Chantilly Key Club Stories: Interesting/Important Moments This Year

Shruthika Suddala

Social interaction is a very important part of my life and my friends mean everything to me. During the 2019–2020 school year, I was an active participant in many clubs and activities which led to staying in school all day for most days of the week. I was having an incredible first year of high school and was experiencing many new and exciting things, but it came to a stop as COVID-19 grew. I thought quarantine was going to be an opportunity to relax at home with virtual school and have the time to relax as the school year was coming to an end, but it was completely the opposite. As the duration of quarantine grew longer and longer, my life got more boring and sluggish. For more than 9 months, I hadn’t gone anywhere outside my community and hadn’t met any of my friends. It was winter break and as the pattern continued, I still hadn’t had the chance to do anything I wanted because of my parent’s worry and carefulness. My parents could see that I was sad and disengaged as I had nothing to do and came up with an idea that piqued my interest. With my birthday on New Year’s coming up, they had decided that I could invite a few of my friends over to celebrate it. I was ecstatic and immediately began to plan it out with my two best friends. We had been talking and video calling each other during all of quarantine and we were so excited to be able to see each other again. I spent New Year’s Eve and the morning spending time with my family. They had given me many chocolates because it was my “Sweet Sixteen” and laptop to make virtual school easier. My older brother also created a video with all of my friends and family saying happy birthday and it was so touching that I cried. In the afternoon, my best friends came over and the first thing we did was talk, sing, and dance. It had been so long and we were so excited to spend the day together. After talking for a long time, we painted pottery, watched TV, played Just Dance, did our nails, and took a lot of pictures. This type of day was an occasional day during the past school year, but since I hadn’t been able to spend time like this with my friends for a long time, it was so memorable and special to me. I hadn’t had this much fun for so long and it was truly incredible!