As we all know Otago Boys' High School has a rich history in Dunedin which has been well recorded. We wanted to continue this by capturing stories of our school community’s time in lockdown in New Zealand and around the world. The first of our collection was submitted by our Head Boy, Angus Henderson.

Lockdown has been a dump into the deep end. The lives of everyone, including myself, have been uprooted for the past 43 days (47 including the long weekend). There have been some interesting upsides and downsides from this. With learning being shifted completely online, work becomes so much more independent. Everything you have wanted to change about the school day you can! Want to sleep in? Sure go ahead, just be at the 10 am zoom video call and finish your maths assignment. School has become so much simpler in this way, it's purely what you have to do, rather than all the other stuff in between.

I have developed the best routine of my life from this as I don't have to worry about any extra-curricular activities and pressures. I just get up, follow the school timetable, eat, go for a run, work out, get up some basketball shots, then watch Netflix and play a board/card game with my family.

It's not all sleep-ins and PJs to school though. So many significant events in my year and life have been uprooted. Our shave for a cure event, although raising $12,700, had to be completed online. This made it feel disjointed and I believe we could have raised more if we had completed it at school. Numerous sports tournaments cancelled, meetups with friends from out of town postponed indefinitely, and my own 18th birthday celebrated with just my family. It’s helped me, and everyone I know, appreciate the time spent connecting with others in person. No video call, Snapchat or text can replace that. We all cannot wait to go and give our best mates a big old hug.

It's such an odd time to be alive, but the wheels have kept turning. There will be immense economic impacts that will last several years, however, some of these costs will be offset by just how much we have all learnt and grown over the past several weeks.

Angus Henderson
Head Boy 2020

7/05/2020