“We had a competition with my two sisters to come up with something that represented a selfie,” ninth grader Owen Soccorso said. “And I chose a scrapbook with different clippings from magazines, and then I thought it was fun, so I kept doing it.”
Soccorso has been using the stay-at-home order to learn scrapbooking, the art of pasting pieces of magazine, string and whatever else one wants into a notebook. Some pages of her scrapbook are based on TV shows she has been watching, and some pages use magazine clippings that she stores for this purpose.
“It’s helped me be more calm because it’s very relaxing,” Soccorso said. “Put everything on the page… Also, it’s really interesting to think up things and share them with my friends.”
Soccorso is not the only East student using this time to learn new hobbies.
“To me, calligraphy is a way to beautify words and phrases which makes it more memorable,” ninth grader Sandy Zhou said. “It is also very calming when I’m stressed, and it has an overall good look to it.”
Zhou learned calligraphy during the stay-at-home order, and has been using it when she makes cards for hospitalized children. She says that calligraphy makes her cards more interesting. These cards go to hospitalized children through a program run by the East Chapel Hill FCCLA club.
Zhou has used YouTube tutorials and practice templates to learn both Copperplate Script and Italic Hand styles of calligraphy, but she has generally been using a style of calligraphy which she refers to as “more modern.”
Sophomore Anna Kosinski has also gained a new hobby during this time.
“I wanted new clothes but we couldn’t go anywhere and I had a lot of scrap fabric that I needed to do something with,” Kosinki said.
Kosinski has been using the stay-at-home order to learn sewing, using a needle, thread, and fabric scraps that she has been saving up over time.
While she has previously done embroidery, Kosinski has taught herself to sew, using some videos and articles but figuring out a lot of how it goes herself. She began during the stay-at-home order and has already made five shirts, a dress, some alterations to pre-existing clothes, and is working on a dress and jacket set.
Kosinski says sewing is “just something fun to do in my free time, also, a good way to change up what clothes I have in my closet, without actually having to spend any money.”
All these students have used the time given to them by the coronavirus crisis to learn new hobbies. While their hobbies and reasons are different, all felt that their hobbies had in some way helped them during this time.
Main image courtesy of Sandy Zhou.
