Author: Wala Nagi

UNIT III_Wala Nagi

REVISION

April 1st, 2020

Dear Diary,

Happy April fools day!! Now what better way to start the day than with pranks? I’m called the clown in the house because I tend to have too much fun compared to my other siblings. They’re too serious for me so I crank it up a bit with some laughter. 

My family is obsessed with soda and I’m talking OBSESSED! My mom would literally go to her weekly grocery shopping for snacks and all that good stuff and she wouldn’t come home without bottles and bottles of soda. My mom would hide them after putting the groceries away because we’d go through a soda bottle not in a day but in 2 hours. During dinner time, I heard my brothers screaming for soda, so I quickly ran to get it and poured in 2 tablespoons of salt. It wasn’t out of evilness but it was just for fun I guess. I didn’t add much for the whole soda to go to waste, I added salt per each cup served. My oldest brother automatically knew something was up because I was laughing the whole time so he just sniffed it and put it aside. My younger brother chugged the hell out of it and didn’t say a word and I thought to myself  “what the hell, did I not put enough salt??” So I ignored it and went to my last victim and it was by far the funniest one. I watched him pick the glass of soda up and take a sip and he looked confused at first as his eyebrows raised then gave it another shot and went in for a bigger sip and spit it back out and yelled out “IS THIS EXPIRED SODA WHY IS IT BITTER” and ran to check the date on the soda bottle. I couldn’t hold my laugh any longer and just dropped to the floor. He tried to force me to sip from the salty soda and chased me throughout the house. APRIL FOOOOOOLS!! 

April 2nd – 6th, 2020

Dear diary, 

I’m sorry for not updating you on what’s going on and to tell you the truth I’ve been obsessed with this turkish show that my friend begged me to watch. 

It’s all about Miran (main boy character) seeking revenge for his parents. He plans to marry the daughter Reyyan (main girl character) of the family who were responsible for the death of his parents. But he was aiming revenge at the wrong people due to the lies his grandmother built into his head ever since he was a young boy. Unexpectedly he falls in love with Reyyan and the whole plan is ruined, leaving his grandmother upset. 

They are 39 episodes and it’s 2 hours long per episode. My sister and I are on episode 26 and are by far obsessed. We wake up watching the show and sleep till 3am going to bed with our blood boiling because, each episode ending always leaves us speechless.

The good old Anne Frank Diary. Brings me back to high school days when I was assigned to read it but was never actually reading it if you know what I mean. But as I’m re-reading it, I’m picking up the pedals of information my brain had not paid attention to. 

There are many important messages in this book, but the most important message is that all people have the right to live in freedom. Anne’s story shows us that just because people may be a different religion or race, doesn’t mean that they should be treated differently. The terrible treatment of Jewish people during the war has shown this. Her diary shows us things that people don’t think about now, for example how every day the people in hiding worry about being found and punished. Anne was an ordinary girl, growing up, and eventually dying, but she was an ordinary girl growing up in extraordinary times. She loved life and laughter, was interested in history and movie stars, Greek mythology, and cats, writing, and boys. 

I liked that Anne was a really happy and cheerful person even though she and her family were in an awful situation. Anne enjoyed writing and describing others. She was talkative and inquisitive and could be selfish. She was a typical teenage girl and she didn’t always understand how difficult life was for her mother and the other adults around her. She commented on the people who shared their hiding space. Sometimes this wasn’t very nice, but it shows how everybody’s life was challenging because they had to be quiet and not bring attention to themselves. When reading Anne Frank’s diary, it’s possible to feel both intrusive and honored at the same time. You are, after all, reading a girl’s diary, in which she has clearly entrusted all of her most private feelings and thoughts and that’s my writing strategy, a book in which keeps a daily record of events and experiences. 

Spring 2020 in New York City

Wala Nagi 1121- D402

March 23rd, 2020

Dear Diary,

It’s Monday, I woke up very moody. 6:00am, my psychology midterm needed to be taken. 50 questions all required to be done in an hour which is beyond ridiculous.. I didn’t even get to finish some questions which I’m very upset about and my computer kept lagging. My professor prefers us to call him when a situation happens and it was around 6:44am and I had a feeling he wasn’t up but we’re talking about my midterm right now so I didn’t care. But surprisingly, he’s an early bird. 

Me; “Hey professor, it’s Wala Nagi, I was taking the midterm and a lag had happened and the whole website froze and I’m not sure what to do.”

 Professor S; “I can’t help you right now just do what you can do” *beep beep beep*…I know he didn’t just hang up on me. RUDE. So much for online classes right!! There were two parts to the exam, the first part was 30 multiple choice, to the garbage by the way.. and part 2 was 20 short answers, my anxiety was over 10000 praying it won’t lag again because if it did, my professor would think I’m cheating, which I wasn’t. 

8:00am comes and I get an email from my professor; “Here’s a redo for part 1 and I apologize for the lag and hope it doesn’t happen again. I hope all is well.” I kind of forgave him for hanging up on me 🙂 I took the test again, submitted it, and went right back to sleep.

March 24th, 2020

About the coronavirus situation, I know beforehand I said it all seems like crap, but around 12:10pm, my father received a phone call from a friend, telling him a friend they both know was tested positive for the coronavirus. My father was in complete shock. I think it all comes to feel so surreal when a person you know is affected by the cause (me right now). He’s in the hospital connected to a bunch of machines, a ventilator being one of them. No visitors are allowed to see him. My dad came to my siblings and I and said “we have to take this seriously, no one is allowed to go out, drink after anyone, or have a conversation unless you are 3 feet away from each other.” It honestly feels like the clouds in the sky aren’t white anymore, the stars aren’t glistening and the air feels dangerous to inhale now. I pray for better days and for this all goes away. 

3:31pm and I’m probably on my 4th meal of the day. Shrimp tacos with tortilla chips dipped in homemade guacamole. *YUM* Quarantine made me realize a lot, let alone not realizing how much I eat in a day now. I was never an outside person, an early bird, a person to spend the whole day outside, so this “lockdown” to me is amazing. I don’t ever have to leave my bed unless chores need to be done or my stomach needs a filling.  

However, now that I’m told I can’t be out, my body has this sense of craving to want to do the opposite. I don’t know if it’s just me but if being told to do something, wanting to do the exact opposite sounds so much better to me. #sorrynotsorry. 

March 25th, 2020

After the incident with my father’s friend catching the virus, he decided to lock all the doors because, knowing the sons he has, they don’t care if there’s a hurricane right in front of the house or whatever the case may be, they always find a way to be outside. I have three brothers, but with this lock down, I feel like I’m surrounded by 17 of them. One is always screaming they’re hungry, the other is maybe throwing a pillow at someone, having to clean the house more than 4 times within the same hour, and the last one has the TV on the highest volume. All these distractions, making it hard for me to do my homework. 

When they first announced that classes will be held online for the rest of the semester, I couldn’t bare on how blessing it felt. Knowing I can do it all at home.. my favorite place. I didn’t think this virus was that big of a deal and I still don’t think it is, but to see how it was able to shut down almost the world, was honestly very shocking. Who knew a virus that has the same symptoms as the flu was going to be handled as a hurricane hitting our city. I came across a video on instagram, a lady, lets call her lady #1, was hunting for toilet paper and couldn’t find any, then coming across lady #2, realizing her cart is filled with the toilet papers as she had taken all of it. So when lady #2 wasn’t looking, lady #1 took one and lady #2 along with the members she was with, beat her to death. I don’t think you know how much of a disgusting world we live in and how I feel like the media drives these people insane. Toilet paper? Really? I hope April 1st comes and the government pulls a “April fools” on us cuz this is all seems like a joke. As for me, I’ve been bored out of my mind staying home all day doing nothing. The last time I went out was yesterday, since last week. I saw this coffee trend on tik tok and needed some ingredients from Walgreens. Just two steps, three ingredients and after one taste.. Starbucks who? ( by the way I’m on my second cup 😉 ) I honestly don’t feel productive anymore compared to how I used to feel when coming to actual class by my own two feet. This blessing feels like a set up. It’s more responsibility and easy for me I feel like, to be held accountable for missing anything. It feels more so of being finished with the semester than it is online classes. There’s no more ability to do anything when staying home rather than to just eat, catch up on TV shows and sleep.

Before this coronavirus became a thing, I noticed how people used to be rather than how they’re starting to act. I watch how people react to a simple sneeze now, beforehand it was a battle on who was going to scream out “god bless you”, now you see people take 7 steps back from the person. Yesterday my dad came home with masks and this was not the original blue mask you see everyone wearing, it was the ones a construction builder would wear and I called him crazy. He told me if I weren’t to wear it, I’m not going to school and to me that didn’t sound bad but then again, education comes first. When ebola happened, everyone was reacting the same way but this time, worse. Like do you really think a 7oz hand sanitizer can cure it? No I didn’t think so. But everyone should be cautious because it is spreading pretty fast. Stay clean, sanitized, and careful. But don’t let this virus make you crazy like half the world has became.