Items

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  2019-06-08

  My New Puppy

  The picture that I am sharing is that of our newest family member, Petey. He is a Catahoula Leopard Dog who has webbed feet and was bred to go into the bogs. My husband and I found him online from an animal rescue in which we found out he had been abused which made us love him evermore. We have been wanting to get a new puppy for a while in order for our other two fur babies to have a playmate. As a result of the pandemic, we thought now would be the best time since I am working from home and it affords me to be able to train and work with a puppy. This is important to me because he has become a vital part of our homemaking. We keep our sense of humor, even more, bringing new adventures, and allowing for us to make a home for a dog that had not seen love before. To say the least, Petey has fit into our household great and is now part of the pack.
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  2021-01-17

  MMORPGs in Quarantine

  Over quarantine, with so much more free time, my friends and I found ourselves becoming invested into a fun mobile game called Dragon Raja, where we customized characters and created friends from around the country/world. The game had events scheduled at specific times every day, which allowed us to keep track of the days as the months dragged on, giving us something to look forward to when there wasn't much that we could do together.
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  2021-01-17

  Potato Chips, Prana, and Perambulation: My Favorite Things to Weather the COVID-19 Storm

  This submission is a description of the five favorite things I have used to help me get through the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly as I have had to transition to working from home.
• 2020-01-17

  My Five Favorite Things That Have Helped Me Cope During the Pandemic

  Although the pandemic has been rough, there are several activities that help keep me sane during our time at home. We all have to make the best of it, right? The following are five things we did to make the best of this crazy time: 1. We Facetime'd with our children and grandchildren two to three times weekly. Nana and Papa quickly got into a fun routine to help virtually put the granddaughters to bed. 2. We established Friday afternoon Zoom happy hours with friends. It turned out to be way more fun than we anticipated. 3. My husband I found some great Netflix shows that we binge watched together. 4. We took advantage of our extra free time to cook and eat together as family almost every night rather than a couple of nights a week due to busy schedules. 5. We love how restaurants and other establishments who previously did not deliver started using DoorDash. My family has definitely taken advantage of Baskin Robbins ice cream deliveries! This past year has definitely been an interesting and probably much needed social experiment for our family!
• 2021-01-14

  Five Ways to have Fun during the Pandemic

  The SARS-Cov-2 pandemic has brought hard and difficult times for everyone. As an employee at a local bank, I was deemed as an essential worker. As a result, for the vast majority of the pandemic, I was working, helping people however I was able. While being deemed an essential worker, our bank rotated staff, and as a result, I spent about two weeks at home. During my time working and my time at home, I got into two things: movies and the stock market. 1. Movies Before the pandemic, I had never been a major fan of movies and films. However, with my time quarantined at home, I took advantage of this time by watching classic, critically acclaimed moves. Some of the favorites that I watched during this time were old Martin Scorsese films like Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull. I also watched the original Scarface movie (1932), the Godfather series, as well as Braveheart. Watching these classic movies introduced me to a whole new world. 2. The Stock Market Working at a bank, we were hearing quite a bit about interest rates, mortgage rates, and, of course, the stock market. One of my coworkers introduced me to the market, showing me how to buy and sell stock. After piquing my interest, I began doing my research, learning the difference between terms like “value stock,” “dividend stock,” “blue-chip stock,” “exchange-traded funds,” etc. Outside of two new things I began to enjoy and spend time doing, the other three things that have helped me get through the pandemic are things that I have always enjoyed, but things I have come to appreciate even more: sports, classic literature, and technology. 3. Sports When the pandemic first began in early to mid-March, I remember looking forward to the beginning of the SEC basketball tournament and watching the Tennessee Volunteers basketball team play the Alabama Crimson Tide (since I am from Knoxville, I love the Vols). The game was set to start at noon; however, earlier that morning, I saw on Twitter that the SEC tournament had been canceled. Slowly, all sports began following. As an Arsenal F.C. fan in the English Premier League, I was also disheartened to hear that the Premier League would be postponing their season. However, with a lot of hard work and coordination, sports slowly began coming back. In mid-June, the Premier League resumed its season and in September began a new season. Likewise, the NFL season was able to go on, as was the college football season. While sports are, in the grand scheme of life, fairly insignificant, they provide people with a sense of community and a distraction from depressing life events. I will certainly not take sports for granted after the Covid-19 pandemic. 4. Classic Literature Since the senior year of my undergraduate degree, I have slowly grown to love classic literature. Making time to read books simply for fun can be hard to do in the daily hustle and bustle of life. However, Covid-19 slowed down the world for me. During my spare time, I read from plenty of authors, namely, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Albert Camus, Leo Tolstoy, John Steinbeck, Alexandre Dumas, and others. Many of these authors discuss philosophical questions of life and existence. The first book I read at the start of the pandemic was The Plague by Camus. For the time, it was more than fitting, helping me to mull over the Covid-19 pandemic. These authors have provided a brief escape while also providing various questions and answers about how to confront life, even in a pandemic. 5. Technology Before the pandemic, I never realized how much technology can help us during times of quarantine. I have never really been tech-savvy and thus I never stopped to think about how important technology is, especially during a pandemic. While there are obvious drawbacks to technology in society, being able to facetime with my family and communicate with loved ones who had contracted the virus was very special. Again, while technology has many problematic elements, connecting loved ones during the pandemic has certainly been special.
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  2021-01-16

  Year of the Bibliophile

  Throughout the pandemic, I have committed myself to read something every day, for a minimum of 30 minutes. Whether I am reading opt eds from the Jacobin (my favorite news source), researching academic and scholarly articles, or just immersing myself in a really great work of fiction, I have enjoyed the challenge immensely! I am also here to make the case that reading can be done virtually anywhere. Now, take a moment to consider how you can take full advantage of your busy life to get some reading done. A fifteen-minute break at work, an audiobook during rush hour, perhaps some light reading before bed? Active and mindful reading has not only improved my reading comprehension, but on a more simplistic level; it is a great conversation starter for people who love reading. Finding connection through literature during these trying times has been such a saving grace for me, and I am confident it can do the same for you. -Solidarity
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  2021-01-16

  Falling Back On My Escapism

  As the title suggests, this is a description of my favorite things that helped me through the pandemic. I think it's important to capture the pleasures we've fallen back on despite all the negatives.
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  2021-01-13

  Pandemic Favorite Things

  As so many people's lives have become overturned by Covid, and people had more time on their hands than ever before to become engrossed in a hobby or activity, I feel that it is both a blessing and a curse being in a Masters degree program. Obtaining an advanced degree certainly seems to be a wise use of my pandemic time, but I cannot help but feel slight jealousy sometimes when I have to work on assignments instead of some of the interesting things that people have been doing this past year. However, I do enjoy gardening, fishing, kayaking, playing with my dog, and cooking. All of these are the things that have kept me sane and happy during the pandemic. Especially during the spring and summer, I ensured to take time away from school and work for a bit everyday to do some of those things. I am very fortunate that I live on a river/lake, so I could work in my garden, then launch my kayak with my dog in the passenger seat, and go fish until it was time to cook dinner whenever I wanted. It was a total blessing for me during Covid, for as isolating as it was at times, I was very lucky to have space and the ability to do my favorite things on a daily basis.
• 2021-01-13

  Finding the Joy in the Little Things

  At the start of the pandemic, I was in an anxiety spiral. I was worried about everything from the health of family and friends to the possibility of nuclear warfare, and it resulted in some fairly agoraphobic, unhealthy coping mechanisms. I had recently moved to a new state, so I didn't even know the way around my neighborhood. I would stay in my room for days at a time, only socializing with the villagers on my Animal Crossing island. I was afraid to leave my house, afraid to grocery shop, afraid to pass someone too closely on the sidewalk. After several months of this behavior, and countless episodes of reality television, I recognized that I needed help. I began the process with a simple google search. "Online therapy options." After some trial and error, I found a therapist that helped me break out of my depressive, anxious cycle, in a way that was both gradual and socially distant. Through my work with her and some self-reflection, I found several things that help me cope with the current reality, allowing me to enjoy small joys throughout the day, and here they are: 1) Trails! I was a hiker in college, but fell out of the habit after graduating due to moving around a bit. Since I had moved during the winter, I hadn't had a chance to explore any trails near my new home. With some recommendations from both my therapist and the internet, I slowly began to venture into the outdoors. I started with a trail that was a 10-minute walk from my house, and eventually worked my way up to a state park about an hour away. It allowed me to feel comfortable leaving the house again in a way that was still Covid-friendly, and I gained a better awareness and appreciation of my surroundings. As an added bonus, I was able to experience Ohio autumn in all it's red-yellow-orange beauty. After a hot, humid, sad summer, some beautiful fall colors along some incredible trails were a perfect way to reset. 2) Books. I read more during the first few months of the pandemic than I had in the past several years combined. I was able to tackle books that had seemed too long and daunting in the past, as there was little to keep me from them, and it provided a sense of much-needed escapism. I rekindled my love of reading, worked through some of my "to-be-read" list, and incorporated reading into my daily routine, giving me something to look forward to and work towards during a time that felt stagnant. 3) Podcasts. I've been a regular listener of podcasts for years. I have the weekly release schedule of my favorite podcasts memorized, and at this point I turn to those for car rides before music. But, similar to books, I had put off some of the podcasts that require more attentive, prolonged listening; these were often podcasts that told a story over many episodes, both fictional and non-fictional. With stay-at-home orders in place, it seemed that all I had was time, and one can only spend so much time listening to the news, so I turned to podcasts. I listened to them when cleaning, when walking on the trails, when cooking, and even when I was just laying around. According to my Spotify Wrapped from 2020, I spent much more time listening to podcasts than music, and I enjoyed every minute of it. 4) Succulents. I have my mom to thank for this one! I had collected a large variety of succulents over the past few years, but had to leave them behind with my sister when moving at the beginning of 2020. With plant-shopping being extremely non-essential, I hadn't had the chance to start a new collection prior to isolation, and I had just accepted that I was no longer the plant-parent I once was. My mother, being the incredible woman that she is, decided that was unacceptable, and signed me up for a monthly succulent subscription for my birthday, in which I receive two baby succulents a month. So far I have eight little succulents, and they are thriving! 5) Cold brew. As an extreme coffee lover and addict, and as a barista, I couldn't make a list of my favorite things without including some form of caffeine. My favorite place in the world is a comfy coffee shop, but that obviously is not the safest setting to relax at the moment. I used this time at home to perfect my cold brew recipe, as well as play with all the different ways to enjoy coffee at home. While I still miss the atmosphere of a cafe, and will be back as soon as it's safe and smart to do so, I have had fun crafting new drinks at home. While I have had a variety of small enjoyments here and there throughout the last nine or ten months, these are truly the things bringing me joy and peace in this lonely, frightening time. Even when this pandemic is officially over, I plan to continue these practices, as they have become essential to my daily routines.
• 
  2021-01-13

  My Pandemic Pastimes

  It is important to understand how our society has dealt with this pandemic, and my entry covers what I enjoyed during the pandemic. Things that got me through and kept me sane!
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  2021-01-12

  My favorite things

  This document contains several of my favorite things that have helped me get through the pandemic, such as video games, music, my banjo, cooking and my dog Dobbs! I submitted this from the ASU HST 580 internship course.
• 2020-01-12

  Slow gain, slow lose

  Ahhh Covid. From March until December I steadily gained more weight than I ever have (without being 9 months pregnant)! Each month progression was a steady +5, +5, +5, +5, +5, +5, +5 … Until December 13th. The day before my daughter’s wedding. I tried to squeeze myself into ANYTHING that might pass for wedding attire. Work clothes did not fit anymore, not even a cute pair of jeans. Would my husbands slacks work? The answer is nope! Apparently ten months of wearing pajamas and stress eating was really affecting my ability to gauge my own girth. This was traumatic for me. I pride myself in being prepared for any occasion. In my closet I have funeral outfits, wedding outfits, professional outfits. All carefully curated over the years to see me through anything. I thought I was prepared for my daughter’s wedding. I imagined a stroll from the living room to my closet where I would just choose whatever wedding attire I was in the mood for that morning and come out shining! But nope! Not this day. Instead, my husband had to make an emergency trip to the Target drive-up after I panic ordered every size of the same pair of pants and blouse, crying the whole time. All of this, is leading to my favorite thing. A $30 Walmart trampoline. I ordered it on a whim with the groceries I had ordered on delivery. I didn’t even think they would have it. It seems all exercise equipment has been sold out during the pandemic, along with board games and toilet paper. I bounce in the morning, I bounce during passing period, I bounce after work. I watch movies and bounce. I listen to podcasts and bounce! I have (so far) bounced off a total of 10 pounds since December 13th. I still need to bounce off another 30 and maybe my pants will fit again. My husband and kids are annoyed by the constant bouncing. But it was cheaper than most other exercise equipment and I hardly notice I am working out when I am into the latest Netflix binge.
• 
  2020-12-24

  McDonald’s At Home

  Home cooked meals have always been the norm for us, but in our pre-COVID lives of working full time, gymnastics competitions, church commitments, piano lessons, Kumon, trips to Disneyland and on and on, eating out definitely factored into to our lives at least once a week. In March, that came to a grinding halt. With COVID cases in our area high, and being fortunate to work from home, we quit restaurant food cold turkey when quarantine began in hopes that the numbers would decrease. Ten months later, with daily case rates of COVID in our county now reaching into the 1000s, restaurant food is a distant memory. It was a bit shocking to realize we’ve only had restaurant food five times since March, and each time it was dropped off on our porch for a special occasion. With the kids begging for McDonald’s, we almost caved in December when the McRib commercials started. Instead of giving in, we spent December tackling the challenge of making McDonald’s at home. Big Macs, Egg McMuffins, McDonald’s pies, and yes, even the McRib made it to our homemade menu. It’s been a really fun challenge to try and get the taste just right. Also, a very odd and strange Christmas Eve to attend Christmas Eve service online and then to eat homemade Big Macs. But then, there was something perfect about it, too. What can I say? It’s a good time for a great taste in quarantine.