“We will be with our friends again. We will be with our families again. We will meet again” -HM Queen Elizabeth II. The coronavirus pandemic has made this year a terrible year. With millions of deaths, not being able to meet our friends face to face and unable to do things we did on a daily basis in the past, the pandemic has changed our lives. Some of our loved ones may have passed away as well. Because of the pandemic, we also had to be quarantined and were recommended to stay at home and not to go outside. We stayed at home for several weeks and months and could not meet our close friends and family. Over these few months, many people, including me, have picked up new hobbies and talents. For example, one of my friends told me that they were interested in cardistry and learnt a lot of new tricks to show off with cards. For me, I had already been exercising before the pandemic. However, I did not take it seriously and I did not improve on my fitness much. During the pandemic, I began to do bodyweight exercises such as pushups and resistance band pull ups and cycled on my father's stationary bike. Just like that, I lost three kilograms of weight and had a noticeable change in my body. Although I had already achieved my goal of losing weight, becoming more fit, and looking better overall, I actually had an interest in exercising now. Because of this, I also began to go to my condominium's gym to exercise. Most people would think that I would go to the gym just to go for runs on the treadmill, but instead I did weight training as I had already achieved my goal of losing fats and now I wanted to gain muscle and become stronger. I trained and trained and I even had my cousin to join me. He knew a lot about weight training and together, we became much stronger and gained a lot more muscle. As I was new to weightlifting and he was experienced in it, he would correct my form and teach me new exercises to work on the muscle groups I wanted to build. When I started, I could only squat with 40 kilograms added on my back and could only deadlift 30 kilograms. Now, I can squat at most 80 kilograms on my back and deadlift around 90 kilograms. My cousin also started with squatting 60 kilograms and deadlifting 70 kilograms. Now, he can squat 90 kilograms (reaching almost 100) and deadlift 130 kilograms. Eventually, I gained back eight kilograms of weight but this time it was muscle and not fats. One of my goals was to be able to do a pull up as well and after training for months, I can now do 8 pull ups in a row. Overall, I was glad that I made the decision to start weight lifting. Personally, I started training to become healthier and lose weight. But now, I train to both get stronger and look better. Weight training then became my passion and a hobby. It is a way to relieve stress and become stronger at the same time. I could also get to spend more time with my cousin and we got very close. Now, I go to my condominium's gym four times a week and if I were to meet my friends after the pandemic is over, I would share with them this hobby of mine. I would want them to follow me to my gym one day and try to get them to share this hobby with me as it is not only fun to go to the gym with someone, it would also help them gain muscle and become healthier and it would be overall better. I also can't wait to see their faces when they see a much leaner me! I hope that they will not only share this hobby with me, but share it with other people as well to give them a way of becoming healthier and a way to relieve stress especially during this time of the pandemic and having a lot of school work. I wish that more people would try weight lifting and stop believing the myth that weight lifting makes you shorter as there is much evidence that it can even make you taller instead! This myth outrages me as it stops many people from trying weight lifting which is great for your health. Furthermore, a good age to start weight lifting is when you are young so as to make it a habit and as long as they have good form and do not over train. Therefore, I feel frustrated when parents always discourage their children from lifting weights but I can understand if they are worried about their child's safety.