Items

• 2021-02-24

  How COVID destroyed Thailand's sex industry

  The story that I submitted is just a small part in the grand scheme of things. COVID 19 has affected every part of how we live our lives. In countries like Thailand, tourism is crucial to their survival. Since the beginning of this virus, over 70% of businesses in Phuket, Thailand have shut down. More specifically though, the industry that has suffered the most throughout all of this is the sex industry. Whether you work at a massage spot, or walk the street at night, COVID and its restrictions set in place by the government have had detrimental effects.
• 2020-01-12

  What is the cause of the corona virus?

  There are many possible things that could have triggered this virus, COVID-19. Some people believe that it came from a person that ate bat soup in China, made in a lab in china, came from a wet market in Wuhan, China, and more. But I believe that it either could have been made in a lab or could have come from the market in Wuhan. To me, these two reasons make the most sense to me because it seems kinda stupid that all of this could come from one person eating a bat. If it did come from a wet market in china, it could have possibly came from the animals that were there, they could have been carrying diseases, and sicknesses. Furthermore, it could be very possible it was made in a lab, they could have made this virus and set it out into the world. And you may ask yourself, why would they want to do that? I think China wanted to depopulate their country a bit, and "attack" the US. I am not sure if that is true but it could be a possibility. In conclusion, these both seem to be potential reasons as to why the corona outbreak began.
• 2020-09-29

  My Personal Covid Experience

  9/29: This journal entry was written as a part of the American Studies class at California High School in San Ramon, California. During the pandemic, many people have faced lots of different struggles. These struggles can range from very slight problems to large ones, and thankfully, for my family and I, we are doing pretty well. Personally, I had a few struggles when adapting to the new ways of learning and getting used to not seeing my friends as much. At first, it was fine because I thought of it as an extra-long spring break, but when I realized that we weren’t going back to school in Contra Costa County I was pretty sad. Throughout COVID, I definitely missed my friends and I felt pretty alone. Luckily, my dad was able to keep his job and work from home, so we did not have any financial problems. Covid definitely allowed me to grow closer to my dad and brother because I ended up spending a lot of time with them where I usually wouldn’t see them as much. Socially, I think our county has started to adjust to the new reality and lots of families are starting to get used to it. I think this whole situation has made people realize that they should be grateful for the valuables and people that are in their life. Lots of things (like social gatherings, school, and friends) can be taken away in a second, but family and other really important things will always stay.
• 2020-12-14

  My 2020 Thanksgiving

  This Thanksgiving of the year 2020, was different among all of my Thanksgivings in many ways. My family and I did not have our usually gathering this year. My grandparents were not able to due to COVID-19 the global pandemic, we did not want to put them at any risk. It also did not really feel like Thanksgiving at all, since we were not in school in person, I still cannot believe we have been doing school online since March! Wow how time has flied by. This year it was really hard for me to get into the fall spirit, yes I carved pumpkins, made pumpkin pie, and drank many iced pumpkin spiced lattes from Starbucks, nothing made it feel like Thanksgiving. Growing up I have always craved that feeling of leaving school, walking out those doors, knowing your not going to go back for a week. Oh how amazing that feels. But this year, that never happened. All I had to do to leave school was close my laptop, that's it. I was already at home, nothing had changed. Even though we did not to anything jurastically different it still did not feel like Thanksgiving, not even one bit. I never ever in a million years thought I would say this, but, I miss school, I want to go back so bad. I can not wait, I can not wait. To whoever is reading this probably years from now, please never take anything for granted, not even toilet paper. Yeah, toilet paper, it was impossible to find it anywhere, and even if you did, it was really bad, like worse than public restroom bad. Well, anyways Thanksgiving 2020 was a total bust and I can not wait for the day to come when everything goes back to normal, no more limits on how many people can enter a store at a time, no more temperature checks, getting to eat inside at restaurants! Never thought that would be something I would not be able to do, and the thing I know we all want most, is no more face masks. Yes, we have to wear face masks these little peices of paper that we wear on our face that cover our nose and mouth to help us maybe not get the virus. Half of my 8th grade year is gone already, and oh boy, I can't wait to go back to normal, I just really can't wait.
• 
  2020-11-02

  We the people of social distancing

  2 Ive heard people talk and stress the importance of social distancing, but when it comes down to it we tend to forget or disregard it. I know it is and still is important to go out and protest or get out of the house for our sanity but I feel like people continuing to disregard the “ 6 feet apart rule “ as we can clearly see in this photo. Social distancing no matter where , whether thats out there protesting, voting , shopping or getting dinner , you are should be followed to keep its effectiveness. I want the future to know that we didn’t do or try our best to help reduce or end corona whether it was because of our government not taking this seriously or because individuals continued to go out and further spread corona.
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  2020-10-23

  My phone usage during COVID-19

  Covid has done a lot of things in my life, although the way I would say it has impacted me the most is through my phone usage. I've been spending a lot of time at home and the way I found myself curing my boredom, and passing the time is by being on my phone. The attached image is a screenshot I took on April 25th, 2020. As you can see my average screentime was 8h 34m per day. Although what I find most surprising is how many hours it indicates I spent on TikTok that week. According to the screenshot I spent 25h 47m on TikTok in 7 days. To break it down for you, TikTok is a new social media app that consists of short videos 15-60 seconds long. The algorithm formulates a "For-You" page of content it suggests you would enjoy. Ultimately meaning during April of 2020, I spent over a day scrolling and watching 15-second videos for entertainment. That sounds like an addiction. That to me is an absurd amount of time to be spending on your phone, let alone one app. During this time, I rarely left the house, as Illinois was still in phases 1 and 2 of reopening businesses. I got most of my entertainment virtually, and as a result, developed a really short attention span. Not only did TikTok consume my life, but it also left me unable to watch videos longer than a minute on YouTube and streaming services like Hulu and Netflix. This was an issue for the while-being, but after I realized the rabbit-hole I was falling down I made the decision to stop using the app as much, and instead use my time doing things that didn't involve me being on my phone to be more productive. Today, in November, I have a screen-time that is less than 3h a week. This may be due to me being back in school and having school work, as well as working basically full-time and babysitting on the side. I simply do not have 25 hours to waste on TikTok as I did at the beginning of quarantine.
• 2020-10-23

  My not-so-fun Freshman year of college

  My experience with COVID-19 is, I'm sure as basic as most other individuals my age. I vividly remember being at the library studying for finals later in the day upset that DePaul hadn't sent out regard giving us 2 weeks off for spring break like seemingly every other school in the United States. I felt left out and redundantly did my homework. It wasn't long after that I heard a roar of cheering on the 2nd floor of the library that was supposed to stay at a whisper. I knew this could only mean one thing... DePaul had come to their senses and had given us our well-deserved two-weeks off. Although, this wasn't the case. My joyful celebration came to an end when I read the email they sent out to their student body in March, telling everyone that they would be moving out and not returning until possibly September of the next academic year. I WAS SHOCKED. Moreover dumbfounded, and not ready to have my freshman year come to a halt. Even more, I didn't feel making students move out was necessary... The virus wasn't that serious and would be gone soon. I didn't know of any other colleges that were taking measures as drastic as DePaul... because of this, you could say I was pretty annoyed at the inconvenience DePaul was putting their students through, as all of my friends on other campuses got to enjoy their extra week of spring break. March 13th has a known reputation of being the last "normal" day before everything changed due to COVID. This was the last day that many people remember not having to worry about the pandemic, the last day before everything changed forever. After this day the country took on a very dark path, and many people believed it was the end of the world. With news reports at all-time high reporting cases growing day-by-day in our country, and spreading like wildfire: it's safe to say that our entire country was in a state of panic. Throughout the next few weeks, almost all of my friends at other schools had to drive back down to their campuses and move out since the "two-week spring break" was anticipated to last much longer. After this, I felt less left out, and almost grateful that DePaul had taken the time to look ahead and save us the hassle of separate trips to move out. Being at home for the first month was honestly in my opinion pretty fun. I got to sleep in every day, and I didn't have FOMO (fear of missing out) because the country was on a somewhat strict lock-down and I knew that everyone around me was doing the same thing. Zoom phone video-calls became the next big thing in my personal and school life. I had new normals such as washing my hands every 30 seconds, wearing a mask whenever in public, and not touching my face with my hands... These were all habits that I thought would be short-lived, although here I am writing this in October of 2020, doing still having to do the same things. The past few months have gone by really slowly but oddly fast at the same time. It's almost November, I ended up staying home to save money on housing for school since all of my classes are online. Almost everyone I know has all online classes since our country hasn't taken the proper measures to get rid of covid and instead chose to adapt to covid, making the turn-around time of going back to life-pre-covid exponentially longer. Furthermore, many college students have chosen to live on campus while doing their studies to be able to get out of the house with their parents and be with their friends. This is the one thing I wish I was able to do since the past 8 months living at home are drastically different than when I was by myself away at school. Although, I understand that financially it's the smartest decision so I'm continuing to preserve on, even as my friends get to live a life somewhat more entertaining than myself. It's the price I have to pay for caring about the well-being of others more than my youth being filled with memories of going out. Now I take life day-by-day and continue to make goals for the future. But in all honesty, I have no idea what the future entails.
• 2020-10-20

  Tales From TheVarus

  This video was made by a YouTuber known as Internet Historian. It is satirical/journalistic in nature, and seeks to document events and incidents that occurred during the pandemic.
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  2020-10-06

  She’s 13, and the Source of a Family’s Covid-19 Outbreak

  The article i submitted is important because it spreads awareness on how serious this disease is and that having large gatherings is not worth the risk.
• 2020-03-20

  Quarantine

  The story is that everyone had to go into quarantine and stores shut down, restaurants, bars etc.
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  2020-06-08

  Hospital Adventure

  My sister has a special heart condition called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. She goes to a special heart doctor that has an office inside of the hospital which we visit every six months. Normally if I am off of school I go with my Mother and Sister. However, this time we encountered problems: Dear Diary, Today my sister went to one of her Heart Doctor appointment. When we walked up to the hospital there were two security guards. One of them stopped us and asked who had the appointment. My Mother explained to him that it was my sister. The man then asked how old my sister was and my mom told him. Because she was a minor he said that my mom could go to the appointment with her, however I was gonna have to stay outside. My mom told the man that that was not possible. I myself am only 16 and would have to wait outside by the side of the street for at least an hour and a half. Eventually the security guard told us that it would be okay, and he walked with us past another pair of guards. So we were finally in the hospital. When we got inside there were two ladies that came to take our temperature. They then questioned us, and again we had to explain our situation. They didn’t let us by until we said which part of the hospital we were going to. We thought we were alright then, cause we had made it inside. But as we walked past the front desk, one of the men that was sitting there got up and stopped us yet again. We told the same story yet again! At this point we were close to being late for the appointment, and this was bad because it would take a long time to get another appointment. Finally he relented and we made it to the appointment without any more incidents. The funny thing is that, when we got to the office, they didn't say anything. They let me in without saying anything.
• 2020-08-26

  My corona story

  When the corona virus first hit I am gonna be honest it was just a huge joke in my opinion but then people in my county started getting it and I realized this wasnt a joke anymore I got super sad when we started doing online school because it got cancelled and basically never did my school work so my mom got mad and said that I had to go stay with my friend who lived down the street for the rest of online school I got really mad at my mom and we didnt talk as much especially because I was gone 5 days of the week when i was stuck at my friends house her mother knew that I worked super fast so she would let me sleep all day when I was done with work and then I would stay up two days straight doing things like making them dinner and just chilling out watching netflix in my room up in my bed that i had in there house the only netflix show i really like is glee adn thats the only thing that i honestly like to watch but after a while my friend got really annoyed with her and I spent most of my time fighting with her cause after a while it took a lot not to be mad at everything all the time like every single tiny thing irritated me and then i started losing all of my friends and i cried a lot and got depressed and i never really ate any food because i was always really sad i never ever left bed unless it was to get food or go to the bathroom but then after the corona calmed down a bit me and my fmaily moved and we didnt move towns or antything but we moved from a townhome to an actual house that we owned and you could tell that my miserable sister wasnt as sad anymore and that made the rest of my family happy and my depression slowly went away and now i go to school wearing a mask and get masks break and am on a block scedule which im alright with it doesnt bother me i have fun at school with all my friends and im super happy here
• 
  2020-07-21T21

  Movie Night: Drive In Edition

  Going to the Drive In movies was some of the most fun that I had during the Pandemic. This was something that I had not done in a long time before 2020, but once Coronavirus happened going to a normal theater was not a possibility. It was really nice to be able to do something enjoyable, such as watching a movie in public, and not have Covid dominate the experience. While sitting outdoors, under the stars, it was almost as if things were not so unusual right now. When you go so long not doing the things that you like to do for fun, going to watch older movies out doors can become a highlight of the summer. Drive Ins have seen a resurgence in popularity during the Pandemic, the outdoor and spread out nature of cars and Drive Ins has led to many events being able to take place that might not have been able to otherwise. It would be cool to attend a Drive In concert with a band performing. I believe that I will be going to the Starlite Drive In more often than I had in the years before 2020. Also it was good to support a small business during the pandemic.
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  2020-03-17

  A French Pandemic Diary

  This is a diary of the COVID lockdown in France.