We are only halfway into this year, and so much stuff has happened, that it feels like 2020 New Years Eve was a lifetime ago. The culprit of this temporal distortion can be found in a disease, COVID-19. As the virus nearly paralyzed the planet, it also put on hold many student’s lives, including mine. 

But if I were to extract some positives of it, I would like to say that this time spent in quarantine really helped me realize the importance of support and help during troubling times and even though this virus separated people, it was successful in bringing families together. I really enjoyed the time I spent with my family, mostly because these past few years have been really stressful for me as a student, fighting with exams and deadlines. To be honest, most of my time in the quarantine was spent with my family and doing nothing, resting up for the inevitable return of exams and school related work. It also gave me the time to catch up with all of the TV shows and movies I have missed these years. To be fair, I also did write a few papers and started to study for exams, but all of this was done without an ounce of stress, unlike previous years. The quarantine really helped me to figure out that, even though school is important, you need to approach it with patience and not stress about even the slightest of problems. 

So, all in all, I would have to say that these unfortunate times have really helped me figure out my priorities and relieve some of the stress I have been bottling up all these years, and by doing so, give me strength to deal with everything that’s about to come.

Nikola Živković, student of Social Policy and Social Work