Items

• 2020-03-13

  covid

  schools shiut down at spring break
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  2020-03-20

  Eddie Case Oral History, 2022/03/07

  [curator's note] I recorded this interview at the Arizona Historical Society's 2nd Annual Covid Memorial Event at the Arizona Heritage Center. Eddie spoke about his experience as one of the first cases of Covid in Arizona, and his illness and long recovery. He views his story as a blessing.
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  2021-12-16

  Mourning Far Apart

  When my grandmother died during the pandemic, my family and I were unable to visit Massachusetts, (where she lived), to go to her funeral. We joined the funeral over FaceTime and it was really sad that we weren't able to be there with our family.
• 2021-10-06

  Pandemic Reflection

  Last year as we all know was the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic. Funny enough, I had actually started an Epidemiology class in January 2020 of last year. It was interesting timing. For me, it was cool to learn about Covid 19 in real time, however it was also scary to learn about how much it would impact us in the incoming months. I remember telling all of my friends and family about how we should be prepared and how it might affect us. A lot of them brushed me off, but a few took my advice seriously and started to prepare for the worst. My mom, who is always the most prepared for everything, started to buy canned foods and toilet paper for our family before the toilet paper craze started. Then as the months passed, and the pandemic grew worse and worse, we started to see how everyone was reacting differently. Leaders of the old church that my family and I used to attend, started to tell the church members that they should not get the vaccine as it was only there to ‘control the masses’. Watching news on T.V. meant that there would be political fights over science. Or social media would be divided often leading to people disowning those with opposing views. Now here we are, over a year later and the divide is stronger than ever. Some religious affiliations advocating for vaccine exemption or workers going on strikes because of vaccine mandates. We are now able to look at world data and see how different countries have responded to the pandemic and how their cultural beliefs have either hindered them or helped them. As for me, life has been hard. I started the pandemic off working at Starbucks and being an essential worker, we really took the brunt of it. We were over worked and spread thin meanwhile the customers were demanding and impatient (to say the least). Out of the many reasons I left Starbucks, this was one of the main ones. Home life became almost toxic because of disagreements regarding the covid virus. Lost some friends as well. Lost some faith in religion. Preaching about loving your neighbor while also putting them in danger. Lost some faith in humanity. My distrust in the political field grew even more. Through all of this, I am grateful. Although its been hard, there are others who suffered way more than I. They suffered the loss of their loved ones or they lost their only source of income. I hope that this next coming year bring us all the relief that we have been needing. But only time will tell.
• 
  2021-08-01

  Ableism and Vaccination

  This is a complaint that I don't know whether to officially lodge about the treatment my partner and I experienced at the mass vaccination hub in Homebush. It is a complaint regarding ableism, and invisible illness.
• 
  2020-03-13

  Students Sent Home from College

  This is a post I made regarding the coronavirus when my college shut down due to the pandemic.
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  2021-02-11

  Family is Forever

  COVID-19 has affected me in a way that seemingly everyone has felt in some way. This pandemic has brought my family closer together, physically and emotionally, than ever before. My family is usually the type to cover up our feelings and hide our thoughts with sarcasm, but this pandemic has unleashed all of those hidden feelings. Being stuck in the same house I have been in for the past 21 years has changed how I view family and the time that is spent together. When the pandemic first occurred, we were all devastated and annoyed, just like the rest of the world, that we were instructed to stay in our homes 24/7 and only leave our homes for certain conditions such as essential work, food, and outdoor activities. During the first few weeks we were all getting antsy and annoyed staying inside all together, but we had to come to terms with the fact that were stuck with each other whether we like it or not. We slowly began to play board games, go on outdoor walks, and spend quality time together because we were all that we had. I used to hate having family dinners, being asked a million questions by my parents, fighting over the bathroom with my siblings, playing family game nights, and much more. Over many months of being cooped up in the same house with my whole family, I started to realize that I cherish those moments more than I thought I did. During the past few holidays that occurred during the pandemic; Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and soon to be Easter, it is easy to see that close family should be cherished and held close to our hearts. Not being able to see my cousins and grandparents for these holidays has been a different kind of experience. We always take for granted those times where we get to casually see them or plan gatherings, but now we’re forced to stay distanced to keep everyone safe. My mom has recently said, “We are showing how much we love them by not seeing them”, explaining that we are keeping everyone safe and healthy by not gathering and possibly spreading Covid-19. Looking into the future and the years to come, I hope to keep appreciating the time with family that I will have and look to make the most of situations I am put into. This pandemic has taught me many lessons that I wish to further learn from and value the important thing sin life that we usually take for granted.
• 2021-01-15

  my online school experience

  Online school isn't that bad. I get to be in the comfort of my own home and away from probably sick kids. I feel better that way anyway. It's definitely easier too. I'm more focused at home surprisingly. I don't want to do it forever though. Maybe just for this year and then I can be a freshman. It's a good experience and others make it seem like it's the worst. It's kind of harder to learn but, that's only if you dont want to. When people tell me it's just as bad for me since its my last year of middle school, I definitely dont think so. I'm happy to leave and at least my last year of middle school is more interesting than others.
• 2020-10-26

  A Short Review of My COVID-19 Experience

  Everything started at my job at my school’s pool, when one of my bosses told me that the district shut down my school. I was a little surprised, but I got back to work, it was off season and the pool wasn’t going to watch itself. The smell of Chlorine and chemicals was slightly comforting, since at least I still had work, which was something to do during these strange times. But over time there was more talk from my job’s higher ups about shutting down the pool, and two weeks after school closed, my job did as well. Now the only thing I could do was lay around my house, listen to the news and my family stuck in our home. Online school starting up was the worst though, having to sit there and listen to teachers yell at us over due dates even though I wasn’t paying attention to what day it was, everything was just a blur. Finally, it was summer, instead of sitting outside and listening to the birds chirping or smelling a nice barbecue, I was stuck inside, with nothing to do. In June, after almost three months, my work returned! Back to Chlorine and Hand Sanitizer, it was the first time I’d seen any of my friends in person, we stayed safe and far away, but it was good to be in the same room as them. And as quickly as Summer came it left, and we were back to school, well digitally back to school. it's much better than earlier this year. But it didn’t help that during the first week of school we got huge fires, it didn’t affect my schoolwork but it did affect my work, I spent two weeks on and off at work, only smelling smoke and seeing the orange sky and red sun. Now things have gotten better, I still work, I still go to school, and I’m a year older than I was before. Hopefully, things will keep getting better.
• 2020-10-12

  Quarantine

  My experience during quarantine was not that bad because during the summer I was still able to play baseball and go on vacation. But something that was bad is my basketball playoffs were cancelled mid way through so we weren’t able to finish them. For my mom quarantine was a little bit stressful because she is a teacher and she had to do something new she never knew, and now she has a totally new group of kids.
• 2020-09-10

  keep our grandma safe

  While some of my relatives live in Australia, most of my family is in Israel, which is doing really bad covid-wise. We keep in touch via a What'sApp family groupchat. However, over the last few weeks, the groupchat had become a site of conflict. We in Australia, on one hand, take the virus very seriously and have favourable attitudes towards lockdown and face masks. My relatives in Israel, on the other hand, see it as a prelude to dictatorship. They also subscribe to all sorts of covid conspiracy theories that undermine their faith in public action. Although usually their opinions are tolerated, covid has really fleshed out our ideological differences to an irreconcilable point. The other week, my cousin in Israel showed up to my grandmother’s house with her friends. This caused a backlash here in Australia among relatives who were concerned for my grandmother’s safety. After quite a public and vicious argument on the What’sApp groupchat my grandmother eventually stepped in to defuse the tensions. As absurd as it sounds, I hope my relatives stay away from my grandmother. Their alternative views, which were once endearing and funny, can now claim her life. Ultimately, I would be powerless to stop them from here.
• 
  2020-06-06

  I don’t remember much

  It was by a kitty pool because the real pools weren’t open
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  04/02/2020

  A Perfect Back Deck Beverage

  Bars in Chicago have been closed for a month due to shelter-in-place. Service industry workers panicked: our paychecks are minimal, and business was just recovering from the winter slump. But, Chicago bartenders are family and many of them got creative. Estereo batched boozeless cocktail mixes and sold bottles of alcohol curbside. So far, we’ve raised enough money for each of our coworkers to get “tipped” $200. I know a lot of that came from fellow unemployed bartenders, and the generosity of them and strangers is truly humbling in a time of anxiety, fear, and social distancing. #DePaulHST391
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  2020-03-31

  A Dark Green Mill In Daylight

  The historic Green Mill Cocktail Lounge in Uptown, Chicago, has long been open from 12PM to 4AM 365 days a year: the marquee lights blaze in the daylight and twinkle invitingly once the sun goes down, and you can hear the faint blares of trumpets and saxophones. This bar has long been a haven from modern life for busybodies and music-lovers alike, where they can relax in the relic of the jazz age, myself included. For three years now, I have been going to the Green Mill every Tuesday after my bartending shift. However, Covid-19 has forced the bar to close its doors and to turn off its lights. Uptown feels lost without its guiding beacon, and its presence is one of the few aspects of regular life that I genuinely miss. #DePaulHST391