FACING the fear of the unknown through the COVID-19 pandemic left a local year 12 student “scared” and “stressed” about her senior year, which she was told was going to be the best of her life.
Renmark High School year 12 student Ebony Martinson was looking forward to 2020, however everything turned upside-down when the world was hit with COVID-19 in March.
“I think everyone was scared at the beginning because towards the end of term 1 we didn’t even know if we would come back to school after the holidays,” Ebony said.
“Not only did we have schoolwork on our mind, we were worried about losing our part-time jobs and missing out on big school events, such as prom and Schoolies.
“I work part-time at Foodland and instead of losing my job like I thought, I got lots of hours so I had to find a good balance with my studies and work.
“I was lucky to be given lots of support through online learning and all my friends were going through the same thing so we had each other to talk to.”
Ebony said she found online learning at the end of term 1 to be “difficult”.
“Online learning was hard because we
couldn’t ask the teacher a question and get an instant face-to-face answer, we had to wait for a reply,” she said.
“Isolation wasn’t so bad though because it was during a time when we weren’t as loaded with work. We were still learning so we could read and study on our own.”
Ebony said she felt “disappointed” when prom was postponed.
“Prom was the one thing that all year 12s were excited about, as we had been let down by many events during the year: interschool sports, Adelaide sports day and a few Knockout Cups,” she said.
“It was upsetting because it was something we had looked forward to since the start of the year and could get more excited about it after exams, only for it to be taken away just as quick.”
Ebony said she had to cancel a number of appointments when prom got postponed.
“When we got the email saying prom had been postponed, I was so stressed as a million things went through my mind,” she said.
“I had to change my make-up and hair appointment, spray tans and nail appointment.
“The stressful thing was ‘what if I can’t get into my make-up artist and hairdresser on those days?’.
“(But) I was lucky enough to have an amazing make-up artist and hairdresser who rearranged their appointments for the days for myself and a few other girls to fit us in.”
Ebony said she missed out on other significant social events.
“I was planning to go to Schoolies but I knew deep down at the beginning of the year it probably wouldn’t go ahead,” she said.
“My group of friends then decided to go to Robe for the weekend instead so we booked two Airbnbs, but they unfortunately got cancelled also.
“We then found apartments in Glenelg for a little getaway but South Australia then went into lockdown so we had to cancel that too.
“This year, myself and many of my friends also turned 18 and all our parties were unable to go ahead.
“We were disappointed that we couldn’t have our final interschool sports day, we couldn’t all go out every Saturday and watch local footy together and netball was also cancelled.
“It was hard to stay positive but we still got to have a senior year and we’ve been luckier than some across the nation.”