Aaditya Saharan

Staff Writer

The coronavirus pandemic has brought several changes to the way we live our lives. We’ve attended online school for over a year. Staying in touch with friends and family has become harder. Wearing masks in public places has slowly become normal. In my own experience, the pandemic has been somewhat of a mixed bag. While I’ve developed as a person, I’ve had my own struggles, especially when it came to adapting to online school. Working remotely from home has been an uphill battle. I had a hard time engaging in class activities. I found myself being easily distracted. I found homework suddenly time-consuming and difficult. As weeks turned to months, I became desperate for anything that would ease any boredom from my monotonous freshman year, homework, and a canceled fall sports season. 

Eventually, I found a solution to this nagging problem: movies. Throughout my childhood, watching movies was one of my favorite pastimes. Whether it be at the movie theater, at my house, or outside, I could always depend on movies to transport me to a different world. 

It was the middle of January when I found myself falling down a movie rabbit hole. I remember being unhappy. Even my phone was becoming useless. I had a lot of work to do, and I longed to see my friends. I had been sitting in my room thinking about this when I got a call from my sister asking me to come downstairs to the living room. When I arrived, there was a remote control in her hand, selecting a movie for us to watch. I was a bit reluctant at first, with all the work I had to complete over the weekend, but I eventually gave in. After debating on several options and getting some snacks, we finally picked a movie: The Other Guys. Throughout the movie, both of us were having a great time. I remember we were laughing so hard, sucked into the comedic storyline of two up and coming police officers. An hour passed and we finally finished the movie. To this day, it’s one of my favorite movies of all time.

From there on out, my sister and I watch movies almost every weekend. What I want to keep from the pandemic is this tradition. Not only did it enable me to take a break from work, but it also ended up bringing me closer to my sister.