Throughout my life I have heard stories about past and all the hardships that was encounter and I never thought I will go through the same thing. 2020 brought about a pandemic that will always be remembered. The virus was heard in December 2019 and everyone downplayed the seriousness of it. Everyone thought it was not serious however as it traveled across the globe it laid waste in its path. Killed about 1 million people including friends of mine who fell victim to it. I was emotionally drained and physically depressed due to our new style of living. We lost what we knew was life. Our every day norm and the whole world was on pause. Class being moved to remote didn’t help me academically because not only was I distracted but I kept thinking of what was going on in the world. COVID 19 affected me by ruining all the opportunities I had lined up for 2020, it wasted 1 year of my life and I failed to do anything productive. If life has thought me anything is that nothing last forever and fortunately we are beginning to enter our old life and I can make up for everything I couldn’t have done this year.

Sign at a church in Woollahra, New South Wales, Australia.

I am on a world level competitive robotics team with 6 other students at schools across my city. We compete locally and at the world level in a robotics competition released by VEX every year. With a different set of rules every year it's a big challenge to keep up with it but, we all love it. This is one if not the most important thing to me in my life. I put a lot of time, effort and money into it as it is my passion. Last season (April 2019- April 2020), I put around 2,000 hours into the robot. I absolutely love it and I would attach a video of my robot but the file is too big which is why I picked the youtube reveal for the game. It introduces the game and generally summarizes the rules. This season, what I have done during our “summer break” most people would play video games or watch Youtube but I build, program and work on the engineering notebook. It has helped keep me relatively sane and helped me pass the time and keep me from being extremely bored. What I have submitted is the reveal for the game this year. It shows how the game is played what it’s called and everything else about it.

OUR MISSION We stabilize people during crisis and transition, build a foundation where people can thrive, and preserve dignity and respect for the most vulnerable. OUR VISION A future where all people thrive. OUR STATEMENT OF SHARED VALUES Dignity: We demonstrate through our actions that all people have value and are worthy of respect. Diversity: We recognize and accept the differences among people, fostering an environment inclusive of all. Social Justice: We model and promote a culture of open-mindedness, compassion, and inclusiveness, promoting fairness, justice, and equal opportunities for all. Quality: We commit to excellence, innovation, and continuous improvement through anticipation and dynamic response to opportunities for change. Community Partnerships: We build collaborative partnerships to strengthen individuals, families and communities. Faith-based: We serve all people with an attitude of compassion and caring, recognizing and honoring our Christian heritage of God’s love in Christ for all.

At Iranian American Society of Arizona (IASAz), we strive to enrich the lives of Arizona residents by promoting an awareness of the Iranian culture, heritage, language, history and contributions through education, music, dance, theater, arts, food and sense of community. Our goal is to preserve, promote and encourage through education and charitable work, the richness of Iranian-American culture. We achieve this by organizing social, educational, recreational and other functions to promote better understanding and friendship both among the members of the organization and among individuals and organizations in Arizona who share an interest in Iranian culture.

The International Rescue Committee helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover and regain control of their future.

The Hualapai Tribe is a federally recognized Indian Tribe located in northwestern Arizona. “Hualapai” (pronounced Wal-lah-pie) means “People of the Tall Pines.” In 1883, an executive order established the Hualapai reservation.

The Florence Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal service organization providing free legal and social services to adults and unaccompanied children in immigration custody in Arizona. Although the government assists indigent criminal defendants and civil litigants through public defenders and legal aid attorneys, it does not provide attorneys for people in immigration removal proceedings. As a result, an estimated 86 percent of the detained people go unrepresented due to poverty. The Florence Project strives to address this inequity both locally and nationally through direct service, partnerships with the community, and advocacy and outreach efforts.

Over the quarantine, something that I really love was not able to happen. The Drum Corps International 2020 season was cancelled. Drum corps is like marching band, but a lot more intense. There are only brass and percussion instruments, and you spend the whole summer training to learn one 12-minute show. As a result of the season being cancelled, a nonprofit organization has started called Virtual Arts Inc. Over the summer, they put on a virtual drum corps show that I was a part of. I met a bunch of new people, learned a new instrument, and got a lot better at playing music. They are putting on another show in December that I plan to be a part of as well.

I am submitting an auto-ethnography on my experience as a college student in the CUNY educational system during the transition to online learning and the pandemic.

I went to go and get groceries for my family. I pull into the parking lot and I see a line. I have never before seen a line like this to get into a supermarket. The line was stretching all the way down the side of the store and into the parking lot. I got in line. The line moved faster than I thought but it was still really hot outside and I had to wait for about 15 minutes to get into the store. The reason there was such a big line was because of the limit for the amount of people in the store and the social distancing.

One I heard we were going to be stuck at home for a while I thought “This gives me the chance to do something I’ve always wanted to do.” That thing is working out. I was never one to be active before, much less working out, but I pushed myself. I looked up some good workouts and I eventually got an app that helps me out with everything. Me doing that made me sleep better and even feel better. This really gave me something to do instead of being bored all day.

My parents felt it was very important for us not to be stuck in the house all summer. In February they made a plan to go to Florida for a few days and they didn’t want to cancel it unless they had to. We left Albuquerque at about 11:15 pm and got to Orlando at 4:00 am. The first day was the longest because we were stuck in the airport for many hours before even the car rental place opened and we hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before. We finally made it to Daytona Beach and we sat on the beach the whole first day until our hotel was open. The next few days we drove around, went to the pier, sat on the beach, played mini-golf, and fed some baby alligators. It was nice to get away from Albuquerque for a little bit but it felt good to be home.

Well, for me I can say it wasn't that much of a change due to the fact that I go to a school where our school work revolves around technology, and we use technology almost everyday in order to complete what is being asked of us. Only this time we would be on our technology the whole time we were at school, due to the fact that this is the only way to communicate to each other ,to complete projects and assignments. hen again, like I said, it really wasn't that much of a change and I am so thankful for this due to the fact how I already am on a computer all the time as it is. To be honest I do feel bad for kids who don't have the privilege of what we have at my school cause it could take some time for them to adapt to this new environment that they are being exposed to. But who knows they might have fun with it and make the best of it, which is good. My brother and sister are just now starting school online and my brother loves it but not so much my sister cause she does get shy which is understandable, but she has just always been that way. But they seem to be doing ok, they keep on asking me for help on how to check emails, how to log on to zoom and google meets, but it makes me very happy that they feel that they can come to me and ask for help because thats what Im here for, them and it means the world to me. I remember gauge was panicking cause he thought he was going to be late cause he didnt know how to use google meets so I had to help him and he gave me the biggest hug, almost like I just saved his life. My sister got the hang of it pretty fast which I knew was gonna happen cause she's a wiz at literally everything, her and my dad and my mom and brother are the smartest people I know. I do have to admit adapting to this new environment is a little frustrating due to the fact how some of us (my brother and sister) might not know how to do everything right away, but we have to keep in mind that right now even if we are in a tough situation that we just have to be there for eachother and we have to help each other in order for everything to be normal again.

Music is something that has always helped me. But music has helped me the most with getting through this pandemic. It allowed me to just escape to a whole new world. This playlist in particular has many uplifting songs and very few down songs. I want more uplifting music because we need more positivity at a time like this. I hope my playlist can give others a positive vibe and good feeling.

We went to get ice cream for a job well done at school. My mother was driving and my sister and I were in the bed of the truck. That’s when we stopped at a stop sign and someone yelled, “Put on your mask!” We looked around to see where the voice was, but couldn’t find it. This made me realize that even though we were far enough, people still panicked, people still wanted to get assured, and people got mad. We then put on our masks, afraid that people would think that we had the virus.

I began writing this book at the end of eight grade. I worked on it for two years until just this last April, and self published it completely independently at age 15. This book is about the hardships of a teenager's life, the darkness of existence. It focuses a lot on questioning society, it's structure and the way we function, as well as the darkness of an adolescent's life that we don't all get to see or experience. Publishing this book during quarantine was something I was as initially doubtful about seeing as the situation of our present is severe throughout the entire world. However, this book helped me personally through hard times in my life, and I felt as if publishing this book might help other people feel less alone in a time of fear and sadness. Thus, I published this book amidst the pandemic, and hope to provide a bit more light in a time of darkness.

Going into that Ross store, I wasn’t thinking about leaving there with a jean jacket, I was just thinking about how my clothes were no longer starting to fit because I gained a little weight since quarantine started. I spent a couple of minutes in the Ross store and then my older sister came up to me and asked me if I’d want to do something she saw on tik tok. I asked her what it was and she said she wanted to paint the backs of some jean jackets and personalize it. I liked the idea so we then went to go ask my little sister if she wanted to participate and she said yes. Then all of us went up to my parents to ask if they could buy the jackets for us. They agreed. That night we started looking at pictures of the Powerpuff Girls to see what picture we’d want to paint on the jacket. My oldest sister got Bubbles, I got Blossom, and my little sister got Buttercup. Within the next day we had all the things needed to paint the jackets and finished them within a week of getting the jackets. The jackets are important to me because it makes me feel closer to my sisters when I look at it or have it on. It reminds me of a time during quarantine when we all bonded.

The whole summer I had this looming inexplicable fear that time was running out, and I guess that was really embodied by my job search. I feel like I applied at every fast food place on the westside of Albuquerque and the south side of Rio Rancho and I had gotten a call back from only a few. All in all I got 5 interviews from different places and none of them were for jobs I ended up getting. This was because there were so many downsized companies and competition for the jobs that they had. I was driven to madness by the midpoint of the summer and I felt like because the summer was halfway over that I was running out of time. By the end of the summer I didn’t start working until the weekend after the second week of school at Sonic.

For the longest time, I had been wanting ferrets. I had talked about them all the time, not only at home to my mom but also to my friends at school as well. My mom finally gave in and we had planned to drive out to a place for me to adopt two ferrets. But when COVID struck, my mom pushed it off and said we'd have to wait. Eventually, I found someone selling their ferret on craigslist. He was the cutest thing and I named him Bean. I loved him more than anything and would spend all my free time either playing with him or napping with him. I knew I needed to get him a friend since they are very social animals. So I did just that about a month and a half later my dad and I went to get Bean a friend. We got a little shy fella, and I named him Turtle, soon enough he opened up and was very playful and frisky. They kept me busy during quarantine and made my life a whole lot more fun. But then three months after I got Bean I noticed his energy decreasing. He wasn’t playing that much and was sleeping more than normal. He seemed very weak and even when he seemed like he wanted to play he couldn’t. I was very worried about him and knew something was wrong. We took him to the vet and found out he had leukemia. This was heartbreaking because I assumed we had years together. But he was getting weaker by the hour as his bone marrow stopped creating red blood cells. This was the most heartbreaking day of my life as my first real pet, my first baby, was dying. Turtle and I went to say goodbye. And even though everything seemed to be going downhill, when one door closed another one opened. The vet said he had a ferret that he didn’t have time for and who he was looking to re-home. Even though another ferret could never take the place of Bean but I knew Turtle would need a friend as a few days later I could already tell he was getting lonely and with school approaching I wouldn’t have as much time to be his playmate. A week after Bean was put down we took in the ferret, I renamed him Astro. These ferrets have done much more than keep me busy during quarantine, they have kept me sane. Bean: March 27th-June 27th, 2020 Turtle: May 5th, 2020 Astro: July 2nd, 2020

In quarantine I haven’t had much to do, so the majority of the time I spend on my phone, watching videos, playing games, watching shows on Netflix, or just texting/calling my friends to keep in touch. I think this says a lot about how the pandemic has affected my personal life and my activities. Whereas I used to go out to eat with friends and family or just meet up at someone’s house, or the park to hang out. I cannot do these things anymore so instead I pass the time on my phone.

During quarantine I was very stressed because of all the uncertainty. Playing guitar really helps me to de-stress so I learned the intro to Nothing Else Matters during quarantine. During quarantine I found it hard to stay busy. There was little to do since I couldn't leave the house so I decided to take advantage of quarantine to learn some new things. I feel that this is something lots of people did during quarantine. It was a great time to use to learn new things because there was nothing to do. I also learned many other songs but this one is the one that I always play when I am feeling stressed. It’s lots of fun to play but also very calming.

Even before the pandemic I would play online with my friends most of the time but the pandemic has just reinforced it. I play everyday with my friends and laugh and mess around and I think because of that I haven't gone crazy yet. Thanks to playing with my friends and having fun I have been able to stay happy and relaxed.

This is a photo I took when my friends and I (a total of 3 of us) came together for the first time in 5 months. We had masks on and went to Mcdonalds on skateboards. Because of covid, mcdonalds only had a curbside pickup or drive thru. We decided to do curbside pickup so we didn’t get in the way of cars. We ordered online, stood in a parking spot and pretended to be a car. Hence our saying “we are car”. This photo shows how teens now persevere through these tough times while following corona regulations.

Living in New Mexico, it can be hard to have grass or many plants due to the heat and dry ground. Between my dogs running around, the water needed, and the time it takes to have grass in the backyard we hadn’t grown any in a few years. When the quarantine had been happening for a while, my mom devised a plan of how to set up a sprinkler system to water they back yard and have grass and plants instead of dirt. The idea for a sprinkler system was one idea of many my family came up with. She ordered all of the parts online and researched ways to set up and successfully put a sprinkler system and dripline in. After receiving all the parts in the mail, my mom set off to home depot to get a ground trencher so we could put the piping underground. We had to lift and drop the trencher so the large dirt blade would create a path. She was supposed to get a small single-person trencher but came back with a giant and extremely heavy one. Since many people had the same idea of doing yard work during quarantine, the other trencher was being used by someone else. The trencher weighed so much and was so hard to move through the house into the backyard. We finished trenching by the end of the day and were ready to lay down piping. The hard part was getting the trencher lifted into the back of our car again, it was unbelievably heavy and it took all 4 of my family members to lift it into the car. We took some time and faced some more challenges when trying to grow a yard, but in the end, it ended up working out. Our yard now has a layer of grass and a drip line system to water other plants around the yard.

I was never really someone who enjoyed reading, or at least I didn’t by choice decide to pick up a book and read for fun. I would only pick up a book if school required me to. But since the start of the pandemic, I have had a lot more free time and I have had to find ways to fill that time. So I started picking books that seemed interesting, and once I started, I was fully engaged until the last page. And over the course of the summer which is roughly 3 months, I have been able to finish at least 6 books, breaking any record I might have had for summer reading.

Several articles seek to expand the conversation of educational inequity during the pandemic in New York City public schools, however many exclude key aspects of inequality that predate the pandemic. This narrative acknowledges and challenges notions that use the pandemic to explain the inequality. It is not only my personal experience throughout the pandemic, but also the experiences around public education of me, my students, and co-workers. Amplifying the necessity for leadership, mental health, and technology to combat the concerns of racial and class retraumatization, the aspiration and achievement gap, and other aspects of inequity. In this analysis, we transform ideas about inequality in relation to [rather than caused by] the pandemic and challenge readers to think about solutions in a different way.

The news broke out of a deadly virus in Wuhan, but it felt isolated—almost as if it would not spread outside of a certain radius. However, as the early days of 2020 continued, that hope became less and less a reality for the epidemic, which was transforming into a pandemic, COVID-19. The impending fear of the virus circulated throughout the 24-hour news cycle and into the homes of many Americans, even the living room of my own shared apartment. Although, I did not feel the closeness of fear or unpredictability until mid-March. Being a senior in college, I had applied to graduate programs, of which I was scheduled to fly and do a university tour March 12-15. Come to find out later, the university was shutting down mid-semester and upon my visit, the virus was the talk of students, faculty, and staff. I remember walking and in and through Ronald Reagan International Airport (DCA) and not bumping into strangers going to their flights, having to wait in TSA for no more than 20 minutes, or worrying about if my flight was going to be obscenely overcrowded. You will note this is quite rare at DCA and illustrates the abnormality of the social situation of the airport due to the pandemic. More simply, people were staying home, shut up in their houses and apartments for the suspicion of who did or did not have the virus in a global city (Washington, D.C.) caused widespread panic. This is not the first time the world has erupted into a panic or shut themselves into the “safety” of their homes. A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe recounts the plague as it decimated London and the surrounding towns. He describes the plague as a great fire, one that, “if a few houses only are contiguous where it happens, can only burn a few houses; or if it begins in a single, or, as we call, a lone house, can only burn the lone house where it begins. But if it begins in a close-built town or city and gets a head, there its fury increases: it rages over the whole place, and consumes all it can reach” (150). Here we may understand, or at least in the context of my understanding and experience with COVID-19, that the virus would take root where it could consume, namely in large cities like New York City (where there was comparably a mass exodus and high rates of infection) and D.C (increases in COVID-19 cases daily). However, the 2020 pandemic reflects more than a mechanical, comparative read of Defoe’s Journal of social, scientific situations. It is a lens that begins to deconstruct how our current contexts affect the reading of the Journal—a flash of reality if you will. Who would have thought that a text published hundreds of years ago had a mirroring affect? Now that the global community is months into the pandemic, the U.S. being at around 7, I cannot help but think that the Journal is even more relatable. Defoe claims that, “The Justices of Peace for Middlesex, by direction of the Secretary of State, had begun to shut up houses…and it was with good success; for in several streets where the plague broke out, upon strict guarding the houses that were infected, and taking care to bury those that died immediately after they were known to be dead, the plague ceased in those streets” (Defoe 28). As I initially read this sentence, I was troubled by the intensity of shutting people up by force. Earlier in 2020, many people in the U.S., if not all, had experienced some form of mandate restricting their movements in public spaces. Although there was talk of Marshall Law, which may be like what Defoe describes here, people (generally) at first were willing to comply. After some time in homely isolation, some felt the need to loosen their habits of isolation. What complicates the reading for me because of my current context, is the discussion surrounding those who are symptomatic or asymptomatic of which Defoe claims that, “namely, that it was not the sick people only from whom the plague was immediately received by others that were sound, but the well” (144). I guess, now in 2020, we still do not have much of a solidified idea of how the virus is spread, reports varied and swayed between direct contact, airborne, or bodily fluids like through a sneeze or cough. Although, with viral and antibody testing, there is a clearer idea of who may have had or has the virus which is unlike that of Defoe’s context. Modern medicine has enabled researchers, physicians, nurses and doctors, janitorial staffs, and more to navigate the infectious field better. This in particular affected my reading because the general “we” understand more effectively the dangers, precautionary steps, and conditions around viruses. During the plague years that Defoe details, there was no scientific guidance, except for the religious guidance of God. The Journal at numerous points suggests that people after some time began to accept willing their fates of eminent death because of their lack of options. I would like to hope, that in 2020 this depressing fate mentality is not reflected as openly, although I cannot be sure. Rather than suggest that the Journal puts into perspective COVID-19, I would argue that COVID-19 puts into perspective the Journal; readers like myself can imagine how instances set forth in 2020 resonate in the Journal. I have not seen the physical effects of the virus on people like medical staff do, but I have witnessed the widespread fear and uncertainty surrounding: how can I keep myself/family safe, how will I begin to pay bills without a job, can I budget enough for food this month? I myself being laid off from my job while on my graduate school visit (and at the quick emergence of the virus on the East coast) yet struggling to find answers to these questions (thankfully I had help). I must say, the days felt long, the weeks felt longer, the months felt longest giving the impression we had been tackling the virus for years. Who knows, maybe the global community and within a U.S. context will continue to see spikes of COVID-19 for years to come. Like the unknowing in the Journal, we all just do not know. Work Cited: Defoe, Daniel. A Journal of the Plague Year. Dover Publications, INC, 2001.

this is a photograph of a mural on a hospital wall in Brescia, Italy where it translates to “To you all….Thanks.” It is another piece of art that reminds us that we are all in this together and to thank our healthcare workers. I think as time goes on we tend to get sick of hearing about the pandemic and Covid-19 and go about our daily lives. We as a society often times need reminders and I think art provides that in an appealing and beautiful way. A giant graffiti depicting medical staff holding a figure shaped as a boot representing Italy and reading " To you all… Thanks", is painted on a side of the Brescia hospital, Italy, Monday, March 16, 2020.

When the pandemic abruptly flipped our world upside down, I did not know how to react. Within a matter of just a couple days, I felt as if everything that I had worked towards was being stripped away from me. I was a senior in high school during the 2019-2020 year. March 12, 2020 will go down as one of the worst days in my life. That is the day I found out bad news after bad news. I first found out that all the hard work my basketball team and I had put in was coming to an end. We had just won our PA state quarter final game the night before. We had hopes of making it back to the state championship. That was a hard pill to swallow. No more memories, no more practices, no more laughs and cries with my teammates and coaches. Later that day, it was then announced that school was strictly online for the remaining of the year. I can remember the pit in my stomach when I heard that news. In life, we take so many things for granted- my high school experience being one of them for me. As a senior, you work so hard in the classroom, build so many great bonds with your friends and teachers, and that was all just taken from us. In this day in age, keeping engaged in friendships and relationships is very easy with technology. But this felt different, this WAS different. No more senior activities. No prom. No end of the basketball season. No graduation. No more giggles with your friends in the hallway, at lunch, in the classroom. There was no proper goodbye. That is what hit me the hardest. Everyone is impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic in every way possible- some more than others. It took me a while to accept my new normal, and to accept the fact that it is out of my control. I am not the only senior who felt like what was supposed to be the best year of their life, turned out to be the worst year of their life. I’ve tremendously grown from the situation our world is in, and I know so many others have, too.

This wall mural is an ode to nurses. These are the heroes of the pandemic and there are many wall murals praising all the healthcare workers. It is a reminder that we need to keep thinking about the people who put their lives on the line everyday.

This is an article about messages from the street in Seattle by street artists, businesses and attractions. This is about a community coming together during a crisis. Organizers created a bear hunt throughout the city displaying a teddybear in the window. At the same time artists are painting messages of hope on boarded up businesses and empty walls.

his article posted by Indian Country Today about Indigenous artists that are infusing their work with important health, safety messages as the pandemic hits some tribal communities particularly hard. The pandemic has hit the Native American community particularly hard, yet we hear very little about it in the media. Native American artists are taking it upon themselves to send messages of hope and safety.

This is an article about artists who are struggling during this pandemic. The funds are provided by a consortium of non-profits that raised over $10 million dollars. Many different areas of business are hard hit by Covid-19 and are struggling to survive. It is important to note that artists are small businesses and many people don’t realize how they’re impacted as well.

This is the school my 6yo would have been at, if we had stayed in Idaho. One of the teachers got creative with the desk shields and decorated the students' desks to look like cars. The photo shows the students spaced a part wearing marsks and sitting behind their shields. It's so weird to see some schools already embracing in-person learning, when it feels like such a remote reality here in Tempe.

Wall mural on a French street created by a French artist, C215, showing his interpretation of love during Covid-19. He completed the wall mural before France’s lock down. He is selling prints of the piece online, with proceeds going to the Paris Hospitals foundation.

This article posted by Al Dia about Covid Art and a virtual museum in Barcelona, Spain, where a collection of covid art can be viewed. The collection consists of illustrations, photographs, paintings, drawings, animations, video, etc. According to the one of the publicists, these pieces of art reflect how we are all living and feeling during the pandemic. Art has always reflected what was going on during that time period. #covidart, #pandemic, #virtualmuseum, #quarantine, #Barcelona (HST580, Arizona State University)

While looking for items to submit to this archive, I tried searching Pinterest for some humorous memes to add. After reading a lot of heavy articles, i felt a little humor was in order; only to be thwarted by Pinterest. After searching for "Covid19 humor, I received a message saying that pins relating to this topic often violate community standards guidelines and so, results were restricted to established health organizations... I guess gallows humor is not for everyone... I tried a google search for the same search term and came across a few things but this article stood out. It discusses the rise of 'dark' humor and how it can, in some cases, actually help those trying to cope with difficult subjects. It confirmed my suspicions that those of us who have a 'gallows humor' approach may have been on to something all along.

2020 could have an entire history book unto itself. So much has happened this year... Obviously, the big stories everyone is familiar with; BLM protests, Covid19, Wildfires literally EVERYWHERE, but what about the smaller, but just as important stories that get overshadowed? For example, on Feb 6th, Christina Koch, a NASA astronaut, returned to Earth after 328 days in space, the most days completed by any woman ever, and I bet you don't even remember hearing about it. Thats why I though this time line would be a good addition to the archive. It helps put the events of the year (as of July 4th) in an easy to read format to help us all remember everything that happened this year. Hopefully, the back half of the year is much less eventful, but I doubt it.

Music has been a big part of my life ever since I was young. I picked up the violin in second grade, and my involvement in the music industry has only grown since then. This year is my senior year as a music education major in college; however, in light of the pandemic, I am anxious about what the future holds for music. Music class is very different from other classes that students may have throughout the day. While it is more feasible for a math or science class to be completely online, with live-streamed lessons and online assignments, these concepts are not so easy for a music class. With a large ensemble, it is almost impossible for the teacher to actually hear their students play in an online format. Many schools are using Zoom, which is great for the virtual classroom, however it tends to have a significant audio lag. Due to this problem, music ensembles cannot actually all rehearse at one time. Many music teachers have dealt with this problem by requesting that students mute themselves and then play along to a pre-recorded track that the teacher will prepare for them; however, with this barrier, the teacher will never be able to hear their students play all together, which is a crucial part of an ensemble rehearsal to assure that everyone is fully understanding the music. Not only are large ensemble rehearsals affected by these restrictions, but also the elementary general music classroom. In elementary general music, singing is a crucial part of the curriculum. At a young age, students need to be able to start singing so that they are able to start developing a knowledge of pitch and rhythm. At this stage of brain development, it is crucial for students to be able to have this aural experience in person. However, in many areas of the country, singing in a public space has been completely banned. This causes a big problem for music educators because there are so many concepts that they cannot teach without being able to sing with their students. I am in no way stating that the measures being taken in light of the pandemic are unnecessary; I believe that COVID should be taken very seriously and completely understand why it is that these restrictions need to be put in place for educators everywhere to keep the staff and students safe. However, it is frustrating to know that some people are blatantly not following guidelines, which is causing a delay in reopening schools, and because of this, an entire industry is being affected. So many musicians work off of the profit they get from live concerts alone. However, absolutely no concert halls will be able to reopen until we have this disease under control. During the time of the pandemic, I worry for what is going to happen to the music industry, and how this is going to take a toll on music programs all over the country.

First Responders, by nature of the job, daily charged with helping people through their worst moments and traumatic events. Some might say that first responders should be able to handle it, after all, they signed up for the job. But first responders, just like the rest of us, are human. No one can ever really be prepared to handle stress like that on a day after day after day after day basis. In order to help out first responders, the CDC created this website with information on how to deal with the usual stress of the job plus the new issues and problems that 2020 has decided to throw at us. I thought it important to include here, not just for posterity, but the more places this information is posted, the more available and easily accessible it is for someone who may need it, but not know where to look.

With all the negative in the press, it would be easy for one to think that Law Enforcement officers are out there all alone with no support at all. This is simply not true. This article shows that there are those who support LEO's and that officers/deputies/cops are not fighting the good fight all alone.

I saw this article on facebook and was completely saddened by it. Those two officers were doing nothing to deserve being shot in their vehicles. And then to read that protestors were blocking the entrance to the hospital, possibly preventing ANY emergency traffic from getting in was even more disheartening. I can't even begin to think how to explain this to future generations... So. Much. Useless. Hatred.

This story is a short essay for my graduate literature course, analyzing parallels between Daniel Defoe’s Plague Year and our current experiences in the pandemic of COVID-19. It is important to me because I believe these parallels illustrate the importance of putting our faith in reliable information, and learning from the mistakes of the past rather than repeating them.

Covid controversy, NYC

Throughout the Covid-19 Pandemic and my time in quarantine, I struggled with a multitude of things. I was distraught over my senior year being taken away, lonely from the lack of human connection and interaction, and full of anxiety and fear because everything about this virus and the future was still very much unknown. But none of this compared to my biggest and most upsetting struggle. Coincidently this struggle of mine wasn’t even my own, it happened to be my father’s. My father owns a vintage bowling alley named; The Fox Bowling Center located in a small town in Upstate New York. For over 25 years my father has owned and operated this bowling alley, and he has been involved with this business since he was 9 years old when his parents bought it in the early seventies. This bowling alley has been an integral part of my father’s life for almost 50 years, and during March of this year he had to shut down business due to the Covid-19 pandemic. My father was absolutely distraught and shattered over this news. He was worrying constantly over the future and when things might take a turn for the better so he could open back up. He also struggled severely with trying to pay bills and manage the money in a time when he had zero income. I think seeing my father struggle with money issues really hit home for me the most. The bowling alley never really made a lot of money to begin with, and when this happened he had nothing to fall back on. He worked tirelessly on trying to secure any type of loan that would help him just pay the bills and keep the business afloat. Seeing him go through this each day was torture. I just wanted to help in some way and tell him that everything was going to be okay, but I had no money to offer him and in total honesty I had no idea what the future held for small business owners like my father. Even though watching my father go through all this pain and sadness was one of the worst things I ever witnessed, he still managed to teach me some amazing life lessons I will cherish forever. He showed me to always persevere and look towards the future, and he also showed me that you can’t give up on the things you love and hold dear. I’m happy to also share that because of his hard work and perseverance with financial issues, he is able to reopen now that bowling alleys are allowed to open back up in New York. My father is overjoyed and can’t wait to have his loyal customers and friends bowling once again, even if it is a little different. I will never forget his struggle to keep the business open and when I think about those long months in the future I will always remember his hard work and dedication.

The anniversary of 9/11 is a complicated occasion in a maelstrom of a year, as the US grapples with a health crisis, searches its soul over racial injustice, and prepares to choose a leader to chart a path forward. While many communities have canceled the 9/11 memorial events, many carried on with modifications. It's important to take a minute and remember the events that happened nineteen years ago. It's a time of reflection and remembrance at a time when nothing seems to be going right, we can be thankful for what we do have; starting with our lives. This year looks far different than previous years; commemoration ceremonies are filled with people wearing masks and standing six feet away from each other, but there is one aspect that has not changed, and that's the message of hope. We are reminded that we are one nation, though the good and bad, regardless of politics, social status, and race. We are Americans, we are strong, and we will persevere.

Photographed by Mary Ann Michna, artist Sarah Aziz visits New Harmony, Indiana to do a photoshoot in her COVID inspired fashion

My uncle has owned a body shop in San Francisco, California, for over twenty-five years. Covid slowed down business a bit since people were not driving as much, as if Covid wasn't bad enough though, they are now dealing with all the fires in the area. Being a Los Angeles native, I know wildfires are not uncommon. It is unusual to see the amount of fire happening simultaneously. It seems like the whole state is up in flames. The air quality is almost unbearable, there are blankets of ash coving homes and cars and raining from the sky. The sky is orange and firefighters struggle to keep these wildfires under control. All this craziness amidst a global pandemic.

A friend of mine had to postpone her wedding after almost a year of hard work and planning. The couple had announced that they would wait to have the wedding of their dreams until it was safe to do so. This week her sister uploaded a surprise bridal shower she hosted in her tiny bedroom for her sister and bridal party. I wanted to show how people are still living during Covid, people are still celebrating, and love is still winning. I thought it important to shed some light amidst all the negativity and darkness that Covid has brought. I thought it was the sweetest gesture to let this bride feel important and acknowledging this big event in her life. A few days after this bridal shower, this bride went down to the courthouse and married her best friend. They are still planning to have a big celebration next year.