Items

• 
  2020

  From Upward Momentum to a Downhill Plummet

  Before the pandemic, things were going really well for me. I was in the second semester of my Masters program at Columbia University, putting together an exhibition that was to be displayed at the American Museum of Natural History, and had just started an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Pandemic started, and I flew home to Louisiana to quarantine with my family. In June, I realized I had two months to secure a job to stay in my apartment in Jersey City. After vacationing in Gatlinburg, I returned to spend my 24th birthday in the big apple. Unfortunately, I was unable to secure a job, forcing the breaking of my lease. I returned home October 1st.
• 
  2022-07-05

  Broadway begins mask-optional policy

  This is a news story from Spectrum News 1 by Louis Finley. On July 1, a mask optional policy began for Broadway show attendees. This has worried theatergoers and performers alike, as they are now anxious over being exposed to COVID. Some shows, like "Into the Woods," have been negotiating to make masks mandatory for the front row.
• 
  2022-07-08

  NYC officials recommend masks indoors due to COVID surge

  This is a news story from Axios by Herb Scribner. Due to a rise in COVID cases, health officials in New York City are recommending that people wear high quality face masks indoors or in crowded areas. A CBS News report says that COVID positivity rates have risen 14%, the highest level since January. A subvariant of Omnicron, BA.5, has been responsible for 54% of total COVID cases, according to the CDC.
• 
  2022-04-01

  NYC judge nixes mask mandates for toddlers, Eric Adams plans to appeal

  This is a story by Bernadette Hogan, Cayla Bamberger, Nolan Hicks and Natalie O'Neill for the New York Post. This story is about masking for young kids and the struggle within the local government on what is best to do. A Staten Island judge ruled against masks for toddlers in New York City. Parents in support of this claim that this is a good thing because masks could make it harder for kids to socialize and read emotions. Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, plans to appeal this to reinstate masks, where he believes that if you don't know the vaccination status of everyone in a room that you should wear a mask.
• 
  2022-02-03

  Zero attendance sports games

  As a lifelong hockey fan, specifically for the New York Rangers, it was highly disappointing to find out that the rest of the 2019-2020 season would continue without the attendance of fans at Madison Square Garden due to lockdown restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Watching every hockey game at home simply did not compare to being able to witness the firsthand action of rocket slapshots, massive hits, and gruesome fights seen up close in person. Although, I am fortunate that the rest of the season continued, and I was able to see the Rangers compete in the playoffs despite them being eliminated in the first round. Yet, the beginning of lockdown was indeed a scary time for most people. There was no anticipated end to quarantine restrictions nor an end in sight to the highly contagious virus itself. Writing this excerpt two years later, thankfully, the vaccine and the use of masks has allowed for regular attendance to return to most sports arenas and stadiums nationwide. Hopefully, we will find a permanent solution to the virus itself in the future and continue normal sports activities restriction-free!
• 
  2020

  A New Yorker's Perspective on Life During the Pandemic

  I wrote because I felt compelled to, to chronicle what was happening to try and make sense of it and help me process it.
• 
  2021-12-16

  The Empty Streets of Time Square

  “A pedestrian crosses a nearly empty street in Times Square, New York's most-visited tourist attraction, on Wednesday, April 1.” The bright lights and advertisements bordering the streets have no people or tourists to hypnotise and blind. The usual busy streets of New York are almost completely vacant. I personally felt like the world was literally ending. There was no aggressive honking from impatient drivers, no yelling from pointless arguments on the street. Only the sparse pedestrians, the singular car, but nothing else. Everything was closed.
• 
  2021-05-31

  Empty Dusk of 6th Ave

  The streets were different than usual, it was the ironic sense of peacefulness arising from emptiness.
• 
  2021-12-16

  Our Washed Out City

  This is a photo of my poem that I wrote during the beginning of COVID at school. It memorializes NYC and how it was so empty like it was washed out.
• 
  2021-12-16

  my dog

  Right before New York City went into lockdown my family and I got my dog Luna. She has brought a lot joy and laughter during the pandemic.
• 2021-12-16

  Cats

  Throughout the pandemic, the one thing that got me through it was my cats. Sure that sounds silly but they helped me when it felt like no one else did so I used this photo to show how much they mean to me and how much they helped during the pandemic.
• 
  2020-06

  Shuttered storefront in Chelsea, June 2020

  A shuttered storefront in the predominant art gallery section of Chelsea that has paper signs some which say, "Nowhere to Go", "Nothing to see". During this time, the stores in the Chelsea area were closed - either temporarily or indefinitely. Simultaneously, many were boarded up in fear of looting or protest which added to the eerie apocalyptic atmosphere.
• 
  2020-04-16

  Gagosian Furloughs Part-Time Staff and Interns as Covid-19 Impedes Business

  All galleries felt the immense economic pressure of shuttering their doors. There was uncertainty and furloughs or imminent possibility of losing ones job was a looming presence especially in the spring of 2020. Even international blue-chip galleries like Gagosian were financially struggling. Those that lost their jobs were 

The article discussed job loss - whose jobs - and what this means for the art world in the present and in the future. Other methods of main tenting financially during the pandemic included furloughs and salary cuts where the percentage was determined by how much someone made per year.
• 
  2020-10-31

  Socially Distanced Halloween

  This image shows Xs marked in tape on a sidewalk outside a brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The owner(s) of the home marked the spot for each child to should stand in order to remain socially distanced when trick-or-treating.
• 
  2020-05

  Images from George Floyd Protests and BLM Demonstrations in New York City

  Images taken of signs held while listening to speeches from BLM activists. Another image shows a cluster of police during a demonstration in Midtown Manhattan.
• 
  2020-03-13

  A, C, E Line 23rd Street

  This video was taken on March 13, 2020 on my way home from my last day of in-person work at my gallery where I was employed at the time. I sent this video to my family who lived outside the city and the severity of the situation had not yet hit the town where they lived. Waiting on an empty subway platform after my workplace had shuttered its doors was surreal. I think many of us had a personal experience that we could identify as the moment when we were hit by the realization of how serious the pandemic was (and is).
• 
  2020-08-04

  Experiences of Home Health Care Workers during COVID-19 in New York City

  Interview with Madeline R. Sterling, MD, author of Experiences of Home Health Care Workers in New York City During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: A Qualitative Analysis, and Theresa A. Allison, MD, PhD, author of Extreme Vulnerability of Home Care Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Call to Action
• 
  2020-03-10

  Goodbye Grandma

  This text I wrote is in memory of my grandma, and the horrible and traumatic flashbacks of Covid 19. This experience took a huge toll on me and my family.
• 2020-03-15

  Corona virus 2020

  During the beginning of 2020 everything seemed so fine. I was in school had started a new job at a plumbing company, was occasionally going out with my girlfriend. On top of making money, going to school, i was also hitting a gym and was super happy with my progress in every aspect of my life. All of this was good until, news about how a deadly virus was making its way into the United states from china and how bad it was going to be. Like everyone else i was petrified and i thought there's no way china would let a virus escape they're a powerhouse of a nation. But it did, I remember classes were shut down and shortly after my job was shut down as well, everyone, put in unemployment. During this time my parents had closed on a house and we had become homeowners. During quarantine i remember having to go to our new home and fixing it up everyday monday through sunday so while everyone was at home, doing nothing. My uncles, cousins, father and i were masked up just working in our home. But no matter how far apart we were on different floors and different days, we all got sick. We all also quickly recovered. The covid 19 pandemic didnt have a huge impact on me as much as it did for others. I know a lot of people close to me who lost their loved ones during the pandemic and its truly saddening. My progress with my daily life was lost, school that semester felt like a blur everyone was confused and scared, the gyms were closed, my jobs were closed. I remember hating my life at this moment in time because it felt like i wasn't doing anything but fixing our new family home which i wasn't eager to move in to. Once my jobs lifted in the beginning of june, i quickly picked up my tools and went back into work.
• 2020-03

  Unimaginable Grief

  [March 2020] A month in time no one would ever want to go back to. My friend and I were enjoying our day and suddenly got news that campus will be closed until further notice. It was a scary and confusing moment; before you knew it everyone was talking about the virus. We definitely underestimated the virus and saw it spread in the blink of an eye. Slowly but surely we all began to realize how serious this was and prayed day and night for it to end. Cities went on lockdown, thousands became unemployed, and families grieved the loss of loved ones suddenly taken by this evil virus. I am so fortunate enough to have my close family and friends here with me today, but that does not mean these last one and a half years did not take a toll on me mentally. We've lost many loving family friends whom we never expected to lose this early. One thing the pandemic, thankfully, taught me is to appreciate those who you love because you do not know when they can be taken away from you. As hard as this experience was, I am grateful for the ups and downs and pray for the beautiful souls lost. Rest In Peace <3
• 
  2020-03-12

  Living post March 12, 2020

  I want to share my feelings and thoughts through text that display what I experienced as a senior in high school during the outbreak of COVID-19.
• 2020-12-09

  Life in the Pandemic

  My life in the pandemic was tough. I couldn't work so I was not able to pay my bills, I like the rest of the world during lockdown had to sit at home bored out of my mind because nobody could leave. I was very scared for my mom when she got covid because she had oxygen issues and also heart issues. Going to school during the pandemic really bothered me because I lost a lot of focus and became very lazy when it came to handing in assignments. I would rather physically go onto campus because when I am actually listening to the professors' talk, it makes it so much easier to understand and to focus.
• 
  2021-09-23

  Advika Chaudhari and Matthew Bonfanti Oral History, 2021/09/23

  This is important because it provides the experience of students who had to adapt to several changes during the pandemic who may have had different experiences.
• 
  2020-04-06

  The City That Slept

  When you look at this picture, you notice something right off the bat. Most likely the fact that the streets of New York City are completely empty. On April 6th, 2020, New York City was as quiet as it’s ever been. The streets were empty and there was a ghostly feeling to it. If you were downtown that day, something had to feel wrong. I chose this picture to submit to the archive because these streets represent how the majority of people felt during lockdown; empty and alone. When people are cooped up and confined to the safety of their home, they start to realize the things that they took advantage of when things were normal. This picture also represents the odd nature in which the pandemic brought upon the world. We’ve never experienced anything like this before, and didn’t really have any idea how to prepare. It kind of just happened, and whether we liked it or not our way of life was going to have to change for the time being. While sitting in our homes, time was never an issue and, for me personally, I kind of just expected that one day this was just going to be all over.
• 
  2020-03-20

  School Closings

  Most people thought that we were getting an extra two weeks off of school and that this covid "thing" would blow over. Everyone thought this was short term and nobody expected to not be in schools for a year and a half and have their lives rearranged.
• 2020-03-20

  The city does sleep

  At the start of the pandemic, I was facing home insecurity and was living in a shelter for three months and special housing for 6 months. The city was the most empty I have ever seen it. Ive seen so many people, homeless people, because of the pandemic and it was devastating. It isolated people.
• 
  2020

  Brooklyn College HNSC Prompt

  Brooklyn College HNSC assignment prompt, taught by Margrethe Horlyck-Romanovsky
• 
  2020-09-08

  From always on the go to no where to go.w

  Before the pandemic had hit the United States my family and I had always been on the go between work, school and sports. A father who works crazy shifts a mother who works your typical eight am to five pm shift for her company then going to pick up her children for any after school activity that may have been going on at the time. We had family time but not enough, not like we had during the beginning of the pandemic. Once we were put into lockdown both my sister and I had been stuck at home, no more sports or clubs. While my mom also started working from home and still is today. It was kind of a blessing with the fact she wasn't driving an hour back and forth everyday. But my dad was still working. Even though my father had still been working on his days off, we had played many uno games, my sister and I had also learned how to play scatt a card game. But overall covid did bring us closer as a family, giving us time to really focus on each other. The photo I chose to send in is a photo of my sister on her first day of high school. High school to a ninth grader is already an unknown territory but going to classes through a computer at your desk at home is not ideal. Which I do have to say she handled it like a champ but it was something new, something so scary. From my experience it was unsettling to never know truly when you were going to go back to the classroom. The lack of interaction too just makes things worse. We got better as time went on but the Pandemic definitely had changed things, some things for the best and some for the worst.
• 2020-05

  Waiting to be Connected

  I moved out of New York City for a month in the spring of 2020 during the period where my gallery furloughed most employees aside from the principal directors and a select number of sales people. I spent that time with my father in upstate New York in a close quarters quarantine. I was always struck by the quiet during the day and how visible and bright the stars were at night. Two things that seemed foreign to me at times as I grew up in cities and had lived in various Brooklyn neighborhoods for the past year. The passing sound of car stereos and people’s voices on fire escapes from a floor above were white noise. All vibrant - completely alive - no stars. His apartment was a studio and at the time he had not yet begun paying for internet service. Some nights we would drive four or so minutes down the road to the apartment complex where my Dad used to live a few years prior. We would camp outside the complex’s gym which housed one or two treadmills and the outside looked like a glorified garage - but it had wifi. As we were no longer residents and owners of a key pass to the facility, my Dad would pull up to the side entrance and put on his hazards. I would jump out and begin to search for a signal and attempt to connect to the complimentary internet. Whenever a stray person would emerge from their units to retrieve Amazon packages from their front stoop, I would make uncomfortable eye contact with them, as I held up my phone. Yes, yes, this is what you think it is. They hastened back up and quickly closed their door behind them. I found that the most expedient way of downloading content was to position myself by the exterior front left corner and stand with my back flush against the wall. Every night my Dad and I listened to podcasts and drank tea. Despite everything, moments like these helped us laugh and I look back at this memory fondly.
• 
  2021-09-04

  hermit HERALD, ISSUE 127

  Taliban need outside help
• 
  2021-08-22

  What COVID-19 Meant for My Mother: A Latina Small-Business Owner’s Experience in the Bronx.

  The item I am submitting is a pandemic auto-ethnography detailing the disproportionately negative impact of COVID-19 on Latinx businesses. I do so through the narrative of my own family's experience, specifically my mother, as well as supporting academic research of general demographic trends. This piece speaks to how the pandemic, while in and of itself does not discriminate, has proportions of its impact that demonstrate a systemic bias leaving certain racial and ethnic groups less protected and far more targeted than others. The piece also connects how these discrepancies are not products of the pandemic, but rather were already systemically there and exacerbated by the pandemic.
• 
  2021-03-02

  A Religious Sister’s Service with the Medical Reserve Corps

  This article celebrates the dedication of a friend and mentor, Sister Jean Flannelly, SC, who, at age 80, volunteered to serve with the Dutchess County New York Medical Reserve Corps to help people affected by the pandemic. Despite age and some health problems, she felt called to use her many talents as a psychologist, teacher, counselor and religious sister to do contact tracing, case investigation and serve in various roles at COVID-19 vaccination sites. She is an inspiration to me and to many!
• 
  2020-04

  MUSE 360 Assingment Juliee Decker RIT

  Assignment prompt given to MUSE 360 students of Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) by instructor Juliee Decker, Spring 2020
• 
  2020-03

  How to lighten the mood? Homemade brunch!

  Before the pandemic, one of my favorite ways to celebrate a special occasion was by going to brunch in New York City. Understandably, once the pandemic began, I knew that it would be a long, long time before I would see those city lights again. Rather than get down in the dumps, I decided to improvise and bring the brunch experience to my family home as a way to lighten the rather grim mood. A few weeks into the lockdown mandate in March 2020 I told my family to stay away from the kitchen. I organized a brunch with avocado toast, bacon, fried potatoes, and the centerpiece, a meal I had never made on my own, and a brunch staple, eggs benedict. I learned how to poach an egg for the first time with a few failed attempts. I then decorated the plates with the hollondaise sauce as if it were at a 5 star city restaurant. I made menus with drink options ranging from mimosas to bloody Mary’s and served my family, pretending I was out in the city for a celebratory brunch, despite the lack of celebrating going on in the world at the moment. Even if for an hour, this experience eating brunch lightened our moods and reminded us that despite what was going on outside our home, we at least had each other.
• 
  07/25/2021

  Lauren Pease Oral History, 2021/07/25

  Ashley Tibollo interviewed stay-at-home mom, Lauren Pease about her experience with the Covid-19 pandemic. In this interview, they discuss her experience with the lockdown, her worries about the pandemic, and what life was like during lockdown with her foster child. This interview also touches on political protests, virtual learning and her husband's transition to working from home.
• 
  2021-07-24

  Joseph Dopkin, Oral History 2021/07/24

  Ashley Tibollo sits down with Joseph John Dobkin to discuss how his life has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this interview his discusses how his life at school as a University student has changed. He also discusses how the dynamics in his dorm room and life at home with his family were impacted. At the end of this interview Dobkin touches on political topics, his views on how the pandemic was handled by local and state governments. He also discusses his views on both anti-mask and BLM protests.
• 
  2021-07-24

  Janine Brown. Oral History, July 24, 2021

  In this two-part interview, Ashley Tibollo interviews Janine Brown on how her life was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. In the first part of the interview, Brown discusses how her last year of college was impacted and about her transition to remote teaching. She discusses her fears of the Delta variant, what sources she uses to get her information and what her feelings are regarding government action. She also discusses family life and how she was affected by the quarantine. She ends this part with her hopes for the future. In the second part of this interview, Brown discusses her decision to move in with her boyfriend right before quarantine and what it was life navigating a new relationship amidst a pandemic. She also discusses her pets and how their moods changed as her life changed. She discusses the difficulties of house hunting and the ways that the pandemic has affected the market.
• 
  2021-07-24

  Joseph D. Joseph, Oral History, July 24, 2021

  Ashley Tibollo sits down with Joseph D. Joseph in an ice cream shop in Buffalo, New York to discuss how his life has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this interview, Joseph describes changes in his day-to-day routine, his life as a martial arts instructor, and changes in his economic status. He also discusses his students and how the pandemic affected them. In the last part of this interview, Joseph discusses his views on politics and what he hopes the future generations will learn about the response to this pandemic.
• 
  2021-07-23

  Canine classmates

  I was grateful to be able to do my martial arts classes through Zoom. My dogs, though, didn’t know what to make of it. Daisy, my young lab mix, consistently tried to participate in the classes. She seemed to love the group dynamic, even though most of it was on screen. Zoey, my older dog, needed to be in the room with me and often made appearances on screen. During such a trying time, these small moments brought a lot of joy.
• 
  2021-07-19

  Erie County Health Equity

  This Buffalo News article discusses the racial disparities impacting the residents of Erie County during the pandemic. The article claims that the pandemic shined a light on the racial disparities as more African American community members were becoming infected and dying from COVID.
• 
  2021-07-19

  HERMIT HERALD, ISSUE 121

  Afghanistan- not forgotten?
• 
  07/09/2021

  Joseph Giangreco-Marotta Oral History, 2021/07/09

  Wife interviews husband about COVID-19 experience.
• 
  2021-06-13

  Red ribbons at P.S. 042 Benjamin Altman

  I took these two photos in Downtown Manhattan at Public School 42. There were red ribbons tied around the iron fence that appear to have wishes or hopes from students. Some of the ribbons are hard to read, but one says "[Illegible] make homeless people happy by giving them things I don't need" and another says "My [illegible] that COVID-19 will stop forever". All of the ribbons where the grade level is visible indicate that the ribbons were made by fourth graders.
• 
  2021-06-14

  Anti-racism advertisements at Times Square

  These are two photos of anti-racist advertisements I saw in Times Square on June 14, 2021. One is an advertisement on a digital advertisement board that says "#NOHATE AGAINST JEWS" in white text on a blue background, while the other is a poster on the side of a garbage receptacle that says "FIGHT THE VIRUS NOT THE PEOPLE #STOPASIANHATE", made by artist Zipeng Zhu.
• 
  2021-07-03

  A Dog's Tale

  This is Hannah aka Hannah Banana. My husband and I adopted her May 4, 2013 from a rescue in St. Catherine's, ON. We live just over the border in Buffalo, NY. Hannah is a purebred Sheltie (Shetland Sheepdog), but purebred gone wrong. She is what is called a double merle. That means an irresponsible breeder bred two merle coated dogs together, which results in 25% of the litter being born deaf, primarily white in color, and with eye problems or missing eyes altogether. Hannah was approximately 4 years old at the time. The previous owners who surrendered her had had her for 2 years. They had adopted her from a shelter that had picked her up as a stray. Hannah was our 2nd double merle (we also have an Aussie with the same problem), so we were used to the unique problems associated with deaf and vision impaired dogs, but Hannah came with many more from a history of abuse and neglect. One of her biggest issues was that she was absolutely terrified of people, particularly men, and she hated small children. We worked with a trainer, we did agility twice a week, and did barn hunt once a week. She broke out of her shell a lot, but did not lose her fear of people. In 2016 my husband and I had our first and only child, Charlotte. Hannah was very aggressive towards her. She would bark and snap at her. We had to keep her separated a lot, and we worried about what the future would bring. She got a bit better when Charlotte could walk, but not to a comfort level. Once Charlotte was about 3, Hannah accepted that she was a human in the house but wanted nothing to do with her. She didn't really want to have much to do with any of us or our other dog except for at agility class. She wouldn't play with us and only tolerated petting for a short while. Fast forward to 2020. While COVID-19 was cause fear, anxiety, and depression in people, for Hannah it was just what she needed. After a few months, she became a whole new dog. Having all three of her humans home 24/7 seemed to alleviate a lot of her fears and anxieties. She completely bonded with Charlotte. She actually plays with her and snuggles with her and sleeps in her bed. Who knew this 12-year-old dog just needed constant companionship to heal her old wounds. Luckily, my career path changed during the pandemic (I am going back to school to pursue a PhD) and so I will continue to be home a lot of the time. While COVID did bring devastation to people across the world, for one little dog it was just the medicine she needed.
• 
  2021-06-05

  Andy Gaukel Oral History, 2021/06/05

  Puppeteer Andy Gaukel had carved out a comfortable niche for himself in the Early Childhood Center at Bronx Community College. Then Covid-19 hit, and he had to find new ways of connecting with the college’s smallest students. In this oral history, he explains how he learned new skills to teach online while maintaining his rapport with his pre-schoolers and engaging their parents in a way that he hadn’t before the pandemic.
• 
  2021-06-28

  My Pandemic Experience

  When the pandemic was coming, I was initially relieved. I was supposed to fly to Chicago to visit my sister and go to our favorite band’s (Keane) concert, but as a person with anxiety and panic disorder who is terrified of airplanes and crowds it allowed me to back out. The concert was cancelled. It was the excuse I needed to back out without shame or blame. It seems silly now, but at the time covid seemed more like a bad cold or flu to me. It seemed like another Swine Flu or Avian Flu or other scare in recent memory which hadn’t amounted to a plague style pandemic. Lockdown was even kind of nice at first. My husband, daughter, and I got to spend a lot of family time together. I had taught ESL online for a number of years previously, so converting my in school classes to online was easy. I had no problems teaching over Zoom. I’m a homebody anyway, by habit and by anxiety, so this was great… until the body count started. I was horrified and sickened to hear about the freezer containers being used in New York City to store the overflow of bodies. The germaphobia that had plagued me in childhood, that I had gone to years of therapy to overcome, came roaring back with a vengeance. Like everyone else, I went to the grocery store to stock up so I wouldn’t have to leave me house for awhile, only to find shelf after shelf empty. As a super health conscious, organic, vegan my choices were extremely limited. My husband and daughter aren’t vegan, but they do eat only organic, which became impossible. Soap, disinfectant, cleaners, and hand sanitizers were nowhere to be found. At a time when it was so important to be as clean and healthy as possible all those modern conveniences were utterly gone. I felt helpless. I imagined that people living during pandemics like the bubonic plague and Spanish flu must have felt similarly. After a couple of weeks, quarantine started to feel more like a claustrophobic prison sentence than a family vacation. I missed my sister, my parents, my friends, my colleagues, and my students. On my birthday and Easter I just had to wave at my parents through the glass door. My favorite hobby- taekwondo, which I had started in order to relieve stress and help with my anxiety was taken from me. I had to do the classes online from my living room, which was nearly impossible. I felt trapped. A raging epidemic across the planet from which there was no escape. If I spent too much time thinking about it, I would start to feel the claw of panic. By the time summer arrived I was at breaking point. Luckily with summer we had some reprieve. Case loads declined, and I started meeting my best friend outside. We socially distanced ourselves and wore masks, but we were together and that was a start. By the end of summer she and her boyfriend were on our “quaranteam” that is we decided we could see each other since we weren’t seeing anyone else. In the fall school started. Since I teach at a Catholic school we were able to have school in person full time, though we had students in every grade who opted to go remote. But my bestie and I were back in the building with most of the kids, and I started to feel less trapped. I was going to stores masked and my daughter was also in school. But as soon as Thanksgiving hit everything changed again. So many people ignored all of the recommendations and restrictions and got together with family and friends. It made me so angry that people were so careless. A friend of mine had a large family in Pennsylvania who all got together for Thanksgiving. She didn’t go because she thought it was reckless. 8 out of 14 people at the family dinner got covid and 2 of them died. Then at Christmas, my great uncle passed. No funeral. No wake. Nothing. Schools shut down again. We were trapped. Then the vaccines came. It was nearly impossible to get one for a long time even if you were eligible. Slots filled as fast as they were posted. You needed to present a lot of proof of eligibility in order to get one. As a teacher, I was able to get mine earlier than many others. I got the Moderna. The first shot made me feel a little sick for a few hours, but with the second I had a fever of 103.5, aches, chills, nausea for 12 hours and a general malaise for 3 days. A friend of mine in taekwondo, who has some autoimmune problems, had a severe reaction after her first Moderna vaccine. She has had side effects for a few months now that are not going away. She has dizzy spells and heart palpitations regularly. She is undergoing testing and being monitored by the CDC. Despite some horror stories, the vaccine is still the absolute best thing that we could have hoped for. I would like my daughter to get it as soon as they open it to the under 12 population. A lot of people won’t get the vaccine because they are in the “Science is fake, I’m a Trump supporter” camp. In my opinion, Trump’s misinformation and mishandling of the pandemic cost tens of thousands of American lives, and his diversive legacy is going to cost us dearly for many years to come. It is now June again. School just finished. New York State is allowing people to enter buildings unmasked if they are vaccinated, but few people are actually requiring any proof. Given that the people with a cavalier attitude toward wearing masks are many of the same people who are against getting vaccinated, an honors system policy towards wearing masks is really just a no-mask policy. It is very frustrating to me that people can’t just deal with masks for a while longer to fully insure this disease’s eradication before we have another relapse and find ourselves back in quarantine again.
• 
  2021-06-27

  virALLanguages

  virALLanguages is a volunteer-led project that creates COVID safety content in different endangered languages. The project runs a YouTube channel and Facebook page where they post videos with information about COVID in rare languages, and their website also has a collection of downloadable materials in those languages. Beyond translating material, the project also seeks to tailor awareness materials to members of a community to be in touch with the speakers of those languages by using culturally-aware vocabulary and figures of speech. The attached URIs contain, in order: 1: The main page of the website 2: All of the videos the project has made, including YouTube links and downloadable videos, on the project website 3: An Internet Archive page with the videos the project has made
• 
  2021-06-18

  A Linguistic Tour through Arthur Avenue

  I traveled to New York this summer, and one of the places I visited was Arthur Avenue, located in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx and the main artery of the Bronx's Little Italy. Arthur Avenue provided a unique insight into the function of immigrant languages during the pandemic. Most of the people I heard talking as I walked down Arthur Avenue and went into the stores were speaking English, as would be expected in most of the United States. Some had an accent similar to a "standard" American accent/my Californian accent, while others spoke in New Yorker accents. I heard some people speaking Italian, mostly if not entirely elderly people, in several stores, including Cerini Coffee and Gifts. I also heard expression of language through music, in the form of a speaker in front of Mario's Restaurant playing "Tu vuò fà l'Americano" ("You Want to Be an American") and "O Sarracino" ("The Saracen"), two famous Neapolitan language songs. I didn't expect to hear music in Italian "dialect" (called so even though Neapolitan is a proper stand-alone language). However, Belmont is no longer just Little Italy. It also has a large Albanian presence. I saw a flyer on a street pole in Albanian which I presume to either be a missing sign or a flyer for a funeral. I have no idea what the flyer said because I don't know Albanian, but among the text were two pictures of an elderly man. In front of Randazzo's Seafood, I also saw a sign advertising some type of shellfish (I can't remember which) in Albanian and English, though not in Italian, which I thought was interesting since the store is owned by the grandchildren of immigrants from Sicily. There was also an Albanian television provider called TV ALB, which indicated to me that there are enough Albanian speakers in the area to sustain an Albanian-language cable or broadcast provider, even during the pandemic. I didn't hear any spoken Albanian. This could be a purely anecdotal observation, but I saw Italian primarily as a spoken language and Albanian primarily in writing. There was some writing in Italian, but most of it was either names of food items that couldn't be translated into English or sayings like "mangia bene vivi bene" ("eat well, live well", as a command; the picture of which is attached to this story) for promotional purposes. There was no actual communication occurring in written Italian. On a non-linguistic note, most of the restaurants also had outdoor seating under canopies, a consequence of COVID.
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  2020-05-22

  Pet Adoption Protocol During the Pandemic - A Purr-fect Fit Animal Rescue

  This is a social media post from A Purr-fect Fit Animal Rescue in Buffalo, New York explaining their covid procedure to potential adopters.