that no one makes a public gathering like coffee shop, community meeting and even a group of people playing cards outside their house are told by the police to disband.

This situation doesn't really bugging me at first but as the time goes I find it uncomfortable because staring at the screen constantly cannot replace social interactions. Fortunately, me and my friends found a way out of this. Since hanging out at coffee shop is technically illegal at this point, we made our own place to hang out behind one of my friend's workplace and of course we limit it to only our inner circle to prevent the virus.

3. Online class can be harder than offline class

Despite the convenience that it offers, online class can be harder than online class. First of all, we no longer have the luxury of lecturer explaining the lessons directly to us. This result in more effort that student should put in order to understand the lessons. In addition to that, laziness is also a problem. We understand that we are at the state of quarantine but the fact that we no longer attend our campus and the flexibility of having no physical classes could create an illusion of having a holiday, even though we are not. This result in increase of laziness that could hindrance our study (or at least for me). Therefore, better time management and self-discipline is needed to be able to resist the temptation of YouTube and social medias and do the work.

4. Life can be sucks, but....

When the campus announced this quarantine, I really scared.  Just about a month before I was still relax because coronavirus is from China and China is thousand miles away. And as bad as it may sound I could still joke and laugh at memes about corona. But that night, the joke is on me. With the announcement of nationwide quarantine, corona is not a joke anymore, it is a real threat. I started to browse about corona on the internet and unfortunately I stumble upon news about Italia. The news detailed about how Italia have suffered because of the outbreak and how the people tried to stay strong in the quarantine. Reading that make me more scared as I realized how dangerous corona is.

Of course the feeling soon fade away. However, this quarantine still turns my life upside down, many campus events is canceled, the community service program that we've planed is postponed without uncertainty, many public places is closed which means that I will not be able to watch new SpongeBob movie when it came out :( and fear and anxiety of touching someone that might have corona.

However at this time maybe we could somehow enjoy it, not by trying to stay positive all the time (because that's toxic) but by accepting this situations and do our best (or at least what we can) despite of it. Because as the famous saying goes "What doesn't kill me make me stronger", hopefully if this outbreak doesn't kill us we will come out of it stronger.

P.S. : I f you wonder why the title include 21st breakdown that's because I believe that this massive quarantine around the world is a breakdown of this century. And also there is a song called 21st century breakdown from Greenday, listen to it if you are into pop punk :-)