In this final installment of Dayton Youth Radio's Teens In Quarantine miniseries, Fairmont High School students Blake Leach and Timmy Lien talk about life during the coronavirus pandemic.
Timmy Lien
The work online is definitely more reasonable than in class, which I am thankful for. But when I'm done, there is not really anything else to do. I cook sometimes, I can follow recipe, but my diet hasn't really changed since the lockdown.
The only contact I get is mostly just my cat Blitzen. So I'm either playing with him or playing video games with the boys.
I'm Timmy Lin, I'm 17 and live in Kettering. I live with my mom half the time and dad the other half. My dad Eric is a mailman, and my mom Sherry is a stay at home mom. I have two sisters, Hannah, who's 22, and Natalie, she's twenty three. I'm worried about my dad and sister, Hannah, who are mail carriers, and as you know, they work outside and visit a good amount of homes a day.
I don't see much of them anymore since Natalie got married and moved to Denver, and Hannah is just working and living on her own. I really didn't think about how empty the house would be until Natalie's last year of high school when she graduated.
My dad taught me how to ride dirt bikes when I was 7 and gave me his old Honda Shadow at 15 and a half when I got my temps, and I've been on the road ever since. To me, this is an outlet for stress, anxiety, etc.
I am also a rower at the Dean Boat Club. I started rowing last summer when my mom signed me up for rowing camp. I didn't know about it, so she just dropped me off and I really didn't even know what it was in the first place. I did the fall season on the novice team where I was the oldest by three years.
When I found out school was closing, I was happy. Who hasn't wished for no class? But you have to be careful what you wish for. With no school comes no friends, and with no friends, I'm losing my mind.
This scenario did mess up my plans to have my friend Louis come from France to stay with me. He was an exchange student last year and still one of my closest friends even being 4000 plus miles away.
I really hate being the only kid left at home. Things are definitely more uneventful. If you still live with brothers or sisters, cherish that. It's not forever, and it's gone before you realize it.
Blake Leach
My name is Blake Leach. I am 17 years old, and I live in Kettering, Ohio with my mother, Darlene, and my father Ian. I have two brothers, Kendrix, who is 10 years old and Parker who is 14.
Let's be honest, all of us are sleeping in now that we don't have to go to school at 6:00 in the morning. My brothers, they stay up all night. One time they didn't wake up until like 4:00 in the afternoon. Our parents really monitor us because they want us to succeed, and they feel like this is no time to slack off especially now that I take the interactive media course for my high school. I want to be a film director.
The environment at school would be better for me. I feel I'm not learning. And I feel I'm not getting the experience I need and the proper environment that I was getting in school. I think after all this is over and done with, our kids in the future will look back and be like, Man, that must have been awesome. And they would say, I wish our schools closed and we got to stay home by video games all day and do whatever we wanted.
If they said this, I would just give them the truth that they can't fully grasp what some people may be going through at this time. For many people, it just keeps getting worse. Some people get sick. Some people are out of money.
The struggle is that only one of my parents can work right now because the other's work is closed down. I feel comfortable talking about this. It's a real life situation and I know many people like me are also going through this.
The hardest part through this quarantine is that there's not been much to do. You've been locked up in your houses. I feel the time is very valuable and that it shouldn't be wasted, not one second of it.
I just want people to stay positive. I want them to just think about all the good times, not the hard times and the bad times. Just think about what you're going to be doing when this is over, hanging out with your friends, and everything will be back to normal soon.
Timmy Lien and Blake Leach are juniors at Kettering Fairmont High School. Special thanks to Laura Hutchens. Dayton Youth Radio is supported by the Virginia W. Kettering Foundation, the Vectren Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council.
This story was created at the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO.