Items

• 
  2021-05-22

  The Surprise Degree

  When I first began my MA program in Fall 2019, I thought it would be really, really funny to not tell anyone I was pursuing a second Master’s. I figured at some point, I would slip and end up mentioning it. But instead, all our lives changed with the pandemic, and since I didn’t see a person besides the four people I live with for almost 13 months, anyone discovering my graduate program was no longer even a consideration. The MA program actually helped me keep my sanity. In those first couple of months, when everything was up in the air, my courses were a constant. And then in the mundane of quarantine, they challenged my mind, distracted me, giving me something to do. Who knew the random genealogy class I took last summer would lead me to discover 1. that my biological great great grandfather died when my great grampa was only 9 2. that no one in our family knew this and assumed his step dad was his dad 3. that this mysterious biological great great grandfather was not a poor wheel maker from Germany, but was a salesman involved in some suspicious activities that involved a sister being sold (national news! In all the papers of the 1890s), a robbery and attack on him (with the ominous newspaper title “will it be murder” because he was presumed to not survive... he did), and ended with his dramatic suicide when the police were attempting to arrest him for embezzlement ... in front of my nine year old great grampa?!? How strange to think that without quarantine I would never have taken the time to research this (this investigation took over three months!) and my family would still think our ancestry on that side were German wheel makers who fled the Kaiser! When I finished my MA last month, we thought it would be funny to do a photo shoot (never did that for my other degrees) and post it on Instagram. I cannot believe the amount of comments. People were over the moon excited. I think seeing any positive surprise coming out the pandemic gives people hope. And my weird idea that it would be really funny to not tell anyone? Yeah, it was. No regrets.
• 
  2020-11-04

  A Puzzling Distraction

  HIST30060. Millions of people picked up hobbies during their respective lockdowns, mine happened to be puzzles. A few in this photo I had before lockdown, but most was bought in the lead up to, as well as during. I bought my first colour puzzle about a month before lockdown started, when I first discovered the board games store Mind Games in Melbourne's CBD, though I did not touch it until study at home began. These puzzles gave me something I could be good at, with only one still incomplete months after I first got it (in my defence, it changes colour). They allowed me to multitask, I would watch movies for university while I had a puzzle in front of me, I discovered so much music through my Spotify recommended playlists that have become solid favourites, I've caught up on podcasts that were usually relegated to my daily commute to university. They gave me something I could control, in a time of change and confusion, a welcome distraction from everything happening outside of my house.
• 
  2020-11-04

  A Rainbow

  HIST30060. The only time I would frequently leave my house during lockdown was to go and see my partner. I saw him for absolutely none of the first lockdown in Melbourne but would often see him during the second lockdown. He was only a quick train and a short walk away, so I consider myself lucky that I was able to see him at all. I pass this house every time I walk to his and it encourages children and adults alike to count all the rainbows. It became a part of my routine, each time I would go to his I would pass this house and would feel my day get just a little bit brighter. It was only recently that he told me there are other houses around his suburb like this, aiming to give children a little distraction if they happen to pass by. The lockdown was long but necessary, so it shows me that there's hope that there's still some good in this world, with strangers hoping to give one another a distraction and a smile with a rainbow.
• 
  2020-10-09

  Japanese Pokémon Cards Keep Me Sane.

  I chose to write about how Japanese Pokémon cards have helped to keep me sane. While it might seem silly at first, I am serious about this topic. I’ve been diagnosed with severe anxiety, and at one point went outside in a thunderstorm holding an umbrella because my mom wasn’t home when she said she would be. Being only 6 at the time, I didn’t really understand that her job doesn’t always end at the same time everyday since she is a professor at UWSP. Going back to the anxiety and Covid, I’ve gotten much better at handling my anxiety since then, but I cannot help but worry about my family. Due to my anxiety, I need to get confirmation that they are ok before I can fully relax. I am currently in my 3rd semester of Japanese. I’m also a huge nerd, so I really like Pokémon. I saw a video on youtube of a guy opening Japanese Pokemon cards, and it clicked in my head that I could distract myself by using Pokemon cards. Since I didn’t take any classes over the summer, I used that time to practice my Japanese by translating the cards to English and comparing them to the English versions of the cards from pictures I found online. Because I was able to do that , I was able to make it through my summer mostly anxiety free. It did cost a bit, roughly $50 US dollars for 20 packs of 7 cards, but it really did help keep me sane while the world went to hell and back.
• 
  2020-04-14

  Distractions

  Music helped me during quarantine because it was an amazing distraction and I was able to tune everything else out. I would listen to music in my different ways including a record player, a cd player, and my phone. I played music just about anytime I wasn't doing something else. It helped me calm down in such stressful times. Quarantine was such a dark time, we expected to finish off the school year but that got taken away from us. We weren't allowed to see our friends, we didn't get to say goodbye to our teachers, all we really needed was distractions. Music wasn't the only thing that helped, some other things were facetiming, text messaging, TikToks, movies/tv shows, and reading.
• 
  2020-08-23

  Tick Tock

  The pandemic was the least of my worries as a freshman in college who was still adjusting, but it soon overtook my life. Not only did I not come back from spring break, but the entire university shifted to online learning as it was too unsafe to be in class. I left my perfectly curated dorm, my professors, and friends to something that I had not given ten minutes of my time a month prior. The pandemic had been looming in the background and I had heard about it and never really thought it would affect me but I was very wrong. The virus changed my view of schooling, the way the government looks at its citizens and how we treat one another. During the initial lockdown I observed many ways in which everyone tried to cope with our reality. There were those making banana bread, sourdough bread, and binging tv shows on Netflix such as Tiger King. Then there were the college and high school kids who were all staying up till the early hours of the morning mindlessly scrolling through social media, more specifically TikTok, since there was no school to wake up early for. Now I understand that social media can be, and is toxic, but the app TikTok has made a relatively good space for all people and has proven to be a good way to spread information to a younger generation rapidly. As someone who had only a few months ago been writing papers and doing homework in my dorm I can without a doubt say I would never have envisioned myself on an app watching 30 or 60 second videos for hours on end. The videos on the app are comedy related, informative on niche topics, activism, such as the Black Lives Matter Protests, political and just about everything under the sun. Although it is only an app that could vanish at any moment, it has become part of millions of college and high school students' lives. It has offered a distraction from all of the uncertainty in the world and an outlet to share their experiences. I personally attempted to make a TikTok with my friends as we kept six feet apart from each other and although it never turned out it still offered a distraction from the fact that we were not able to just go to one another's houses and hang out - we had to meet in our old high school parking lot. The app seems so benign to those who are not on it, but from what I have seen it has offered happiness in a time of world turmoil.