iExamen - Leonidas Tsirigotis

 Saturday September 27th

I woke up to my alarm at 7:30 am. My alarm is an Alexa and I kept snoozing it until 8:00.

At 8:00, I got out of bed, changed into workout clothes and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

At 8:15, I walk out of my house and begin my run with my headphones in. I complete a 2 mile in 14 minutes and 15 seconds, which I was surprised about considering I thought I would have a harder time because of my drowsiness from staying up and playing video games the night before. If I remember correctly, I did not stop playing online games with my friends until 1:30 am.

From 8:30 to 9, I showered and went to the kitchen for dinner. I had an egg omelet with ham, feta, asparagus and old bay hot sauce. At this point, I have not communicated with anyone yet. My father went to work, my sisters are still sleeping and my mother went to my grandmother's house to take care of her. It was just me and my dog, Cleopatra, who kept following me around. I petted her once in a while. 

Afterwards, I went right to doing my homework. I have a test everyday this week, so most of my work consisted of note taking and reviewing. 

I took a break at 12 pm and decided to go out to get food. Before I left, I saw my mother in the kitchen and said hello to her. She seemed happy, we spoke about my grandmother and what work I had left for the day. Then I left.

I went to BGR, a burger joint and ordered a burger with fries. The employee there seemed ok, nothing really noticeable. He wore his work shirt with the BGR logo on the upper right side. I walked out with my food, went back to my car and drove home. Before leaving, I texted my mother that I am heading back home, and she said "ok".

At home, 1:42 pm, I ate my burger and fries and then went back to work. I continued to work until 5 pm. I am not a big texter or social media kind of person, so I only interacted in texts with my cousins and a friend of mine in my financial accounting class. Our texts were mainly about the work problems and how to solve them, and eventually we went on zoom and discussed further. After that was completed, we ended the zoom call and it was 4:40 when the accounting work was done. Overall the conversation was very productive and enthusiastic about doing well on this week's test.

After that Zoom call, I Skyped my cousins in Greece, who are 7 hours ahead, and spoke to them. My language and mannerism definitely changed during that time. I spoke with more enthusiasm, a native Greek accent and overall was a different "Leo". I guess you could say there was an American "Leo" speaking to my friend during the accounting meeting and a Greek "Leo" speaking to my cousins. They seemed enthusiastic about some situations, and upset during some other situations. They are going through a hard time right now, so I tried to consul with them.

The Skype meeting ended at 5:30, and because I completed a largely substantial amount of work before hand, I decided to play some video games with my friends online for about an hour. We joked, laughed and were serious during the game.

At 6:30, my family and I went out for dinner at Tysons Corner Mall, we had California Pizza Kitchen and the people there seemed happy to work. As a matter of fact, everyone there seemed happy to be at the mall, despite not being able to tell for some because they wore masks. My family were also conversing, asking how everyone's week was, what they did, typical things. 

At 9, we left the mall after walking around a bit and after eating the Hawaiian pizza. We arrived home at 9:30 and everyone decided to go to bed/watch Netflix. I stayed up and decided to get some work done. I worked until 11 pm. The catch is that I took notes from my textbook with pen and paper, nothing else. No music, no computer (only once to check what pages to be honest) and no phone. It was very strange, my room was only illuminated by my lamp and I wrote notes. This was awkward, i usually listen to the news or music when I write my notes, but this time it was different. It was not too hard though, I do not have any social media (I am against having it), and even though it was a struggle to not have something in the background playing, I cant imagine what it would have been like with the constant distractions of snapchat or Twitter. At 11 pm, I said goodnight to my family members, who seemed happy and tired, and then went to bed.

Overall, in terms of technology assisted communication, I have a phone number, zoom and skype. That is pretty much it. My belief is that if someone actually wants to keep in contact with me, they would have my phone number, and we could text or phone call. Social media is a very big distraction from the outside world and I feel like I missed so much of what was around me when I had it. I am thankful that overall everyday, I do not feel attacked to my phone constantly, always wondering who posted what, what happened in school. I have a better appreciation for the outside world because I have way less distractions and I can focus on what I truly care about.