COVID-19 has got me stuck in my dorm and I\u2019m left alone with my thoughts. I intend to make the best out of it during this quarantine period and I feel like for the first time I\u2019ve got enough time on my hands to sort my thoughts and discover myself again. And I wasn\u2019t going to let this opportunity go to waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everything is a blur inside my head. Well anyone\u2019s head might be considering the online assessments we went through. I\u2019m not going to lie: the questions were challenging \u2013 and the worst part was sifting through information from dozens of articles just to produce a paragraph. And the in-text and end-text referencing\u2026 I better not get started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After taking a well-earned break by simply doing nothing worth mentioning for an entire day, I put my mind to work. My mind was cluttered with a lot of information and I needed to organize my thoughts. Since I\u2019m not allowed to spend too much time outside, I paced around in my room thinking about everything that I had been through. I was talking out loud having a conversation with myself and I noticed something rather typical of me. I was just recalling all the bad that had happened in the span of one year. Life is a blend of tears and laughter; to concentrate only on the bad is not wise and is particularly damaging for your mind. So I made a list of everything I was grateful for: my family\u2019s relentless support, my friends willingness to be there for me at any cost, my grades, the ceremonies that I\u2019ve hosted, the classes I\u2019ve taught and the impact I\u2019ve made on my mentees, the times where I was creative enough to write poems depicting the humanitarian crisis in Yemen\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Destruction in Yemen<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>
Yemen’s response to COVID-19<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
I hit pause to my train of thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Owing to everything that has played out so far, I\u2019ve been facing some difficulties trying to find motivation to move forward and pursue my passion which for the longest time has been to assume the role of an educator\/lecturer one day (long term) and to be the class valedictorian upon graduation (short term). But as I went through the good points of the year, I discovered that I have a knack for communicating my ideas through words and speech. Writing poetry\/songs and hosting events are two of my abilities which I\u2019m most proud of and I felt like those were my stepping-stone opportunities towards achieving something bigger than the goals I had set for myself. Ever since the lockdown, I\u2019ve become increasingly aware of the world around me. I find myself getting updates from Facebook and scrolling through the daily news to get a view on what was happening all over the globe. Instead of just being conscious on the economic, social and environmental aspects of the world, I developed a strong political interest particularly for countries at war and unrest<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I first watched the documentary on the war in Yemen, I was shattered to say the least. People have been killed, kids have been orphaned and the lives of the people who survive were in ruins. It has been five long years of war and there were no signs of things getting better. I felt horrified watching the forty-minute documentary which only portrayed a fraction of the people\u2019s sufferings; I can\u2019t imagine how traumatizing it would be to be present amidst the chaos. I was overwhelmed with emotions and I had to vent in the only way familiar to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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