My policy seems to be this: work hard, then work harder. Today is April 10.

For the third day in a row, I woke up and stumbled across a disgusting mess my cat had left for me. Right in front of my bathroom door was a pile of her throw-up. What a lovely way to start my Friday. With a grumpy attitude, I cleaned it up and headed out to the living room to start working on journalism.

I decided to start by adding captions to a post I’d made last night. The story is actually the fourth in a four-part series about the environment I started back in November 2019 called “Is it too late?” I created the project to help Bearing News in its Best of Show competition during the National Scholastic Press Association’s fall convention. Because I had to help clean up and fix various aspects of our website, however, I was only able to complete three of the four stories. With the free time I now have, I wanted to wrap up my writing in a nice little bow by completing my final part. 

Once I had finished the writing side of the post, I went on to Bearing News to add in photos, sub-headlines and pull quotes to improve the text’s readability and interest. Sophie Eaton, a photographer on our staff, had kindly uploaded numerous photos I could choose from. I was only able to use six of them in this post, but I have a plan to promote environmental awareness on Bearing News’ Instagram leading up to Earth Day that will utilize the rest of her snapshots. My effort culminated in “Political action, youth involvement necessary to protect environment,” which I published at 10 a.m.

After making a few final touches to the post, I began transferring the final two installments in an ongoing In-Depth series called “I quit” online. The text was easy enough to move over, so I spent the majority of my time creating tooltip hot spots (clickable icons that can show readers “Did You Know?” boxes). For the first story, which is about a student who quit two jobs, I used photos of crumpled up dollar bills to creatively present information. In the second story, which is about a girl who quit biting her nails, I created tooltips on a few photos of students’ hands. While the work was tedious, I enjoyed improving my proficiency with using the website. When I graduate, I think I’m going to miss all the hours I’ve spent on Bearing News. Journalism has provided me with a completely unique and unparalleled high school experience, and I am thankful for the countless life-lessons and personal connections it has provided me with.

For the remainder of the afternoon, I worked on creating one video for Bearing News and uploading another. For the sake of not spoiling a surprise I’ll reveal to the public this Sunday, I will not go into further detail on the topic except to say I must have the worst internet connection in Missouri because uploading a seven minute video to YouTube is taking me more than 24 hours.

Because today was Good Friday (the Friday of Holy Week leading up to Easter), I spent the day fasting. At 7 p.m., my mom and I tuned in to watch a live-streamed Catholic mass service from our parish in Centralia, Mo. The mass was somber and reflective, and I appreciated taking the time to improve my connection with my faith. Without the constant busyness and stress of a typical month during the school year, I have been able to dedicate more intentional thoughts and prayers, especially during this Holy Week. I am not an especially vocally religious person, so even writing about my typical Lent seems odd to me. These journals have given me a place to express my thoughts, but they have also exposed another side of me to the world, one which I tend to keep private. For better or for worse, more of who I am is now public information because of this pandemic.

To finish out of evening, my parents and I watched the final two episodes of the long-running beloved family-favorite, Modern Family. For as long as I can remember, this has been one of our staple TV shows. I have aged alongside these characters and laughed/cried to their stories. The series finale marked the end to an era for our television-watching, one which made me nostalgic for my childhood. I hope when I am older, I can share shows like Modern Family with the important people in my life, so we can reminisce about our youths and the world we grew up in.

“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.” ― Hermann Hesse, Swiss-German poet

How did you spend your 24th day of social distancing? Let us know in the comments below.