During the first week I got back from my university, my dad, who is a physician at the Brooklyn VA, instructed me on how I have to wear a mask anytime I go outside the apartment, to wipe down door handles or anything that I touched while wearing gloves, and that I could not go too far from the house (and also not to take the subway).

I was allowed to go out when I wanted to, usually since I've been home I've gone out 2-3 times a week. I live with my grandmother so I have to be especially careful to maintain a sterile environment and to assist wit helping with basic chores.

To keep myself occupied while I don't go out I study (obviously) but I've also tried to do other things such as try out cooking and a little baking. So far I've made teriyaki chicken fried rice, veggie fried rice, chicken veggie stir fry, gyoza dumplings (which didn't turn into dumplings but more like a paste served with pasta), bulgogi and spicy stir-fried pork. I've also been practicing making sangrias and margaritas for my family. There is still room for improvement. In addition, I made two cakes, both strawberry lemonade cakes, once for my brother's birthday and once for my parents anniversary in the past two weeks.

Besides taking up the new hobby of cooking, I've been trying to keep up with my New Year's Resolution (lol, wish we were back in 2019) to exercise at least three times a week. Also, I've been working on making sanitary supplies such as reusable wipes.

The times I have been outside I usually go with my brother shopping for food and other supplies. The city feels very deserted and being a city person it feels eerie. I miss the noise, masses of people, the rush and the city life in general. Now the streets are empty, there are less cars, less people and less liveliness.

However, there are some things to be enjoyed; I still go out with my family to places around the city such as Brooklyn and Roosevelt Island. I got to go up from the city to see my boyfriend recently at his house for the first time in more than a month. I still get to go out when I please without being restricted to staying in the house all the time.

I know I'm one of the fortunate ones that can be with their family and have a chance to see their loved ones. What most people say about the city is true that there are the frozen trucks that are outside hospitals like NYU (my dad pointed them out when we were driving to Brooklyn on the FDR). The hospitals have calmed down in terms of deaths but there are still people being admitted everyday. My mom luckily (she is also a physician) doesn't have to do late shifts like my dad and doesn't work on the front lines like my dad, but she does go to work every few days in the week.

It has almost become a weird normal that my dad goes to work from 8pm to 8am for three days of the week and doesn't work really for the rest of the week while my mom goes to work at her regular hours of 8am to 4pm. Every night we try to have dinner together; my dad, mom, grandmother, brother and myself. My parents though live in a different apartment than my grandmother (it just happened to turn out that way that my grandmother and my parents live in the same apartment building but on different floors) so my parents decontaminate themselves in their apartment before they come up for dinner.

My brother mostly stays in my parents apartment while I stay with my grandmother upstairs. Sometimes my brother does sleep on the pull out bed in the living room and we watch YouTube videos and play Yu Gi Oh.

While I study, I do find time to study with friends from high school and college at least to get some outside interaction. As much as I love my family, it does get annoying to be around them sometimes 24/7.

What I've heard from my parents based on their days outside, the trains have been cut down in terms of how many come and that people pack into the trains because they don't want to be late for work. In addition, there are homeless people on the trains that take up space as well which makes it even harder for people to social distance. My dad told me how people in his own hospital don't adhere to the wearing masks rule and he had to go up to the person or people who were not adhering to the rules and lecture them after just getting off the phone about a patient that just died from the virus.

Most stores have been closed indefinantly. There was a Turkish restaurant that my parents used to go to that was on the corner of 62st called Anatolia, and now it is being rented out. Disinfectants are hard to come by, especially Clorox wipes. The shelves are empty whenever my brother and I try to go buy supplies for the house. Some people on the streets aren't even wearing masks (despite the law that requires people to wear masks when they go out). My brother and I were even walking one time and there was a father and his toddler walking around, both not wearing masks. My brother and I glanced at them wondering why the father would have thought that not wearing a mask is a smart thing to do during this time. There are still homeless people roaming around the streets and without any protection. The police have stopped pulling people over for speeding on the FDR or on the streets. Some grocery stores have lines of people waiting to come into the store while others don't (I'm not sure why this is).

However, things have been getting better in terms of flattening the curve and we should continue to stay home as much as we can. If we continue the stay at home policy, the sooner we will stop this quarantine and the spread of the virus. We just need to hold out long enough until a test can properly be administered to people to determine who has the virus and who doesn't. A vaccine will take longer but at least if we know who has the virus or not we won't have to stay quarantined for much longer. We've seen good results from staying at home, but we must continue to do so.

There are somewhat more people on the streets which my parents worry would bring on a second wave, but hopefully that will not be the case if people stay home. I hope everyone will do this in order to save people like my grandmother and prevent others from suffering.