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Collected Item: “A Permanent Break”

Give your story a title.

A Permanent Break

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

Screenshot

Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.

This image shows how much almost everyone underestimated the pandemic. It also highlights the uncertainty it brought. Most thought we were just getting one extra week of staying home. We would be heading back to campus after that so we were grateful for the extra vacation time. Little did we know that there would be no end in sight for this pandemic for almost two years. No one knew how long it would last or exactly how much it would affect our everyday lives. Procedures constantly changed as institutions tried to figure out the best way to respond to this unprecedented situation.

I think this image would spark student memories of the reaction they had to similar school announcements. Many people were on vacation and came home to a total shift in society like panic buying. My family was in Mexico at the time and in the middle of the vacation the hotel switched from open buffet and people roaming to encouraging people not to interact with others. Before my family left my stepdad had bought some nonperishables to store. I didn't know why he did this and thought this was silly and just a habit from his Red Cross responder days. It turns out he was correct in predicting people would flock to the stores once institutions started practicing preventive measures. This image is just one of the many that demonstrate how people's lives began to change during this time.

Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?

#coveryourfangs, HS6301, springbreak, college, university, update

Enter a URL associated with this object, if relevant.

https://www.stmarytx.edu/2020/coronavirus-news/

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

St. Mary's University

Give this story a date.

2020-03-12
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