The pursuit of passion

Kiana George

The typical routine of a high school student tends to be an on going cycle of long, monotonous days that consist of the same activities: going to school, doing homework, maybe an extracurricular sport or activity, doing more homework, sleeping, and then repeating this process all over again. This vigorous cycle eventually desensitizes students to their interests because their whole existence revolves around achieving good grades and juggling activities, leaving little or no time to dive deeper into their passions.

But when the pandemic hit, that same monotonous routine became a muddled blur as everyone sheltered in place. Students didn’t have to physically be in school six to seven hours a day. Sports teams, clubs, churches, and volunteer organizations were put on pause. Events were cancelled, stores shut down, and socializing was discouraged. Suddenly, there was more time than ever before for students to discover more about themselves and the world around them.

When the whole world went into shutdown, one door opened: the time to pursue passions.

Veer Juneja, a junior at Bellarmine High School, took the pandemic as an opportunity to put his love for education and politics into action. At the beginning of quarantine, Juneja and his four friends created Empowering Youth Action (EYA) with a mission to inform their peers about important issues and advocate for social reform through local projects.

EYA’s very first project was called “Voices during the Virus,” in which they raised money for a non-profit that made masks for medical professionals. Their group was able to raise $11,000 for doctors across the Bay, and were even recognized by the UN youth envoy for their accomplishments.

In the beginning of quarantine, EYA was a small, singular group. Now, they have grown into eight chapters, including one at Carlmont, with over 100 members.

Juneja said they wouldn’t have been able to do this without the pandemic, “The virus cancelled all my soccer practices and games so I had a lot more free time. Without the stress of school, extracurriculars, and sports, I was able to use this extra time to create EYA.”

Not all students did something as extensive as Juneja. Many students took up simple passions to fuel their personal happiness.

Meghan Bhatt, a senior at Carlmont, began making all kinds of elaborate cakes over quarantine as a relaxing and de-stressing hobby.

Bhatt believes that baking was a positive way to pass time when seeing other people was not an option.

“During quarantine, my passion for baking grew because I had more free time to explore new things I have never done before,” Bhatt said. “I had never attempted to make cakes before because I thought they looked too complicated and time consuming, but now it’s become one of my favorite things to make.”

Similar to Bhatt, Valentina Espinosa, a junior at Carlmont, also took up a new hobby during quarantine: surfing.

“Since quarantine happened during the summer, my sister, dad, and I had much more time and the beaches were mostly empty, so I was able to go surfing almost every weekend” Espinosa said.

Espinosa believed that quarantine was the opening gate to a new passion that she now enjoys doing on a weekly basis. “I would of never had enough time to surf if quarantine had happened because the beaches are always packed like my schedule, but now surfing is one of my favorite activities and I love the rush you get from it,” Espinosa said.

The silver lining of the pandemic has been that students have had a chance to step back from the exhaustion of school and their social life, and move forward by tapping into their passions, learning more about themselves and their ability to make an impact in the world around them.