During a time of adjustment to the lack of a school, sophomore Maya Pope has developed a new rhythm. Though she was already a naturally organized person, she saw this time away from school as an opportunity to get even more organized and in a routine. 

“I’ve always enjoyed sticking to a schedule and being really organized, so it just made sense to me to create a plan for these couple weeks,” Pope said. 

Even though the time off school is due to what she believes is a negative reason, Pope has had a positive outlook on the situation.

“I think it’s scary that so many places have had to close down due to the virus but, I know that it’s important to practice social distancing because even though I might not get affected by it, I wouldn’t want to give it to someone that’s more at risk than I am,” Pope said. “I really enjoy staying organized and having a set plan for each day, so I’ve been having a pretty positive experience so far.”

Pope’s ideal daily schedule consists mainly of keeping up with her schoolwork and maintaining her dance training. So far, she has been sticking to her ideal schedule.

“My ideal daily schedule is to wake up and get ready for the day at 8:00 am, then workout, after that I check google classroom and do my schoolwork for the day. I’ve been deep cleaning my room so I’ll try to do one section of it each day, next a lot of professional dancers are livestreaming classes since normal dance classes are canceled so I’ll take one or two classes a day. After that I’m trying to go back and review a lot of the content that I learned in the first semester so that I can truly understand it and make sure that I remember everything for when finals and other tests come up. Next, I do all of my physical therapy exercises,” Pope said. “I’m coming back from some injuries right now so it’s really important that I keep up with my strength and make sure that I’m taking care of my body. After I finish all of that I like to spend time with my family since I get to see them all a lot more often now. My brother is home from college and my parents are both teachers so they are also home all day.”

Each day, in an absence of in-person dance classes, Pope prioritizes dancing and doing exercises on her own.  

“The most important things to do daily for me are probably doing my physical therapy exercises because I haven’t enjoyed being injured and having to sit out of dance class, so it’s really important to me to keep up with all the exercises I have to do to prevent getting injured again,” Pope said. “Spending time with my family is also really important for me because I’m so thankful that my family is healthy and I get to be with them.”

When Pope goes back to school, she still plans to keep a routine, but will have to revert back to her normal schedule.

“When this break ends I’ll probably go back to my normal schedule,” Pope said. “I take a lot of dance classes outside of school so the time that I spend at home has to be planned out so that I make sure that I’m staying on top of my grades and taking care of my body since I dance and exercise a lot.”

Out of all the things planned each day, Pope looks forward to her online dance classes. Since all of her in-person dance classes have been cancelled for the year, she has had to find other methods of dancing each day.

“Even though I can’t go to normal dance class, a lot of professional dancers/teachers are livestreaming classes that you can take at home,” Pope said. “Dancing also helps me forget about all of the scary stuff that is happening right now in the world and I can finally dance without pain so it’s very exciting.”