By Johnathan Lim Yang Kai (23S03M)
A guide to staying positive while testing positive.
As the former President of the United States, Donald Trump once said, “If we stop testing, we’d have fewer (reported) cases.”
Personally, I love the intuitive logic of that statement. After all, what happens if we want to be responsible and test for COVID-19? We run the risk of testing positive!
And what if you test COVID-19 positive? Chaos ensues.
Between countless “Get well soon!”s from friends and family and the mounting regret for your audacious decision to test, you may wonder: now what?
Now What?
You cannot go to school. You may feel like you are two blinks away from death (especially if you haven’t taken the booster vaccine).
Faced with the impending doom of having to catch up after you recover, you try to do work. But between coughing your lungs out and your 39°C fever, you end up… not doing it.
You end up becoming a useless, filthy, unproductive member of society.
How dare you? What are you going to tell your future employer now? That you didn’t work for 7 days in JC?
To help you make the most out of this time, here’s some advice from a useless, filthy, unproductive member of society who dared to test positive when he was two weeks behind on lectures.
Follow these three simple steps to capitalise on the “positive” in testing COVID-19 positive.
- Gaslight
- Gatekeep
- (Girl)boss
1. Gaslight
Everyone thinks you are having a hard time with COVID-19 (and you are), so it’s only fair you take advantage of that.
- Guilt-trip your friends
“If you were really my friend, you would buy me coconut juice when it mattered”.
Are they really your friends if they don’t help you when you need it? Besides, you are giving them the opportunity to experience the joy of helping. Really, you are doing them a favour.
- Play the sympathy card
“Sir/Mam, could you give me an extension please? Perhaps an indefinite one?”
More often than not, you’re not the only one worried about not being able to catch up. And your tutors and classmates often want to help you.
Take advantage of them for being foolish enough to pity and go the extra mile for you. Get your tutor to upload that online version of the notes, make your PW group do your part for you—after all, they will look bad if they don’t.
2. Gatekeep
- Form an alliance
Whether it’s people you coughed on or those who just happen to have COVID-19 at the same time, it helps to form your own community.
It’s important to give mutual encouragement: for example, reinforcing each other on how everyone else is also a net negative to society, and so you all feel just a little better.
3. Girlboss
- Take a break
Emphasis on “a break” because the entirety of your isolation period should be one long rest. Since you don’t have to do work, don’t do it.
Take these rare 7 (or less) days to practice self-care, because it is not often you have a valid reason to do so. After all, taking a break without a legitimate excuse is despicable!
What a hassle, right?
Three is just too many things to take note of. Testing positive for COVID-19 sounds incredibly troublesome and painful (it is). Besides, how dare you test positive for COVID-19 when you’re supposed to be slaving away at work!
Why not just skip the hassle and just don’t test?
This article is a work of satire. Please be responsible and don’t resist testing, and take care to rest well if you have Covid-19.
🤘