Items

• 
  2020-09-01

  Every story matters - Student's perspective

  Classes in Fall 2020 were either fully virtual or hybrid. In hybrid classes, the professors would have to put the projector with some students being on zoom. This was a good idea because it helped students be safe and at the same time learn. It was also challenging because sometimes professors would pay more attention to the students that were in the classroom and not the ones on zoom. I took this picture a year ago to show my parents how classes were working. This was something my parents appreciated because they saw that St. Mary’s University was using all their resources to help students continue their studies. They liked seeing me continue my college experience in a different way but not fully virtual. I saved this picture for over a year to see the changes the world was going to have during the pandemic. I am glad we are finding new solutions and making changes with still being careful with COVID-19 guidelines.
• 
  2021-07-16

  HIST30060: pandemic poetry

  I began writing poetry last year (2020) since I suddenly found myself with much more time on my hands. I wrote this poem earlier this year when I was in a boring Zoom tutorial. Reflecting on it afterwards, I found the theme of lagging very pertinent for my feelings during the pandemic.
• 2021-10-09

  Family

  Since the pandemic began, I was not able to see any family members that lived out of state. One of which is that no one was wanting to travel to see anyone for a family gathering. Instead, there have been a couple of times we would be together in a zoom video call meeting to see how everyone was doing. It is not the same as being able to hug a family member that you haven’t seen in over a year since they live out of state.
• 
  2020-03-22

  Job Security as an Essential Worker Pride-A Meme

  When the pandemic first took place, I was working as an Executive Assistant at a Domestic Violence Agency. Our agency was initially sent home, which prompted a mad dash to learn how to hold Zoom meetings, how to securely set up working from home, getting laptops and printers to workers, and all of the other craziness associated with a rush to work from home. The first day we were sent home, I spent the day learning Zoom, checking emails and answers phone calls and texts. That was a Friday. On the following Monday, I was back in the office. No one else was there, so I could do a lot work without interruption. It was determined that our work as a domestic violence agency was essential. At the time, that was a major relief for this single mom of three girls. I remember feeling panicked about the possibility of needing to go on government aid or unemployment. So, it was a total relief to me to find out we were essential. I worked hard during that time to. It took more effort and energy to help others work from home. I was glad that I could work from my work office, but it still required a lot of extra work. After things settled a bit, I would hear about how much more people on unemployment received. It was frustrating to hear about honestly. But, at the time, this meme was exactly how I felt. I felt a lot of pride to be considered essential even if it meant more work (for less pay).
• 2020-03-19

  Life during Pandemic

  Life during pandemic has been crazy. From schools getting shutdown mid semester to half of the population in the world getting laid off from their job. The pandemic for me started when the schools got shutdown mid semester. University's and colleges went online during pandemic but high schools got shut down till the end of the year. I was a high school senior when the pandemic started. I was really happy at first to get a couple of days off from school, but the couple days turned into weeks and eventually in months. This would have been my high school graduation, the moment I had been waiting for years. But because of pandemic, almost no one from class of 2020 get to celebrate their graduation, the way they wanted. A couple of months after graduation, i went to start university. But it was not the university experience I imagined for myself. ASU went all online with zoom classes from home. I tried getting involved to see if that can make a difference in my college experience, but the involvements were also all online. One thing I learned during this whole pandemic was how important in person learning was. I did hear a lot of people complaining about not learning anything though zoom, but It actually happened to me. I had to use twice as much time going over lectures and quizzes than I would usually do. Because I would get distracted easily. On the other hand, during pandemic I also had a part time retail job. Even though half of the population in the U.S got laid off from their job, I actually worked double the shift during pandemic than I would normally work. I started working full time since the pandemic started till last month august, when the classes started in person. I did get to save tons of money to buy a car for myself. Thankfully during pandemic, no one from my family got covid-19, and we were all really safe. Overall, the pandemic was a crazy yet really wonderful experience for me because I not only learned importance of small things in our lives but also learned to always stay in touch with our family member and friends because you never know what will happen next.
• 
  2020-04-14

  Ballet At Home

  Things began to shut down towards the end of March 2020. At the time, my 5-year-old daughter was taking ballet classes. The dance academy canceled classes for about 2 weeks before they introduced online ballet classes through Zoom. I remember thinking how silly it was. The instructor could not do much to correct and help over Zoom, instead the kids followed along as much as possible. Eventually, the Zoom classes ended and the entire dance academy closed down for several months.
• 
  2021-09-20

  Wake Up Call

  I was nineteen years old, now soon too be twenty-one, when news started circulating about a new virus that was spreading around in China. Personally, I thought the whole thing was just a bunch of fear mongering being played up by the media for clicks. In March of 2020 my theory would turn out to be drastically wrong. Slowly the spread of this new virus became worse and worse and before I knew it, everything was shut down and my family was in lockdown. My in-person classes at Duquesne University were all cancelled and moved to online conference calls over Zoom. For the first time in my life, a global event was having a real, tangible effect on my life. Being born in December of 2000, I have already lived through some world events that will go down in history. Wars in the Middle East, the Housing Market Crash, 9/11, the rapid advancement of computers and technology… all things I was alive for but either to young to remember or to ignorant to see the significance. For the first time in my life, I was seeing a major occurrence in the world directly impact my life and was able to comprehend the seriousness and significance. The object I have loaded is a picture of the Ferris Wheel my family owns and potentially one of the last times I will ever have seen it up and running. Hundreds of thousands of small and family run businesses have either been shut down temporarily or shut down for good because of the pandemic, my family business is no exception. My family runs Reinhart Amusements, a business that provides rides and games to Parishes around the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area for their summer festivals. I’ve been working for the businesses since I was fourteen and started helping long before then. Like many others, we too had to shut down because of the pandemic. My family does not rely on this business financially like my grandfather did. For my parents and many in my large family, it is more of a self-fulfilling hobby. I’m very lucky to get to say that my father and his father have put smiles on the faces of kids and adults alike all around the Pittsburgh area. It is now September 20, 2021 and we have not been able to partake in a festival for over 2 years now. It is sad to say, but after talking with my father and if we are unable to open back up in 2022 then we never will. I don’t know what the future holds with this virus and the world. What I do know is that though the pandemic may take away my family business, it will never take away my own and many others happy memories of it.
• 
  2020-03

  March 2020: A Life-changing Month

  The year 2020 was looking to be much like other years that I spent in college. I was going to be going to classes, meeting up with friends, and working out most days. As March approached, my excitement grew. Spring break was coming, and I had a scheduled trip to Cancun, Mexico. There was talk of a virus spreading through China, but it was very unknown to us. Prior to our trip, we joked about contracting the virus. Little did we know, that would be the week living in the world the way we knew it. My trip to Mexico was everything I wanted it to be and more, but I was ready to come home and finish the semester. We came back from Mexico, and I returned to Duquesne. Within one week of my return, everything changed. Universities around the country started to close for, what we thought at the time, two weeks. Duquesne followed suit. School did not return that semester and the entire country began to shut down. There was a lot of fear and unknown. One minute I was having the trip of a lifetime, and the next minute I was at home with my family only leaving to get groceries. We began using masks everywhere we went, using hand sanitizer many times a day, and staying as far away from others as possible. Although life felt like it completely stopping, the pandemic allowed my family and I to experience something that we might never get to experience again: over a month of quality time together. I was now doing school via zoom and my father, brother, and uncle were home from work. During this time, my family spent a lot of time together. My father and I would find interesting ways to work out every day since our gym had been shut down (see artifact image for a picture of my watch after completing a weighted vest walk. We began these weighted vest walks during the pandemic.). We would watch Netflix series as a family, do puzzles, and even play board games together. I will never forget these memories, even though they were accompanied by fear of the Coronavirus.
• 
  2020-04-09

  How fast things can change

  At the start of 2020, and even into the beginning of March, we had absolutely no idea what was lurking right around the corner. I recently got shown this video, and I thought it did a perfect job of capturing the suddenness of the pandemic. So much happened in only a matter of a few weeks; the shift in what life was and would be like in April compared to January was stark.
• 
  2020-06

  Pandemic Protests

  These images from June 2020 were captured during Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in New York City following the killing of George Floyd. The first image shows City Hall the morning after BLM protests. In this image of a landmark building covered in spray painted cries for change, graffiti depicts the frustrations over the cruel injustices institutions place on people of color. The second image depicts one of many protests during summer in quarantine when New Yorkers came together on avenues, bridges, and squares. Citizens marched and chanted as police followed alongside to ensure protests remained peaceful. These images capture uniquely complex dynamics when people were forced to pursue creative avenues, reinventing social justice movements to come. My time in quarantine was not solely spent on COVID related activities, I also educated myself on how and why many US institutions remain racist, discovering ways that structural change can address unjust attitudes. I read articles written by advocates for the BLM movement and also by conservatives opposing it. In exposing myself to differing mindsets, I was better prepared to engage in conversations with others opposed to change in the hope of educating them on the pressing need for progress. Furthermore, my high school friends and I frequently Zoomed to discuss how our alma mater contributes to racism in both subtle and overt ways. These conversations allowed us to work with fellow alumni, as well as current students, to create a document clearly listing racial inequities within the student body, the faculty, and the curriculum. For each issue that we highlighted, we provided multiple alternatives for how the school could fix the matter in question. While these conversations were unexpected before the BLM protests occurred, they became productive and fulfilling conversations that in and of themselves began to address long held biases, racist representations and undercurrents of injustice within our alma mater’s community and programs.
• 
  2020-11

  Growing up online

  In September of 2020 mid pandemic, I decided to follow my heart and quit my food service job to work with children. I was hired at a daycare, my expectations were drastically different than what I walked into on my first day. As I walked into the building I saw coworkers shuffling from laptop to laptop helping children log into Zoom, Microsoft, and Google classroom. My headteacher joked that within a month I would be able to memorize every student's laptop password and zoom log in, I laughed it off and went to the binder that held all the information. By the time October rolled around I was able to log in at least 20 children into their classes and knew their teachers as well as what their missing assignments were. I was also able to see the children's excitement for school fade from their eyes. Some children mentally checked out and fell asleep, some punched their laptops till they broke, and some left theirs at home purposefully. The pandemic was undoubtedly hard on adults, but have we forgotten the pure bliss that comes from making your first friends in Kindergarten, or even the comfort of a kind teacher? Seeing these children struggle was hard but knowing the daycare that I worked at was stepping up and helping with late assignments, communicating with teachers and parents, and offering the sense of community when all felt lost was really what kept all of us going. Community is all we have and it's all we need even if it is socially distanced.
• 
  2020-12-31

  The Summer Your Librarians Became Youtubers...

  I am a children's librarian in rural Louisiana. We are approximately two hours away from all major forms of entertainment, so the library acts as not only a community hub but a place for children to learn and participate in extracurricular activities year-round... until Covid. Though our community hardly noticed the virus itself, the effects of being locked down soon took hold, and we were left with a community of children, families, and elderly people more isolated than they usually were. The depression set in. And my director had the fabulous notion to take what we did to the airwaves... Or rather the internet. Our seriously underutilized Facebook Page became the hub of activity, and overnight we went from librarians to Youtubers leading digital craft and art classes, Zoom creative writing workshops, and nightly bedtime stories. What initially began as a means to cheer up the children soon developed into full-fledged outreach. Local politicians, law-enforcement, and other community leaders read stories for us on our page as a means to connect with the people in our community. We did special digital story hours with schools once they opened back up in the fall, and also read stories to patients in the nursing home. Continuing with this train of thought, we partnered with our local American Legion Hall, which is located on a main thoroughfare and has large windows clearly visible from the road, to set up our annual "Christmas Around the World" exhibit (which features Christmas traditions from many different countries as well as Kwanzaa and Hanukah traditions) since there was no way to feature the display in our small meeting room safely. Every program was modified, digitized, and brought to the people of our community in the best possible way they could be... which turned the 'year of the plague' into a year of learning, cooperation, and ingenuity for us.
• 
  2020-07-19

  14 Working from Home Memes That Are Hilariously Accurate

  Humor is one of the best ways to deal with stressful situations, such as working from home. This collection of memes take a humorous look at the teleworking lifestyle.
• 
  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.
• 
  2021-07-02

  No kids in the hallways

  I work as a director of a Boys & Girls Club in Cleveland, Tennessee. For anyone unfamiliar with the Boys & Girls Club, we are a Department of Education-certified after-school and summer program. Our organization is comprised of fourteen Clubs across four counties and, prior to COVID-19, we served over 1,000 Club members every day. Immediately following the outbreak of COVID-19, the hallways of our Clubs were empty. In a matter of hours, an invaluable local resource became inaccessible to hundreds of families who depended on our support. This was an extremely difficult time. Fortunately, our organization has an exceptional leadership team. From the moment our doors closed in March 2020, our administration began working around the clock to adapt our program into one that was both virtual and accessible. Clubs began having daily ZOOM calls with their members, calling families to just check in, making silly YouTube videos and connecting with teen members on safe and secure social media platforms. Even further, our administration ensured that no one was laid off and employees still had plenty of work to do. With our hallways emptied, we were divided into small teams that could easily work in a socially-distanced manner and were assigned to a number of facility maintenance projects. We knew that one day our Club members would return, and when they did, we wanted their Clubs to be fresh, clean, and updated. I was assigned to the floors team. This team was charged with stripping and waxing all of the floors in each of the fourteen Clubs. For about eight weeks straight, I became overly familiar with the burning, sterile scent of Zep Heavy Duty Floor Products. Even with an industrial mask, the sharp and bitter aroma of the cleaner was pungent. Now, anytime the floors need to be done in my own building, I am taken back to those 14 weeks there were no kids in the hallways. Fortunately, we re-opened our doors to our Club members on June 1st, 2020 with strict health and safety protocols, and only at half capacity. We remained at half capacity until June 1st, 2021 when we were finally able to fully re-open our sites. Our numbers have still not returned to what they were, but we are slowly getting there. The important thing to us is that we are able to safely provide much-needed services to our community.
• 
  2020-05-25

  First Hug in Months

  My family and I have always been really close, meeting for family days as often as we can. Family gatherings will begin and end with hugs. When the pandemic started, we ensured that we isolated from everyone, even each other, as we all live in separate households and my father and sister have autoimmune diseases, and I have asthma and two heart conditions. Basically, Covid-19 was dangerous for all of us and we were afraid not only to contract it, but even more so to possibly give it to each other. While we would talk over Google Duo and Zoom, it honestly was not the same as getting to interact in person. There is huge importance and one could even say power in human contact, in human touch. It can be something that inflicts pain or reassurance. In this case, I lost the reassurance of hugs and seeing my family in person. The first time I hugged my older sister after lockdown started was about three months after lockdown began. We had both been isolated for weeks without symptoms and without having gone anywhere, and we had both tested negative for it. It had been the longest time I have gone without hugging her. I cried.
• 
  2021-06-05

  A Puppeteer’s Pandemic Journey

  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.
• 
  2021-06-23

  Blank screens

  Turn on video All eyes on me, exposing Me, I turn it off… -discouraged student
• 
  2021-06-23

  Zoom Paranoia

  Stub my toe on chair Scream bloody murder, oh shit! Mic was unmuted ;c -someone who just exposed themselves on a zoom call
• 
  -2021-06-20

  Losing Connections with Older Relatives and with Their Life Knowledge

  I am an individual over 60, which means that my aunts, uncles, and cousins are also over 60, and several are in their 80s and 90s. Luckily I haven’t been separated from family members younger than me, but because of the health and safety concerns for older individuals, I haven’t been able to meet with these older family members during the pandemic. I’ve found that my older family members don’t enjoy connecting through technology, as they know that doing so, although better than not connecting at all, is a poor substitute for face-to-face connections. Trying to communicate over Zoom results in frustration and dissatisfaction for people who are used to another way of communicating, a way where body language, touch, and energy are important components of the conversation. So the level of connection with these individuals has declined greatly during the pandemic, as we haven’t been able to meet in person and our technology-driven connections have been unsatisfactory or infrequent. The lack of connection is particularly sad as this demographic is more likely to fall ill with the virus or suffer another illness, or even death, and I may not have another chance to see them. I’ve lost an uncle to the virus this past year already. I’ve gone without seeing friends this past year, but I fully expect to be able to see them again in the future; with my older family members, this connection in the future is far less certain. The lack of connection is also sad because these individuals have lived long lives and encountered hardships, including diseases and public health scares, and their advice and history would be sources of comfort and knowledge for these times.
• 
  2020-06-20

  Quarantine Bingo

  I created this art journal page in June of 2020. It's a bingo card and each square represents an aspect of the pandemic, from popular shows at the time to trends to ways our lives changed.
• 
  2021-05-27

  An Ode to Zoom

  How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways. I sorrow til I can be free of thee and back in classroom With only bad memories of the days and nights of Zoom Crowding my screen with people who wish to be transparent I hate you with the heat of a thousand sun filled rays You never send my messages to who they are intended My voice and an alien’s, these you have always blended One wrong number in a Zoom ID, I become a student errant I wish for asynchronous or even class by email I am required to use camera, even if I loathe it so Because, when I’m present, you see one fatigued female
• 
  2021-05-25

  Being 16/17 in a Pandemic

  This is my life during the pandemic in the United States which on personal experiences and reactions that I and those closest to me went through.
• 
  2021-05-24

  A Memoir of 2020-2021: How COVID-19 Affected the Lifestyle of a High school Student

  The PDF tells the story of my life over the years from 2020-2021. It explains how covid affected the lifestyle of a high school student, with many other added details.
• 
  2020-05-06

  A Bad Time for My Appendix To Act Up

  I knew Cinco De Mayo in quarantine wasn't going to be as fun, but I wasn't expecting a really concentrated stomach ache after eating my mom's steak nachos. I was slogging through a now fully online spring semester of college and adapting my school's live sketch show FreqOut to be live-streamed instead over Zoom, so I had plenty on my plate. The next day, the pain increased to the point that I could no longer get comfortable in any position. My mom, after plying me with painkillers and crackers for a few days, decided to call in a family friend and registered nurse to check on me. She poked my stomach and said it was probably appendicitis and that I had to go to the hospital. I hadn't been to the hospital since I was carried out in my mom's arms and, this time, nobody was allowed to go in with me. I stumbled through telling people my symptoms as I had many more nurses and doctors poke me in that same spot and wheel me into different rooms. My poor mom was woken up around midnight by a call from my surgeon saying that my appendix was very sick but that I wouldn't have to worry about it since it was no longer in my body. Falling asleep in a hospital bed to the dulcet tones of a terrible HGTV show was the best sleep I'd had all year. They asked if I wanted to bring my appendix home with me, to which I responded "If I wanted to keep it, I wouldn't have paid you all that money to pull it out of me."
• 
  2021-05-03

  COVID-19 Oral History

  [Curator's Note] Elizabeth Hathorn interviews Jeff Foster, a college student and member of the U.S. Army. He discusses the effects of COVDI-19 on college classes and on military training. He also touches on a few other aspects of life during the COVID-19 quarantine.
• 
  2020-09-18

  Grandpa's 80th Zoom Birthday

  This is near the beginning of the school year. I am still settling into 8th grade and am yet used to life during coronavirus. This is the first birthday I have had to celebrate over zoom which was really weird. This is still the stage of Coronavirus Journals where I say what I ate for lunch. Tyler 9/18/20 New Orleans, LA Coronavirus Journal Today is Friday, and Rosh Hashanah. I don’t think my family will celebrate though. I know we will be celebrating my grandpa’s birthday tonight over a zoom dinner. I am really excited to talk to my grandparents because I haven’t spoken to them for a long time because of covid. Today I woke up at 7:48 am and I am really lucky that we have til 8:15 to get to school because I would have definitely been late. Yesterday I had a baseball scrimmage and did pretty well. Today for lunch I had a turkey and swiss cheese sandwich and some barbecue chips. I am pretty lucky to have no homework today since I had Science, History, and Band.
• 
  2020-09-01

  First Day of Covid School 2020

  This was the first day of school of 8th grade and the whole mask thing and all of the precautions were new to me as we just got out of quarantine. I didn’t know what to expect as the outcome of the year and was just taking it all in. Tyler 9/1/20 New Orleans, LA Coronavirus Journal Today I ate a turkey and swiss cheese sandwich for lunch. I ate with my advisory. I had drama today and we played “Greetings Your Majesty”, which is basically where you come behind somebody and say “greetings your majesty” with a weird voice. If they guess who said that to them they get to stay as majesty, but If they don't then the person who spoke gets to be majesty. There is a jester who chooses who gets to go. After school today I am going to Coach Luke for pitching lessons instead of travel baseball practice because we already said we would go to pitching. Of course before that I will do my homework and if I don't finish before I leave for practice I will finish it after school. Today wasn't very special in any sort, but last Saturday was my Bar Mitzvah which was on zoom and my Bar Mitzvah party which only had like 6 kids. Last Thursday I turned 13 years old. In Docs class today we watched him do an experiment from 2 years ago and answered questions about it. On a sadder note - the actor who played Balck Panther - Chadwick Boseman died last Friday at the age of 43. I had recess in the Valmont Courtyard today and I played taps, wallball, and four square. Because of the pandemic we played foursquare using only our feet and heads. I didn't play taps and wall ball for long because a lot of people joined. Today was a pretty normal day, but a crazy week.
• 
  2020

  Present

  Living during the pandemic, everyday felt like yesterday. The same things happened over and over again. It left me pondering when things will ever get back to normal. But even if things did get back to normal, these normal things will happen everyday. What makes the pandemic so different? The pandemic and COVID made me realize the many things I took for granted: seeing my friends and family, going outside for fun, going to school in-person, and much more. This is why I chose this post. Today, it is so true that the real world is an escape from the internet, especially with all of the Zoom and online learning, going outside is a pleasure.
• 
  2020-03-13

  My Experience with Online School and Quarantine

  Hi! My name is Wendy! Right after a normal weekend in March, I never expected that we would switch to online learning. I was shocked to see the email in the picture on March 13th, saying that we would no longer go back to normal school. This screenshot is very important to me since it made me realize that Covid-19 was a bigger issue than I thought. There was talk of a new illness (Covid-19), but I honestly didn’t feel like it would turn into a whole pandemic. I was kind of thankful since I had a dentist appointment on Monday that would’ve made me be absent from class, but all the cons of Covid-19 outweighed the benefits. The first few weeks were awful- it was hard to adapt to the constant isolation, and being with my family all day was tiring. Also, school wasn’t as engaging or fun anymore. We weren’t able to connect with our teachers or talk to our friends in class. Furthermore, seeing the news and how thousands of people were dying was very frightening. But it's been more than a year of online school, and I found out that what helped me cope was the small things like texting my friends on Discord, hanging out (with masks and 6 feet apart obviously), and exploring things that I couldn’t do before quarantine like drawing or playing the piano. Of course, there were days where I was fed up with being inside or when I felt depressed, but making the most out of this situation gave me the drive to keep social distancing. So remember to keep wearing masks, keeping 6 feet apart, and get vaccinated! This lack of social interaction and not being able to go to school or public places normally is unfortunate but we must stay away from each other to stay together. When it gets hard, find ways to connect with others through safe means like social media and use all that free time to improve and discover things about yourself.
• 
  2021-05-17

  A new world within a year

  From being on campus the last day of March 9th, 2020 to being on zoom classes and forced to get "vaxxed" is like making me want to give up on my education. This is significant because in this new world, they are requiring vaccinations upon students as if we have no say, even some professors I know are not comfortable with being coerced into taking this shot. But we want our old life back and we want to be back on campus, but its so significant because there are so many what-ifs. There will be so much restrictions and requirements if campuses open back up, they will definitely have so many precautions which makes people unmotivated. I miss my old life, bothering my professors during their office hours and going to the library to study, or even going to tutoring. Campus was my only escape, I think its important to me that we shed a light on this because this pandemic shows how, us citizens, really have no freedom when we are being forced to get a vaccination that may make us more sick because it is not FDA approved.
• 
  2020-03-13

  My Experience with Online School and Quarantine

  Hi! My name is Wendy! Right after a normal weekend in March, I never expected that we would switch to online learning. I was shocked to see the email in the picture on March 13th, saying that we would no longer go back to normal school. This screenshot is very important to me since it made me realize that Covid-19 was a bigger issue than I thought. There was talk of a new illness (Covid-19), but I honestly didn’t feel like it would turn into a whole pandemic. I was kind of thankful since I had a dentist appointment on Monday that would’ve made me be absent from class, but all the cons of Covid-19 outweighed the benefits. The first few weeks were awful- it was hard to adapt to the constant isolation, and being with my family all day was tiring. Also, school wasn’t as engaging or fun anymore. We weren’t able to connect with our teachers or talk to our friends in class. Furthermore, seeing the news and how thousands of people were dying was very frightening. But it's been more than a year of online school, and I found out that what helped me cope was the small things like texting my friends on Discord, hanging out (with masks and 6 feet apart obviously), and exploring things that I couldn’t do before quarantine like drawing or playing the piano. Of course, there were days where I was fed up with being inside or when I felt depressed, but making the most out of this situation gave me the drive to keep social distancing. So remember to keep wearing masks, keeping 6 feet apart, and get vaccinated! This lack of social interaction and not being able to go to school or public places normally is unfortunate but we must stay away from each other to stay together. When it gets hard, find ways to connect with others through safe means like social media and use all that free time to improve and discover things about yourself.
• 
  2020-07-15

  Pandemic Pet

  This is Tiger, the cat we adopted during the pandemic. Our only pet had been a single goldfish but since we had more time to be home, we added a kitten to our family. Tiger has provided great emotional support to us all and has become an important part of remote teaching. He sleeps on the bed behind me during Google Meets and Zoom calls.
• 
  2020

  Zoom mishaps

  During quarantine we used software called Zoom. It allowed us to communicate from our homes and get some work done. It also allowed video connection. There were many goofs--people caught naked, bad hair, uncensored conversations when the mics were unknowingly on, etc. One meme shows the Jetsons which was a 1960s futuristic animated show that was very popular.
• 
  2020-05-19

  Zoom Birthday Celebration

  During the COVID-19 pandemic, we celebrated my dad's birthday through a zoom call with my sisters!
• 
  2021-04-21

  Mini Oral History with La Verne Ford Wimberly 04/21/21

  Mini oral history with La Verne Ford Wimberly from Tulsa, Oklahoma
• 
  2021-04-23

  COVID 19, BLM and Religion - My story of 2020

  This story tells my experience of having Covid-19 along with being the mother of a brown child during the pandemic and BLM movement. I also share how this year drew the line in the sand for our family's faith and how my partner and I finally found the courage to come out.
• 
  2021-04-14

  Zoomies

  I am lying on my belly while giving my two cents, and I just rolled my eyes at that one guy who likes Mike Pence. No one can hear me burp or see me eating; this is way better than an in-person meeting. My responses are thoughtful and I am on a roll; they asked me to share and I am baring my soul. I stare at black squares and blank expressions when all of a sudden, someone interrupts with, “Hey, you hit the mute button.”
• 
  2021-03-01

  #JOTPYLesson from Robin Keagle

  In retrospect, I have learned that the initial stay-at-home order was an unexpected gift to my husband, daughter, and me. Although the reason for it was unfortunate, it turned out to be a blessing in many ways. Instead of rushing to and from school and work, we had time to eat together more, watch movies, and develop a comfortable but temporary new routine. To be sure, not every day was bright and shiny yet we definitely appreciated this unique time together. Our youngest will be off to college in a couple of years which made it even more special to have those moments with her. Family is everything. PS. I also learned that Zoom has a great HD filter that allows me to wear much less make-up, and how to coordinate a work blouse with pajama pants which is a silver lining indeed. #JOTPYLesson Julie Watters Amber Peters Kim Kimberly Rankin Michele Gable Stefanie Thayer Sinanovic
• 
  2021-04-15

  Second Semester Done, One Year In, But What Will I Miss?

  The end of the semester is near, with one week left in my college semester and only a few weeks left at the high school where I work. As my first year as a Ph.D. season comes to a close, I have to say I am actually going to miss some parts of spending the year going to class via Zoom. It’s been nice to not have to worry about superficial things like my outfit and practical things like making sure my water bottle is full and that I have had lunch before class. Zoom is exhausting. Being aware that my classmates can see me, and I can see everyone else all at once. Sure, I can hide self-view, but in a way that makes me more nervous because I won’t be able to see if my face looks silly. I spend a lot of time holding my face in a specific way to avoid “resting bitch face” that I often end my 2.5-hour classes with headaches and jaw tension. I guess I won’t miss that. Monitoring chat and live conversations is a nightmare. So much so that I don’t pay much heed to the chat at all. I won’t miss that. Not having to find parking on campus though... that has been super nice. Not having to account for traffic, being able to schedule appointments more easily. It’s also allowed my professors to be in other states for meetings when necessary or step out for other Zoom meetings when they have to for a few minutes and then return. I guess it is what we have been saying for the better part of nine months now, that we have always had the ability to be flexible, just no willpower, and the pandemic has shown us that we really can be flexible. Selfishly it makes it easier to work and go to school as well. I haven’t missed a single class all year. It made being a TA easier too, since I didn’t have to go to campus for those classes either, which would have further complicated a work schedule. I am ready to go back to school, after three online master’s degree, the perpetual student in me was so excited to go back to campus for classes and be a part of a college campus again and I didn’t get that because of the pandemic, but I think in some ways it made the transition easier for me. It made it easier for me to feel like I could do it all at once.
• 
  2021-04-15

  Missing Out and Silver Linings

  On Tuesday, my nine-year-old daughter had to return to school in-person for one day to take a state standardized test. She has been online all year attending school remotely through Zoom. Last week in my journal entry, I discussed how our school district gave parents three options for school this year: in-person, flex, and digital academy (online all year). The flex option allowed for parents to decide if their child(ren) would return to in-person schooling at a later date, and children could only return at the beginning of each quarter. We have had our kids home all year. We had to choose about the fourth quarter really early back at the beginning of March. Covid cases were starting to creep up so we decided to keep both our kids home. A major reason for our difficult decision was that my son who is in kindergarten would lose his current teacher and would have to have a new teacher for just the last quarter. We decided he should stay with his current teacher, whom he likes, and who also knows him very well at this point. My daughter, who is in fourth grade would keep her teacher no matter what, so it made our decision easy. It was easy until yesterday, the day after the test when my daughter woke up and realized that she would not get to go to school in-person that day and would have to log onto Zoom as usual. She got a taste of what life was like in-person for fourth grade, and she felt she was missing out on the experience. So, my daughter unfortunately was feeling sad yesterday morning. And this is another thing that has made this year so hard for parents. We must make decisions about our kids and their lives that no generation of parents has really had to make before. And sometimes it is hard and sometimes we second-guess those decisions. But honestly, my husband and I are doing our best. We chose their health over their emotions and socialization. We chose their health because we fear the unknown long-term effects of covid. I do not want to regret my kid getting covid and having lifelong health problems because I decided to send them back to school so they could be with their friends. Now, I say all of this in recognition that we have a tremendous amount of privilege in that my husband and I even have the choice of whether we can send our kids back to in-person school or not. So many families cannot do this or do not have a choice—I am aware of this and grateful for the privilege to have choices regarding their schooling. All I am saying is that parenting right now is hard regardless. So, yesterday morning, both my husband and I sat down and talked with my daughter about her feelings and gave her a hug. We acknowledged that what she was feeling was totally okay and validated it. I also reminded her of two positives from all of this. Since my daughter was loaned a laptop from her school, she started Zooming with a friend after school every day. The two have become very close spending time talking to each other every day for hours at a time. I told my daughter that if it were not for this experience that perhaps she would not have developed such a close friendship with this other girl. I also reminded her that all this time at home has made her and her little brother also very close. They have spent so many hours playing together—an opportunity that might not have happened had they not gone through this experience. So, there were a couple of silver-linings during these hard times for our family. And not to forget, my kids’ computer skills are outstanding now!
• 
  2021-02-19

  Turning 5 years old in February 2021

  My daughter turned five on February 19, 2021. We had no family or friends over to celebrate. We had individual Zoom calls with each set of grandparents & a Zoom birthday cake celebration with all of the aunts, uncle, cousins, a great aunt & grandparents late in the evening. People sent their gifts ahead of time. She opened them throughout the day. We gave our daughter her birthday gifts, too. This particular photo is showing virtual Bingo. One set of grandparents sent over a Bingo card set & they had a copy of the same one. We played the game virtually. My daughter had a lot of fun.
• 
  2021-04-09

  A Year of Virtual Sharing

  Our Sunday morning coffee/hiking group, professional women 60 or over, took to Zoom to stay connected. We started in April 2020 wearing Easter hats; we upgraded our haberdashery on Easter April 2021. Wishing to escape daily Covid fears, we chose a topic each week. One individual shared and then we moved on to the next. Topics were seasonal, from Mother's Day, Father's Day, Veteran's Day, Christmas, New Year's. We learned more about each other than we ever knew. Women out-of-state who were part of our circle could join us from D.C., Portland, and Wisconsin. As a former teacher and oral historian, I began to take notes on the conversations and realized these stories were too important to lose. I wrote them up weekly, edited them with the ladies, added photos or clip art, and provided a printed notebook to each friend for her birthday or Christmas. Some of us who are fully vaccinated can now meet in person, but we have decided to meet once a month online to continue telling the stories we might not share in person.
• 
  2020-10-07

  Second Grade Class Reacts to Teacher Being Kicked Out of Class

  When a 2nd grade teacher at Parkland Elementary in Texas lost internet and left of her virtual classroom, her students realized the conversation was being recorded and won’t stop talking about toast.
• 
  2021-02-19

  Professor Abusive Toward HoH Student in Online Class

  A professor is being placed on paid administrative leave after a viral video showed the instructor berating a student in front of the Zoom class.
• 
  2021-04-01

  Nursing School during a Pandemic

  One would think that the healthcare professionals at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic would. have been most aware of the situation the United States and the world was about to endeavor, however, my story as a nursing student during the pandemic makes it clear that this was not the case. Everyone was blindsided by the virus. I was in Pathopharmacology class during the days leading up to the pandemic. One of my classmates raised his hand and asked our professor if she thought our school was going to send us home because of the virus. This question was in response to some nearby colleges sending their students to remote instruction. I remember thinking how crazy of an idea this was and that these nearby schools would be inviting their students back to campus after an extended spring break. My professor thought there was a 50/50 chance that we were sent home. My anatomy professor thought that the virus was not going to affect us greatly either. Just a week later, students were told to pack their rooms and leave campus as soon as they could. However, to my relief, nursing students were to stay on campus for labs to make up for lost time in clinical. I was in my Geriatric Nursing clinical rotation at the time, and working with one of the populations most vulnerable to COVID, we were some of the first students pulled from their clinical sites. After just a few hours, nursing students were told that we too had to get off of campus as soon as possible. My mom, working as a nurse back home, was at work when I received this news, so I had to gather up all of my belongings from my dorm room and fit them into my car to get everything home. It is odd to think back now about how quickly we adapted to an online learning style that we had never used before. Zoom became, and still remains the new normal. I look toward the future with hope that we soon will no longer have to maintain six feet distance from those we love, that healthcare workers feel a sense of accomplishment for their sacrifices, and that we can learn from this pandemic in the future.
• 
  2020-04-02

  College Student in Covid

  I wrote about my story through covid. I am a college student studying Early childhood education. I am also a child care worker. My submission is about what it was like going through college during covid. This is important to me because it's my experience and I know many other college students feel the same way.
• 
  03/13/2021

  Oral History: COVID-19 Affects On LGBTQ+

  Paul Jason Baker-Nicholas gives an oral history interview about how COVID-19 has affected the LGBTQ+ Community.
• 
  2021-03-02

  The 128th Day, aka Day One

  For the first time in 374 days, I taught from my classroom today. It is the 128th day of school, we have only one quarter left. As nervous as we are about our community and the COVID risk level, I feel very positive and relieved to be back. COVID numbers have dropped considerably, and though I haven’t always seen eye to eye with my district in the way this entire pandemic has been handled, at the end of the day, I really feel like the right decisions were made Compared to neighboring districts, I feel our safety standards exceed the norm. It is strange still - the largest in person class I will have is seven students and the smallest is zero! Many families in our community have opted to continue distance learning through the rest of the school year, which I understand. We made the same choice for our two kids! Still, it was nice for the first time in over a year to wake up and have somewhere to go. Even though on one hand it seems ridiculous to Zoom an entire class of kids with two kids in the classroom who are sitting far away from me with headphones on and are logged into also the same Zoom meeting, I did feel re-energized to just be back in my classroom. I don’t think I have a greater prayer right now than for the vaccines to continue to work and for the adolescent and pediatric trials to successfully run their course. Wouldn’t it be incredible to have the kids vaccinated by fall? I know it will not be a reality for all students, but I think that piece of the puzzle will be a big part in mitigating the spread. In the meantime, I’ll continue to follow the pleas of the SOS sign that is taped all over the school. Indeed, let’s save our school year and the next one, too!
• 2021-03-19

  My dreams

  My dreams for post-covid world To shop at my favorite stores To eat at the delicious mouth watering restaurants To explore the new books in the library To dance to the twisty, twirly music To laugh with my friends To hike through mother nature To learn at my school To exercise at boxing class To pray and sing at Church To have no mask To show the world who I am But for now I shop online I order pickup and eat at home I pick out books online I dance in my room I laugh at a distance I hike in my neighborhood I learn on zoom I don’t do boxing in a gym I don’t go to Church I have to wear a mask I can’t show the world who I am the way I did before For now I have to show myself a different way