Collected Item: “Guessing the Numbers”
Give your story a title.
Guessing the Numbers
What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?
Photographs of handwritten paper
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.
As Melbourne’s second wave crested and fell in mid-2020, “the presser” was appointment viewing; “the number” could bring hope or despair. Sometime in the dreary days of lockdown, my family started guessing how many cases would be reported each day. Keeping a running tally of who was closest to the pin. Perhaps it was a way of taking control of the uncontrollable. Dealing with the apparent randomness of the numbers that controlled every aspect of our lives. Some of the scraps of paper we used to write on were time capsules of a vanished world: a rough sketch of enrolments for the second half of my BA; an invoice from a tradesman; a reminder note to pick someone up from hospital. Plans, visitors, outings – all overwritten by inexorable quotidian sameness. Submitted for University of Melbourne HIST30060, Semester 2 2021.
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?
statistics,lockdown,presser,boredom
Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)
Patrick Gigacz
Give this story a date.
2020-08-01