Item

COVID-19 Archive Project

Media

Title (Dublin Core)

COVID-19 Archive Project
Emily Oh and Taylor Chow, 2021/09/24

Description (Dublin Core)

Two students interview each other about the pandemic and how it affected their life.

Recording Date (Dublin Core)

Creator (Dublin Core)

Contributor (Dublin Core)

Partner (Dublin Core)

Type (Dublin Core)

oral history

Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)

Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)

Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)

Collection (Dublin Core)

Date Submitted (Dublin Core)

09/25/2021

Date Modified (Dublin Core)

10/01/2021
10/25/2021

Date Created (Dublin Core)

09/24/2021

Interviewer (Bibliographic Ontology)

Emily Oh
Taylor Chow

Interviewer Email (Friend of a Friend)

oh.em@northeastern.edu

Interviewee (Bibliographic Ontology)

Emily Oh
Taylor Chow

Location (Omeka Classic)

93940
Monterey
Califorina
94403
Sao Mateo
California
United States of America

Format (Dublin Core)

Audio

Coverage (Dublin Core)

March 2020- October 2021

Language (Dublin Core)

english

Duration (Omeka Classic)

04:27

abstract (Bibliographic Ontology)

Two students talk about the pandemic and how it affected their lives. They talk about how they first heard about the pandemic and how it felt far away and unreal at first. They continue to explain how their everyday life changed and how their daily routines changed. Also, they talk about their senior year which was remote and how they hope that at college years will be more "normal".

Transcription (Omeka Classic)

Taylor Chow 0:03
Hi, my name is Taylor,

Emily Oh 0:04
And my name is Emily. And this is our COVID-19 history archive project. Just to begin, we both consent to being recorded and posting it on the site, correct?

Taylor Chow 0:17
Yes.

Emily Oh 0:18
Okay. So when you had first heard of COVID, what was your reaction?

Taylor Chow 0:23
So I heard this news through word of mouth, because at the time, I didn't really watch the news. So I just heard it from like, family and friends. And I heard that it was a new virus from China, but I didn't think much of it because it was so far away physically. And I was in California at the time. So China was like the least of my concern. And until March 13 2020, that was my last day of school. And the kids at my school and myself included, were very excited and happy that spring break ought to be extended for an extra two weeks, all my teachers were caught by surprise, and they're kind of off guard because they weren't really sure how to adjust to the new way of learning over zoom. And it came so sad and the teachers were scrambling to find out how to make adjustments to their lesson plan for the rest of the semester. And I was looking forward to sleeping in more in staying at home.

Emily Oh 1:14
And how did it affect your everyday life?

Taylor Chow 1:17
So I was not able to go out as much as I used to. I usually went out a lot and I lived a very busy life. When I had figure skating practice, it got shut down and I was not able to go out. And I wasn't able to shop and I was very bored at home. I didn't see family as often. And I couldn't do activities like eating out and going on vacations during the summer. But after listening to a podcast that my friend suggested me to listen to, I was instantly motivated not to waste time when in quarantine, and I was extra productive. I tried hard to work on college applications and workout a lot, I have never worked out so much in my life before.

Emily Oh 1:58
How is COVID affecting you now as a college freshman?

Taylor Chow 2:02
Before college, I was scared that I wouldn't have the cool like full college experience, like how my senior year of high school was all online. And I was glad to hear that all my classes this semester are going to be in person. But I was nervous about the transition between having all my classes from online to in person. At the time, it was hard to do activities because they have limited capacity. And we still need to follow COVID precautions but I'm glad I start to see things become normal again and I get to do things like sports.

Okay, now I will be asking Emily a few questions. When you first heard about COVID What was your initial reaction?

Emily Oh 2:44
I first heard of it from my dad who's a cardiologist and wanted to spread the news with us during dinner. My first reaction was that it was sad that there are people in China suffering from another unknown disease. And I was glad that it would not be reaching the United States.

Taylor Chow 3:00
How did COVID affect your everyday life?

Emily Oh 3:03
I never expected to have such an effect on my life. But it changed a lot of things for me. Schools canceled in March of 2020. And I suddenly realized that wow, this disease is really real. People from my school who weren't careful about wearing their masks or being careful about social distancing came down with the disease and it made the whole situation even more alarming. It also enlightened and slightly alarmed me to learn of people's including my family members and friends opinions on on wearing masks or taking the vaccine. It occurred to me that if COVID hadn't happened that I might have never been aware of the way that some people think, and my own personal opinions of people may be very different than how they are today. Overall though, I'm very lucky to not have close friends or family passed away from COVID.

Taylor Chow 3:51
What are your thoughts on COVID now and how has it affects your college life?

Emily Oh 3:57
After almost two full years, while the virus is rampant around the world, it almost feels normal to walk around with the mask and to social distance and to bring hand sanitizer with me everywhere I go. It feels natural to social distance on campus and other places falling here and honestly it does not feel super different than how I expected to be, just because I've been used to having it. Yeah.

Taylor Chow 4:24
Thank you

Item sets

This item was submitted on September 25, 2021 by [anonymous user] using the form “Upload” on the site “Oral Histories”: https://covid-19archive.org/s/oralhistory

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