Judah Thomas

Q: How did you get into your current situation?

Okay, so I left [for Florida] the day before I Saturday [over spring break]. The first day, it was supposed to be a week-long trip. Flight got canceled [coming back]. We waited for another three days. Now that’s like canceled I waited another three days, we just decided, you know what, it’s better to stay here
there’s no reason to go home.

Q: You were already in Florida and you were trying to go home, and then your flight got canceled?

Yes, three times. And then we decided to stay because there’s no reason to go home, not going to school. Um, it is now. I think the third week. We’re going into the fourth week tomorrow which is insane. But we have like all my school stuff mailed out here. I got my little office area set up. And I’m just going to flow along with online school like everyone else was but from a different location.

Q: Are you in like a hotel or a house or, who are you with?

My grandpa has a condo out here. It’s pretty spacious it’s able to accompany all four of my family members, although I do have to sleep in a bed with my sister.

Q: What has been hard about this time for you?

For me, I’d say just being stuck with the same people, like, I like. But like this. This shows their true colors and stuff, which I mean I like the true colors but it’s like it’s tough to be around the same people for every day, all the time, like I want some variation in mine. Yeah, in my life.

Q: How are you staying like mentally strong?

I was doing some yoga at the beginning. That was very Zen-like. It was able to keep me in my own mind and keep me healthy. And then also, I’m doing active things like running, biking and working out and stuff like that it’s able to keep me going.

Q: Have you ever done yoga or something like that before?

I tried it but I wasn’t into it but now since there’s like, there’s so much time just for nothing like just kind of fill that time something and yoga is very wonderful.

Q: Do you think you’re gonna continue doing it or stuff like that when you get home?

Yeah so like I feel like I had all this time then I realized that my free time I can spend it doing something more useful than just going on my phone the whole time so I can actually use it to be productive.

Q: Has your family had any like freaking out moments?

I think we’ve all just been mostly just going with the flow like taking it in strides. I think if we were at home I think it would be a lot harder because the temptation to go with friends and stuff like that. I would be real mad if my parents wouldn’t let me go out with friends. But since I’m here there’s nowhere to go out to so we’ve all just been taking it in stride.

Q: Has your trip been surprisingly good after you heard that you won’t come back? How did you hide your perspective change?

At first I was kind of mad because I wanted to go home to see my friends but now that no one can go out it’s been nice just the weather is like very relaxing all the time but it’s much nicer to be in 80 degree weather and have a pool outside than being like, 5060 degree weather and just be stuck inside so  I’m able to go outside and like that’s really helpful just be here and be able to go outside rather than just be stuck inside.

Q: Say that you had to say for another three weeks, how do you think that would affect your mental?

Okay, I feel like I would definitely start to go a little crazy because I need to talk to people. I need like real human connections outside of my family. But, I mean, the weather would still be nice but I’m missing my ps4 and I miss my bed so.