During this quarantine, I’ve procrastinated on many things I should have done (*cough* AP Lit assignments), but also accomplished a lot of new things I’ve always wanted to do. When quarantine first started, I was bored out of my mind, desperately wanted to go outside, and just felt like my daily life was unfulfilling. But now, I wake up every afternoon (terrible sleep schedule haha) excited to spend my day, whether it’s wanting to try a new recipe I found, tie-dye more clothes, or binge-watch more shows. So if you are bored at home, I hope that you can find inspiration for new activities to do from this blog post!
I started an Instagram account called @yumsbymelissa at the beginning of April to post all of the baked goods and desserts I’ve made. I wanted to document everything instead of having the pictures disappear after twenty-four hours on my Snapchat story. But I also wanted my new account to be as funny and professional as it could be so I made a profile picture of me photoshopped as a chef, put a link in my bio to all the recipes I used and tweaked for each food creation I posted (always cite your sources!), and organized my highlight stories to contain my cooking, while the actual posts were all baking. Making the photoshopped profile picture was such a hilarious experience, I used a photo editor app to cut out a picture of my head, paste it on a colorful galaxy background, carefully place stars around my head, and add a chef’s hat sticker on top of my head. So far, I have posted pictures of various desserts I’ve made, from French macarons to creme brulee to baked Alaska to layered cakes for me and my friends’ birthdays. Having an account (finsta/spam or a hobby one like mine) other than your main one can be easier and more enjoyable to maintain since you don’t have to worry about posting too often or making your posts “Insta-worthy” to maximize likes, it’s more for yourself so you can just have fun with it!
Another fun thing I did was I tie-dyed a t-shirt, socks, and hoodie! The inspiration for this came from TikTok (yes I am just a tad bit addicted), as I saw the new tie-dye clothing trend being worn by countless social media stars. I did some research online, got a tie-dye kit with the primary colors for a discounted price of just $5 from Michaels, ordered a large, white hoodie on Amazon, and quickly got to work! I had tie-dyed a few times before, but the colors never turned out vibrant enough or the pattern was a little messy. The first round of tie-dye I did was not as successful as it could have been (I used one pair of socks and an old t-shirt), since the colors were too light due to the overwatering I did with the powder dye. But then I dyed the shirt a second time using a more potent purple and blue, and even though I was worried the dye looked too dark, the colors turned out perfect after rinsing the dye out. Out of all the clothing items I dyed, the most challenging project was the hoodie. The heavy fabric made it difficult to twist the hoodie into a spiral and hold it together so I had to use old shoestrings instead of rubber bands. Using multiple colors on the hoodie (5 instead of just 2 for the other items) was tricky because the dye tended to squirt or spill in places I didn’t want it to go to, like spots of green in the designated magenta area. But overall, I was very happy with the results and it was a fun three days that brought me back to my “arts and crafts” days as a kid.
The third fun activity that I did during quarantine was binge-watch really addicting tv shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime. One of the craziest things I’ve ever done in my life was about a month ago when I watched the Korean drama, Crash Landing On You, from start to finish, in 23 and a half hours with my mom. It felt like I was running a cross country race! I started off around 7 pm feeling fine in the first few episodes, then began to struggle to stay awake during episodes 8 to 13, then felt very determined to finish the show by powering through the last 3 episodes and finished around 6 pm the next day. When I finished the last episode, my eyes were puffy from crying and I had a small mountain, about 6 inches tall, of snotty toilet paper I had blown my nose with. This k-drama was unlike any other show I’ve watched, it’s a story about a South Korean woman and a North Korean man whose worlds collide in their seemingly impossible circumstances. Their forbidden love is challenged by the societal “rules” of the two Koreas and questions whether fate/destiny is real. The heart-wrenching plot had put me through an emotional rollercoaster. I grew attached to the main characters, celebrated their happy times, and bawled my eyes out when the unfairness of life prevented the lovers from being together (I did not spoil the ending), those storylines always seem to get to me! So I recommend Crash Landing On You to everyone, even if you don’t understand Korean (my mom and I didn’t either!), you can just watch using the English subtitles. The episodes are about an hour-long each and you don’t have to watch it straight through like I did, but it’s definitely a show that will be worth your time!
Out of the many fun things I’ve done so far during quarantine, I picked the top three most memorable experiences to share with you all, in hopes of inspiring people who are running out of activities to do. So if you want to cure your boredom, I recommend that you try creating an Instagram to document a hobby, tie-dyeing your white clothes, or watching Crash Landing On You!