Life During Lockdown Part 7: Finding New Habits / Rediscovering the Joy of Drawing

Photo: Anna Snisarenko

Finding New Habits

By XINYI HUANG

At the beginning of quarantine, as I looked around my room, I felt completely suffocated. There was really not much space for a teenager like me to do anything fun or active (though of course I might have been making excuses for being lazy). In any case, I chose to spend my first month of quarantine being completely unproductive: no yoga, no exercising, and no reading for a total of 30 days. This fit me perfectly. I am not a social person, more of a natural layabout.

One day deep into my lazy month, one of my friends texted me to tell me that she was going to exercise regularly and start a diet. I cracked up at the thought of losing weight during quarantine. But after the second day, the third day, and the fourth day, as she kept texting me to let me know she had been maintaining her plans, I finally stepped on the scale: 132 pounds. I decided I had to do something, and it had to be now! I took out my dust-covered yoga mat and turned on one of those cliché “how to lose belly fat in 15 minutes” videos.

It was hard to do even one crunch. But I remembered the time I did 70 sit ups in weigh-training class without a frown, and those memories urged me to use all my force to do my crunches. After I finished 20, I switched to dead bugs.

The consequence of doing full-power workouts after one month of being a bum was the feeling of having broken joints and ripped muscles on the next day, but I have been maintaining the workout at a frequency of three times a week. Additionally, I have begun calculating my calorie intake. During eighth grade, I attempted to make exercising and dieting a habit, but I failed. This time, I want to keep this habit for life.

Next up was playing guitar and learning all about music. I see myself as a romantic person, and one of my most dreamy visions is sitting next to a campfire in the middle of a journey around the world, playing the guitar under a starry night. This vision has been lingering in my dreams since my childhood. Ever since I bought my guitar in eighth grade, I have struggled to keep it up, with only a little time to play squeezed from my daily routine.

Therefore, lockdown was the perfect opportunity for me to pick up the habit again. I practice whenever I am bored of being online and watching reality shows. Every time I pick a string I feel like I am a step closer to my dream. I’m proud after I play a section and I feel great after I play a song from its beginning to the end. I learned to play guitar independently, and I am not an outstanding player, but I enjoy every little improvement I make. Recently, I had an exciting moment when I played my first F chord. After getting layers of calluses, I finally played that difficult chord that once made me feel I should give up on my campfire dream.

I will never stop playing guitar, not only because it is part of my romantic visions, but also because music has become a part of my life. I know it sounds stereotypical, but I cannot stand even one day without listening to music. I hum to myself in the shower, I play it next to my pillow to fall asleep, and I need it right now to concentrate on writing this feature.

I wish everyone could go through this pandemic productively and enjoy the moments of rest from the daily routine. The days are different, but in another way they are the same because everyone is in this together. If your life feels dull and suffocating, how about some new habits?

Rediscovering the Joy of Drawing

By ABENI CHEN

Drawing was a big part of my childhood.

My mom was an artist and architect, so she would buy my sister and I lots of art supplies, crayons, markers, and books that teach you how to draw. At first, I would just copy what they had in the books: easy to draw cars, helicopters, flowers, and people, picking a theme and adding simple backgrounds like a road, sun, and trees. My skills weren’t that good, and all my drawings looked very 2-D, but they were vivid and colorful.

As I grew up, after I got my first phone iPhone and iPad, the hobby of drawing slowly began to fade away. Video games and mobile games became my only form of entertainment. For many years, I didn’t touch a marker. But everything has changed since the quarantine.

In the first week, I was immersed in video gaming: PUBG, League of Legends, Overwatch, and Animal Crossing. I spent hours and hours on each game every day. But I grew tired of the continuous playing quicker than I thought, and suddenly, I was out of entertainment. 

That was when the idea of drawing came to me. I stood up from my bed and looked for some number two pencils and white paper. I went online to search for pictures of different art styles for inspiration and came across a video of an artist drawing a whole face in one line. I was amazed by how easy it looked and the finished artwork. It looked fancy and clean.   

Artwork by Abeni Chen

My first try at a face was a major fail. My lines looked rigid, and the face looked deformed; its proportions were off. “What are you drawing?” my sister asked. I was embarrassed by what I drew, but I acted like I didn’t care. “Nothing,” I said. “I was just bored.” 

As the doors closed, I started drawing again and practicing drawing in one line, and as I got the hang of it, I started to enjoy it more. I had forgotten that drawing was so fun. 

As the structure of the face came out, the lines looked smooth. I was finally satisfied with what I drew. I took my drawings out and showed them to my grandmother, who was sitting in the living room watching TV. “What do you think?” I said in Chinese. “It looks quite good,” she said, “but maybe the line over here can be curved more.” I was happy and quickly went back to my room and fixed the line.

Quarantine was a special time to me, as it made me rediscover the joy of drawing, the time spent quietly in my room, focusing on only one thing. I never thought I would draw again, as school and work fills my time during the weekdays, and weekends are spent on gaming and going outside with my friends. 

In the future, I will try to draw more and balance my time out better. That’s what I will take away from this lockdown.