Items

• 
  2021-04-02

  Why is this so hard?

  Every week, write an entry in JOTPY. Seems like the easiest assignment ever. I thought so, too. But, I have really struggled. I have found myself behind in entries and I probably need to write 2-3 times a week for the rest of the semester to stay on track. I've always had trouble journaling and writing in diaries ever since I was a kid. I've always viewed those things as really personal thoughts and I like to keep mine in my head. I viewed writing my innermost thoughts and viewpoints would give others an advantage over me, a way to see my weaknesses. A super intimate view of myself through my own lens. I've read thousands of pages, researched for hours, written a dozen response papers, drafted a 25-page paper, and still, this write in JOTPY every week has been the hardest assignment all semester. Maybe it's because it forces me to think about COVID and how it has affected me, my family, and the rest of society. COVID has taken over my life for the past year and this assignment forces me to confront that fact and my feelings about it head-on. It forces me to publicly share these thoughts. At first, I wondered if it was even beneficial to assign students to write for a project like this. It's supposed to be shared experiences but how authentic are the entries really going to be when people are not writing on their own, but writing because their grade is dependent upon it? I cannot speak for other students, but I feel that this entry I am writing now is very authentic. Although I am scrambling and having to submit a few times a week, I am grateful for this assignment. It really helped me grow as a student and a person. I still have a ways to go, but I am becoming more comfortable with sharing my personal thoughts and opinions in writing.
• 
  2020-05

  Weekly Planner

  Attached is a picture of my planner from May of last year. I have always tried to keep a journal of some sort but over the past few years entries in my actual journal have become more sporadic, and I sometimes feel bad that I'm not documenting my life better. But I have found that I keep my memories and experiences in different ways. I keep post-its and planners and notes from past classes, all of which contain some view into a different time of my life. This page in my planner was probably drawn during class, or while waiting for another class to start. The goldfish stickers were there before I wrote the words around them, I'm pretty sure. Looking back now I could say maybe the goldfish and the misconception about their memory is a comment on the way isolation and lack of enrichment affects memory, but really I just had them nearby and thought they were cool. At this point the monotony of quarantine and online school and being out of work made a planner feel kind of superfluous and each page was less like an organized look at my week and more like a dumping ground for my thoughts. The speech bubbles near the fish read: "(I love you guys)" "What?" "I said let's count down so we can all sign off together!" Since moving back to my parent's house in March I haven't seen any of my friends in person. It's been nearly a year of movie nights over discord, all of us counting down and trying to press play at the same time despite the latency. There's a certain intimacy of talking to someone late into the night from my bedroom, surrounded by artifacts of my high school life. I'm afraid for myself and afraid for my friends but we don't talk about the big scary thing looming over all of us. It's been nearly a year and the space in between now and February feels both infinite and microscopic. I am still, but time goes on. I remember that I wrote "One day I will be disappointed (spelled incorrectly) I did not document history better" later in the week. Memory is fragile and I want to preserve it the best I can but lately I'm too tired to take down the details of each day. Maybe this vague collection of my thoughts will be valuable to future me, but I won't know until then so I'll hold onto it anyway.
• 
  2021-01-13

  My Pandemic Pastimes

  It is important to understand how our society has dealt with this pandemic, and my entry covers what I enjoyed during the pandemic. Things that got me through and kept me sane!
• 
  2020-12-16

  The Pandemic and Pens

  I’d like to start by expressing that when I started this paper I’d come to the early conclusion that I didn’t have an object that “helped my ride the covid crisis”. I had adopted the similar sleeping patterns of a hibernated bear and didn’t have a shiny, new hobby to show off. My thoughts mirrored the resemblance of a pinball game, half-baked ideas ricocheted back and forth in what, at the time, felt like a seemingly small head. My problem was that I didn’t truly realize the significance of this object until I was forced to introspect. With consideration, an object I’d choose to represent the duality of my life pre and post COVID would be a pen, not the type rich ladies would drape their fingers around and daintily dip into a rich, black ink in order to create the most beautiful calligraphy strokes. Just an ordinary, utilitarian pen. I guess before Corona this is exactly how I pictured it. There was nothing remotely special about a pen at the time, just a necessity for in-person schooling. The motion of grabbing my pen in the morning became just as routine as brushing my teeth; it had been a part of my routine since elementary school. In March, the static sound of the intercom interrupted derivative practice and emerged from the speakers telling students to grab their belongings from their lockers. At the time it seemed COVID would be the cause of an extended Spring Break. Thinking little of it, I tossed my pen to the bottom of my bag and blended in with the crowd of students rushing to the parking lot as if it’d just been announced everyone would be competing in a Nascar race and had to depart immediately. The thing about time is it continues regardless of circumstances. Eventually classes continued on Zoom and technology was incorporated in nearly every part of my day. Admittedly my new routine proceeded as follows: 1) Wake up and check my phone 2) Online classes 3) Homework completed online 4) Use my phone or computer on and off until bed 5) Repeat This was the most disengaged I had felt from both school and friends in years. I felt like I’d been placed on a conveyor belt and was just moving along without actually doing anything. My eyes transferred lazily between the Zoom computer screen and my phone. If my screen time was represented by a bar graph it probably would’ve looked like it pranced into a New York City elevator and rode it to the top without stops. Initially I was glad homework was switched to being strictly online. My keyboard acted as a catalyst as I completed my assignments much quicker than I would have with a pen and paper. After a couple weeks of this, the honeymoon phase had passed and reality loomed in like storm clouds. I became more aware of the growing disconnect between what used to be seemingly normal activities. Desperately trying to clutch onto life pre-Corona I picked a pen back up. Quarantine, so kindly, gave me mass amounts of time to spend alone. At first this juxtaposition was overwhelming as it seemed all the institutions I had once known collapsed around me. It was noticeably easier to fall victim to this pessimistic mindset, but instead I nervously started trying to process my thoughts on paper and journaling. The stay at home order had quite literally put up a barrier between the outside world and my friends. Journaling was the healthiest pastime I took up. It allowed me to work through internal barricades on my own time. I’d compare journaling to knitting - at first it’s just ideas (or yarn) trying to organize themselves in order to create the final product. Originally with either hobby it is both frustrating and confusing to begin, but with practice it becomes relaxing and the motions proceed with little need for thought. For the first time since pre-quarantine I felt clarity with my thoughts; the storm clouds were clearing out. If anything this was the most comfortable I had been with myself because there was no one else to compare myself to- just my pen, paper, and myself. I grew up with a negative connotation around therapy, so this was incredibly healthy for myself and allowed for tremendous personal growth. It also helped me break the technological constraints and dependency I was feeling. With this same pen, I also started drawing. Looking back, drawing has helped me tremendously become less critical of myself. I use to try to mimic other people’s art styles and would feel deflated when they encompass the same artistry. I finally learned how to doodle as a meditative purpose instead of it needing to be something I’m great at. Instead of allotting all my free time to technology, I used pens. The colors danced around each other on the page while my wrist controlled the motion. Even before the pandemic, I was aware of the social media crisis in our society, but lockdown reemphasized this concern of mine. This was a way for me to unplug. When I contrast pens and computers, I think of the theme of originality. Nearly everyone’s work on the computer follows the same monotonous MLA, Times New Roman font, double spaced papers, whereas everyone writes differently or has a different pen preference. There is more room for creativity and uniqueness to shine through. Overall, pens paved the way for me to take a step back and reprioritized. I came out of quarantine feeling more comfortable with myself and carried my writing hobby along with me from California to Washington. I’ve been staying in touch with loved ones through handwritten letters, something I certainly would not have done prior to quarantine and would have opted for a text instead. There’s something special about using a pen. Writing is so universal yet individual at the same time. Everyone writes uniquely and handwriting reveals personality traits. It’s something I’ve realized is special. The picture on the left is my mom and brother with their pens of choice, and the picture on the left is my holiday card my mom sent me in college; in a way pens unite our family.
• 
  2020-11-14

  A Recollection of Feelings

  This was a short paper assignment from a professor for an English class and we had free range with it so I decided to write my feelings and experiences during COVID times and this was the result.
• 
  2020-05-11

  COVID-19 JOURNALING

  COVID-19 JOURNALING