“Hamilton will continue remote instruction for the remainder of the spring semester.”

And just like that, we went from Hamilton to

Zoomilton

students. Despite the difficult adjustment to online learning,

Zoomiltonians

are very innovative with how they spend their time at home. Now, in addition to school work as kids became aspiring TikTok stars, bakers, artists — while also wallowing, Netflix binging and sleeping. Among these activities is one that has overflowed social media: puzzling.

Puzzling, not to be confused with denoting a sense of perplexity, is a word used in reference to the action of doing puzzles. Upon coming home, my Instagram feed transitioned from heartfelt tributes of people’s time on campus to images of puzzles in progress against a candid background of a burning fire, family members and red wine. At this point, I personally had not attempted a puzzle in about ten years, but virtually inflicted peer pressure made my daily routine of reading, napping and riding my Razor scooter outside seem inadequate in comparison to Hamilton’s puzzle connoisseurs. Struck by the picturesque illusion of puzzles on social media for a week, I decided to order myself a puzzle on Amazon, only to find that literally every cool puzzle worth buying was either out of stock or backordered. Apparently, across the nation, quarantine called for hoarding toilet paper and puzzles.

Nevertheless, I persevered and continued perusing through page after page of “ fun puzzles for adults” on Google search. After browsing for a solid 20 minutes, I finally found a puzzle. I settled on the least coveted 1000 piece puzzle: Lighthouses of the Great Lakes. After an anticipated four days of shipping and delivery, my 30 x 24 quarantine project had finally arrived. Upon starting the puzzle, I realized that this was going to be way tougher than anticipated, especially because it took me 30 minutes to attach three puzzle pieces together.

I have been puzzling for about a week now and have made significant progress. However, I have also come to the conclusion that doing puzzles, much like any other activity photographed, seems way more glamorous in good lighting, cute filters and captions on social media than in real life. Social media does not take into account the potential health hazards of puzzling: the possibility of hurting your back after hunching over the table, as your eyes have tunnel vision from focusing on masses of small puzzle pieces.

Would I have bought a puzzle to keep myself entertained without the influence of social media? Probably not. However, I am now getting into the groove of regularly working on my puzzle, and enjoy the satisfaction of finding the correct piece after looking for a long time. I have now embedded working on my puzzle into my daily routine. Especially in trying times like these where it is easy to get bored, I like having a new activity to channel my energy towards.

I hope that you, the

Zoomilton

community, are all doing well and finding fun new ways to keep yourselves engaged while social distancing! There may be awkward times where you may take up strange new hobbies, but this is the time to focus on yourself and stay occupied. Remember, this time will pass and eventually become an interesting anecdote for the future. So go buy a puzzle or two!