Items

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  2021-08-11

  Hobbies and Quarantine

  I have been lucky in this pandemic. My partner was able to keep his job and with the pause on student loan payments, we were able to save enough money to put a downpayment on a house. Quarantine and working from home have allowed the both of us to explore hobbies we have always wanted to have but couldn't because of the time spent commuting or lack of space because we were renting. I was able to start my own herb garden and it flourished. I have learned a lot about myself during the pandemic, and one of those things is that I love gardening and working with plants. I know we have been so much luckier than so many people and that often creates feelings of guilt in me. I don't like sharing my happy stories because so many people are having a hard time right now. I do think the good stories are just as important as the stories of hardship. I don't take what I have for granted and my partner and I still try to donate and help out where we can, but nothing has brought me happiness like my herb garden.
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  2020-06

  Pandemic Gardening

  While there were a lot of terrible things that happened as a result of Covid-19, I feel that one positive was humanity's return to nature. With so many places closed down, people were forced to go outside and enjoy forests, beaches, yards, etc. I was one of these people, and I discovered a talent for gardening. I enjoyed gardening before Covid-19, but the hobby really took off during the 2020 lockdowns. I grew potatoes, onions, flowers, herbs- anything that could be planted, I planted!
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  2020-07-05

  "...come all the way back around to the plague doctor posey mask"

  A tweet by author Anne Thériault featuring a screenshot of a Facebook post extolling the benefits of putting herbs in the pocket many masks have in order to make the experience of wearing a mask more pleasant. The intended purpose of these pockets is as place to put an added filter to cloth masks should you need to enter a high risk area such as a hospital. The tweet itself points out how this is essentially identical to the practice of placing dried herbs and flowers (posies) in plague doctors masks during Bubonic Plague outbreaks- in that case to keep the scents which were thought to spread the disease at bay.
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  2020-04-02

  The quarantine days for an international student from China

  The picture shows the Chinese herbal medicine I had for nearly a month when I was quarantined in the US. This picture shows my desperation and helplessness as an international student from China, and what I can do to protect me from being infected by the virus. I believe that international students from China in the US during the Coronavirus crisis suffer most. Since the beginning of the 2020, we worried about the safety and health of our family in China; during the March to April, when virus spread rapidly across the US, we were restricted from going back home; and even if we went back home, we still encountered discrimination and misunderstanding of other Chinese people. In the US, we are also the loneliest and most vulnerable groups—we were all afraid of getting out, so we had quarantine at home by ourselves. To prevent us from being infected, we started to have Chinese herbal medicine (as showed in the photo). I drank the medicine for nearly a month because the medicine was the only things I had to make me feel safe and relieved.
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  2020-04-12

  Sharing herbs with neighbours

  In Young Street Annerley we started a Facebook group 'They Young Ones’ and shared garden edibles, books and art materials.
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  2020-04-09

  Neighbourhood herb handouts

  Neighbours have started up a practice of leaving spare herbs outside their gates for anyone to share
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  2020-04-01

  Free herbs

  The things you see out on a neighbourhood walk — kids finding ways to be helpful.