A Day in the Life
OF A QUARANTINED
COLLEGE STUDENT
by Marina Chiaramonte
Editor’s Note: Marina Chiaramonte is a
graduate of Friends School of Baltimore and
a current student at Barnard College. This
semester, her studies at University of Bologna
were cut short when the coronavirus spread
through northern Italy. She returned to the
United States where she went into self-quaran-
tine for two weeks. This is the diary of one day
during that time.

10:30 a.m. I wake up, roll over to grab my
phone and mindlessly scroll through TikTok,
Instagram and Facebook for about an hour. I
can hear Molly, my fellow quarantiner, rus-
tling around downstairs. For two months, she
and I were college students doing a semester
abroad in Bologna, Italy. As COVID-19 began
to spread, Molly and I watched northern Italy
slowly descend into chaos from our little
apartment. Three weeks ago, when the CDC
issued a Level 3 travel warning for Italy, our
program was canceled and we were forced to
return to the U.S.

Unfortunately, Molly and I were not able
to return home immediately as both my
parents work in hospitals and her father is
immunocompromised. Therefore, we could
not spend our two-week self-quarantine near
our parents. Fortunately, we were able to
rent an Airbnb in Baltimore (my hometown)
for two weeks before returning home.

11:00 a.m. I’m bored of my phone at this
point. I start to stare at the ceiling and my
mind begins to wander. I remember how
naive I was two weeks ago. Sitting on the
plane back from Italy, I brainstormed doz-
ens of things I could do while in quarantine.

14 Washington FAMILY APRIL 2020
I wanted to read so many books, finally start
doing daily yoga, learn to actually cook some-
thing besides pasta, start journaling every
day, research future graduate school pro-
grams and finally finish a game of Monopoly
… the list went on and on. In reality, aside
from catching up on some much-needed
sleep (I’m talking 10-12 hours a night), my
days are generally unproductive, monoto-
nous and tinged with sadness for what was,
but no longer is. Each day I convince myself
that tomorrow will be the day I finally do
something productive (spoiler alert: it never
is). Most days, the most interesting thing I
do is go for a long drive. Thankfully, I have
been able to use my beloved car, “Percy,” an
aging light green 2007 Prius with a barely
functioning sound system. If I wasn’t able
to escape the house and go on drives these
past two weeks, I think I actually would have
actually lost my mind.

11:30 a.m. I hear my phone buzz and I see
a text from Molly saying that she talked
with her parents and decided to fly home
to San Diego tonight, instead of Thursday
like originally planned. Given the rumors
of domestic travel restrictions, this makes
total sense, but the thought of Molly leaving
is overwhelming. Since the beginning, she
and I were in this together.

1 p.m. I sit on an unmade bed watching
Molly hastily pack up all of her things in the
room she and I have been sharing for the
past two weeks. With her half of the unworn
clothes, dirty socks and random moisturizer
bottles packed up, the room looks bleak.

A selfie from quarantine
4 p.m. I realize just in time that today is my
first day of online classes. I scramble to fig-
ure out how Microsoft Teams works, and
once I figure it out, the system crashes from
overuse. Take two. After five minutes, I real-
ize how rusty my Italian is. I’m frustrated
because I haven’t been able to practice
Italian consistently since I got back to the
U.S. The reason I chose the program in
Bologna was for the intensive immersion
experience of living in an Italian-speaking
city with Italian roommates and being
directly enrolled in classes at the Università
di Bologna with other Italian students. In
Baltimore, no one speaks Italian fluently,
and Duolingo just doesn’t cut it. However,
considering that there was a possibility at
one point that I wouldn’t be able to con-
tinue classes or receive any credit for the
semester, I’m grateful for every class I’m
able to be enrolled in, regardless of the
subject matter.

7 p.m. I finish eating dinner. It wasn’t any-
thing fancy, just some pasta and vegetables.

I obviously drank a Corona beer for the
meme. After eating, I sit in my usual spot
on the couch to try to read a book I’ve been