Virus sees students facing a new class of challenge

Xiang Xie, Grade three arts student at No 1 Middle School Affiliated to Central China Normal University

I felt both happy and anxious when the school announced that the winter vacation would start earlier, on Jan 20. One-third of my classmates wore masks that day, and the price of each N95 mask rose to 40 yuan ($5.70) at the local store.

I only brought home the books I needed for the winter vacation assignments. No one expected that we wouldn't go back to school for quite a while.

On the day Wuhan was sealed off, I saw lots of comments on social media stigmatizing Wuhan people as "selfish", "zombies", and "can't hold their mouths" (unable to control their desire for unusual foods).

I refuted each one. It is annoying and biased to judge a whole community by the actions of a single person.

Online classes can sometimes be interesting. Our math teacher, who is stuck in a rural area without Wi-Fi, has to borrow a signal from his neighbor. His classes are accompanied by the noise of crows. The geography teacher sent three smiling emojis in reply to my question, which was a real departure from her usual image.

I have focused on the exam papers to ease my anxiety. My eyes hurt after staring at the computer screen for such a long time.