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moving
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2020-07-14
Cross Country Move During the Pandemic
In the spring of 2020, my sister finished up her post-doctoral program and needed to find a job. Unfortunately, if job hunting wasn't hard enough, the Covid-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, and in-person interviews were canceled as companies went remote. After a number of Zoom interviews later, she landed a job. The only issue - that job was in California, a state that had responded to the pandemic with some of the strictest restrictions. In July, the moving truck was loaded, we hopped into our cars and began the two-day drive from Texas to California. We had originally planned to take the southern I-10 route through New Mexico, but before we left, we learned New Mexico had implemented a 14-day quarantine for anyone entering the state. Since we weren't 100% sure if that applied to people just passing through, we decided to go the more northern route staying the night in Colorado and Nevada. While both hotels we stayed at assured us they'd taken extra precautions cleaning the rooms, we followed the CDC-suggested guideline of bringing cleaning supplies and wiping down hard surfaces when we got our rooms. I'm a bit of a germaphobe, and this was the first time no one gave me funny looks when I entered a hotel with a can of Lysol wipes. Overall, besides wearing a mask in public, the road trip to California was similar to road trips pre-pandemic. Things got a little bit more restrictive as we got into Redwood City. Unlike in Texas, masks were required indoors and outdoors if other people were nearby. Since it was a lot cooler in California, I was mostly fine with that requirement. With most indoor attractions either closed or open only to a reservation, we decided we'd go to the beach while we waited for the moving truck to arrive. Apparently that was a popular idea, so it was hard to find a part of the beach without people around so we could take our masks off. Besides the mask mandate, the only other restriction that impacted our trip to California was that California had closed indoor dining, so all our meals had to be eaten curbside or to-go. We found a few restaurants with outdoor seating, but mostly it was easier just to get take-away and eat it on the floor of my sister's new apartment. Since we weren't flying and we really weren't in California to do tourist activities, traveling wasn't that difficult. However, while it wasn't difficult, it was terrifying. Our trip to California was pretty early in the pandemic, and there wasn't a lot known about Covid-19 yet. Additionally, there were countless stories on the news about people ending up in the hospital and dying from the virus. If we hadn't needed to move my sister in 2020, I don't think I would have traveled at that time. In fact, even as information came out about Covid-19 over the following months and years, I still wasn't comfortable traveling. My first trip since moving my sister was actually just this past June. -
2022-07-13
Moving During the 2020 Pandemic
During the 2020 pandemic, my family had to move to a different state. I remember the virus specifically affecting too much, though that might be because I wasn't too involved in the logistics. I just had to stay out of the way of the movers and keep all my stuff together, both of which I would have done anyway. It would have been a different story if we had to take an airplane instead of driving, as I was fortunate enough to have been able to do. -
2022-05-26
Relocation in Isolation, Reconnection in Solitude
When Covid first kicked off, I was in the final months of my undergraduate degree, weeks away from obtaining my B.A. in history from CSU Stanislaus in December 2020. I had made plans to travel and work in Japan, teaching English, doing cultural work, and generally immersing myself into the culture I found so fascinating in my studies. However, the world's shutdown would put an end (or a pause) to this plan. Now working remotely from home, I stayed in my room working on my senior thesis, looking out the window to the often empty street. My family had decided to move, as we had decided years before but loose ends such as my degree were the final threads to be cut. Remote work had given us an unexpected leap in our time-frame, and so in the midst of the Paradise fires, to which I vividly remember the dark orange skies blotting out the sun and the ever present ashy, smoky stench on the air, carried by the warm breeze from the north, we began the process of transitioning our lives to be on the road, and to be resettled in northern Idaho. For the next year and a half or so we settled in to our new home, however the world was still largely in lock-down, and so I spent most of my time inside or in the basement where I had set up a study space to finish my senior thesis and to earn my degree through my last online semester. It was a self reflective and solitary time, in which I would often take many breaks to venture out my backdoor, which quite literally lead into the forest. Not fifty feet from my home, we have a circle of trees where we would eventually put a fire pit and often sit around together around the warmth on cold nights, talking and sharing fun with one another. When alone however, it serves as an incredible spot to simply sit back and become immersed into our natural world, an amenity I often take advantage of to this day while working on my M.A. through ASU's online program. This audio recording is a sample of that, and in it, you can hear the spring time birds chirping away, the low rumble of the highway just over the mountain, feel the breeze through the trees and the valleys from the lake, and imagine the smell of pine and flowers on the forest floor. -
2020-03-18
Moving & Religion
These pieces of media were made during the very start of the pandemic on March 18, 2020. They capture the moment when my family moved to a new house in Chandler, Arizona from Tucson, Arizona. This was the beginning of a completely new life in a different place. From that moment onwards, I had no more connection to the outside world and was locked inside this house for the rest of 2020 and half of 2021. I did not have any form of in-person social interaction and only stayed inside this house. This made 2020 and 2021 a miserable experience. The photo is of my mom, who is the one that initiated our move here from Tucson, AZ. She did not like Tucson and wanted to move here as quickly to a more urban area like Phoenix and Chandler as soon as possible, but I really wanted to stay in Tucson. Tucson was a place that I developed a deep connection with. Tucson was the place where I attended high school and made many friends. To have those connections ripped from me for the rest of 2020 and basically the rest of my life was a very difficult experience. The video depicts a ceremony that Hindu families perform every time a family moves to a new residence. The question of whether I should partake in religion is something that I personally struggle with a lot in my life and especially in 2020. My parents forced me to partake in religious festivals and celebrations that I did not enjoy. This is another thing that made 2020 a very miserable experience. Over time, I have turned into an agnostic and a very secular person (something that my parents would probably be very unhappy to know). -
2020-05-30
The Two Sides of COVID
COVID has a double-edged coin valuation for me. 2020 was one of the best years of my life. While that was true for me, the exact opposite was true for so many others around the world. The photograph that is contributed to this archive is one of me and my fiancé, who got engaged in March of 2020, with our two pets and our brand-new vehicle getting ready to drive cross country in May of 2020. I had been let go from my job due to the pandemic, but my fiancé received a promotion, but that promotion required us to move across the country from Los Angeles to Camden, Arkansas. We had been talking about getting out of LA for years and this seemed like a calling from a higher power that it was the right time. This picture symbolizes the pandemic from my personal perspective because this move was the easier move I’ve ever done because everyone was at home, rather than at the hotels, restaurants, and rest stops that we needed to travel to in order to reach our new home. However, it also gave us a unique perspective to see the country without all of the people in it. When we were driving across Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas it was shocking how little traffic there was and how there seemed to be no one around. When we took a flight to check out prospective homes, there was no one on it! It was very strange to experience the isolation of COVID-19 right at the beginning because when we moved to a new town, no restaurants or events were taking place to try and meet people. It became one of the loneliest years of my life. When 2021 came around, things got back to normal in Arkansas and life seemed to begin again. I look back at this photo and remember the excitement of something new, but also the loneliness and isolation it brought. -
20201-07-30
Moving While Having Covid19
Me and my girlfriend caught covid at the same time and were struggling to move our furniture into our storage unit. This was a challenging task because we were so fatigued and weaken from the virus. -
2020-08
Covid-19 Freshman
The Coronavirus will certainly be something I will never forget and how it impacted myself and the people around me. The initial shutdown hit the spring of my senior year of high school. I thought we were going to be shut down for a month, at the most. That certainly was not the case. After most of the world was shut down for nearly 6 months, it was time for me to start my freshman year of college. I spent the summer going into freshman year wondering what college would look like for me, and whether campuses would even reopen come fall semester of 2020. Luckily, college students we able to return to campus, but with many changes and limitations none of us could have imagined. Moving into college was much different than I had always imagined. Before coming to campus, I had to schedule a two hour move in slot on a specific date. Before unloading anything, I had to wait in a line of other college student’s cars waiting to get tested for covid. The test had to be negative in order to be allowed on campus. The rapid covid test we received took 30 minutes to receive the results. This was the longest 30 minutes of my life. My heart was racing, and I was freaking out about what would happen if the test came back positive. I would have to drive seven hours back home, just to do it all over again 10 days later. Thankfully, the test came back negative, and I was able to move into my dorm room. Unfortunately, my roommate had tested positive, so I was alone in my room for 10 days. That does not seem like a lot of time now but looking back it was the longest 10 days of my life. Everyone on campus was isolated from each other to slow the spread of the virus. We were discouraged from having others in our dorm rooms and were encouraged to say in our rooms for the majority of the day. The gym was even opened for limited hours of the day. All these limitations meant spending a lot of time in your room alone. Along with adjusting to this new reality of college none of us expected, we had to worry about getting sent into isolation if we tested positive, and we got tested up to two times a week. I had many conversations with my roommate about how long it was going to take to get sent home because we all expected to be sent home, since we had experienced so many other disappointments and cancellations in the last few months of senior year. It was very hard to live with the high level of uncertainty. No one knew how long the pandemic was going to last, when things were going to return to normal, and whether we were ever going to receive a normal college experience. While many current college students have not experienced the normal college experience, we all expected to, we have all adjusted and have made the most of it. I am hopeful that we are close to returning to normalcy, and we all have gone through the worst of it. -
2021-10-06
Moving from Turkey to the United States During a Pandemic
This story describes moving a family from Antalya, Turkey to the United States during the pandemic of 2020/2021. It attempts to enlighten the reader to the types of issues people are dealing with and how it can change a person and reveal who people are. -
2020-01-01
The real pandemic
during the covid 19 pandemic everybody was panicking and worrying about getting a vaccine. i just moved here from another state and i left my mom and brother back home. they lived in a bad neighborhood so during the pandemic they was not only afraid of the covid pandemic but the violent pandemic that plagued the streets where they lived. during the pandemic i lost both my mom and brother to gun violence. -
2020-07
Silence and Isolation
This is important because it speaks to the daily struggle of living through the pandemic. I was not touched by the disease itself, but my life was changed by it. My submission describes my sensory experiences of isolation during the pandemic as I moved to a new city for work. It expresses how the pandemic brought more than health issues but social issues to society as well. -
2020-09-30
The Sounds of What is Lost
This story speaks to the ever-changing sounds of the pandemic. Sensory history allows us to engage with the past in ways the invite the senses of the past back into the story. As my partner and I were navigating all the trials and tribulations conjured into existence by the events of the past year and a half, we noticed how silent our home full of sadness and confusion had been. Gone were the overhead aerial shows, the chatty neighbors, the rattling railway tracks... Now there was nothing. Our sense of sound changed dramatically and began to represent how fractured our connection to the world was. We had to be plugged in to tune each other out. We had to stare at a screen to see a familiar face. While most things felt, looked, and smelled different, there was nothing that sounded the same. -
2021-01-10
Wait, it's 2021? New Years Eve in a Pandemic
For the past four or five years, New Year's Eve was always something I greatly looked forward to. Usually my night was spent with friends, playing games or enjoying a drink while waiting for the all-important countdown to the new year. One year, my roommate's mom came to visit and we celebrated by bombarding each other with silly string as the clock struck midnight. The next year, my friends and I decided to participate in the Spanish tradition of eating 12 grapes at midnight, one at each stroke of the clock, but forgot until about 5 strokes in and risked choking as we attempted to catch up with the clock. In 2019, which seems like so much longer than a year ago, I celebrated with a friend who worked for a dog-sitting company; as midnight came and the fireworks began, we toasted with champagne while comforting the nervous pups. Despite what had happened in the previous year, or whatever challenges I already foresaw for the upcoming year, New Year's Eve was a chance to end the year with some fun, and start the year with good company. Obviously, this year was different. Leading up to December 31st, I felt a sense of loss. In 2020 I had moved to a new state, and the friends I usually celebrated with were over two thousand miles away. Even if I was in the same state as them, it would have been irresponsible to celebrate in the way we previously have. What was usually a night I looked forward to every winter was instead serving as a reminder of the often overwhelming sense of loneliness this pandemic can bring. I was heading into the end of this year melancholy and disappointed. But then one sentence, which I saw on instagram, changed my outlook. While I did not screenshot it, it said something along the lines of this: Celebrate New Year's Eve by going to bed early, so you can start 2021 rested, refreshed, and ready to take on the year. So that's what I did. After finishing work around 7:00 PM, I went home, took a shower, read a little, and called it a night. I recall briefly waking up to the sound of fireworks, but for the most part I slept well and began 2021 rested, rather than exhausted from staying up all night. While I was still a little sad to have spent the night alone, without the usual fun activities, I think it was a good way for me to start out the year. I can use that night as a reminder that even though 2021 will still be unusual and, at times, a bit lonely, I can take this alone time to focus on myself, and what allows me to feel rested and refreshed. It's not the most revolutionary resolution, but as far as New Year's intentions go, I think it's a pretty vital one. -
2021-01-11
when covid 19 started, Jacob Orozco
when the Covid 19 virus hit, everyone was concerned. Apparently the virus broke out in China and was released to the whole world. There was even talk about shutting down the schools. We watched the news as the virus was spreading from Europe to America. as things got worse they eventually did shut down everything, schools, restaurants, ect. My family even thought of moving to another state. Then when Covid was in its groove, we realized its not as deadly as they portrayed. we all thought that this would be a killer virus as the news was saying. To some people it was very deadly, to some it is not. it was especially deadly to old people. to kids like us, it was as if we got a cold. eventually the news and CDC came out with their lies and said that the virus had a 99.9% survival rate to people with no underlining health conditions. thats when my family knew that there was no point in having everything shut down for a long time. The moral is that it wasn't as deadly or crazy as they said it is, sure, thousands of people died, but is wasn't really and grater that the deaths from the flu. -
2020-12-11
School during a Pandemic
Everything was going great, I was doing good in school and I loved being able to go to the beach and spend time with my family. When all of a sudden I got a news alert on my phone about an outbreak about something called COVID- 19. I ran to my parent's room and asked them what it was. They told me it was a disease with flu-like symptoms that has already affected thousands of people. Places had started to shut down and the next thing I knew there was a stay-at-home order. During this time I was making a move from Puerto Rico back to California and was scared about having to fly. We wore masks the whole flight and weren't allowed to take them off unless we were eating or drinking. Once we landed in California we walked through many doors that had built-in thermometers that we're taking our temperatures. Fast forward a few months I had been accepted into Oaks Christian and was ecstatic. I couldn't wait to make new friends and try out for the dance team. A week later we had gotten an email saying that school was shut down until further notice and that we would take our classes via zoom. As expected I was bummed out because I was starting my eighth-grade year in a new school online. I couldn't make any connections and had/ still have to stare at my computer for 80 minute periods 4 times a day. Overall, COVID-19 had made my eight grade year very different than I had hoped it would be. -
2020-11-10
Roommate Inresponsibble
My roommate keep going out and seeing other people even tho the US is in its worst right now, so I and my other roommate came together and said he had to change the way he was dealing with the pandemic, he didn't, so I had to move out in the middle of the semester, because I am in a risk group, due to the medicine a take (it lowers my immune system). -
2020-11-16
Pandemic speeds up influx of remote workers to small cities
This story, which also appears on NPR, talks about how smaller cities like Burlington, Vermont are experiencing an increase of new "remote workers". They're escaping the big cities for multiple factors, many exacerbated due to the Covid-19 pandemic. -
2020-10-26
2020, the year EVERYTHING changed
2020 has been the craziest yet most boring year i’ve experienced. I remember on New Year's Eve when the clock hit 12, me and all my friends screamed with enjoy for what was to come in the new year. Before covid, I lived in San Ramon, went to school at Cal High, and worked at Primos in Danville. Now I live in Alamo, do online school, and don't have a job. Before, my Dad would come home from work at about 6 and my mom would come home from work after 8. Now, I'm stuck home with my mom all day everyday. My experience during quarantine, I feel has been different then many others. I lived in the same house my whole life. My parents got divorced, leading us to sell the house. My 1,400 square foot, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, house sold for almost 1 million dollars. My entire life has changed during the covid pandemic. I barely see my friends anymore, and see my family all day everyday. My brother chase was graduating from cal when the pandemic hit. A couple weeks into summer he started saying he was tired. We got an email from one of his friends parents saying that chases friend tested positive for covid-19. I knew right them that chase had gotten it. We all went and got tested and just as i suspected, he also tested positive. Thankfully chase was the only person in my family who got it. The only symptoms chase had was fatigue. That was the only direct contact I came into with covid-19, that I know of. At first I didn’t think quarantine would last long. Here it is 227 days later and the numbers are still rising. Nothing will be the same as it was before covid. -
10/19/2020
Eduardo Lopez Oral History, 2020/10/19
This is an interview I had with Eduardo Lopez over Zoom. He is the Interfraternity Council President at St. Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas. I interviewed him from Providence, Utah while he was living in St. Louis, Missouri. -
0000-08-01
Life Still Goes on
Although the pandemic temporarily placed a hold on what everyone could do, the pandemic didn’t place a hold on everyone’s life. The pandemic started in March around spring break of the Spring semester of 2020. Due to the pandemic I had to make a choice to stay in Phoenix and continue working and going to school or leave everything move back home. I made the decision to move home and start over. I was fortunate enough to get a job in these hard times which took up a lot of my time and distracted me from what was about to come. In August I had to make the decision of moving back to Phoenix for school or stay home and do school completely online. Although most of my classes are online anyways and this seems like a very small issue it was very draining for me. After many trips to Phoenix, many tears, and many panic attacks I made the decision to move. Due to the last-minute move and the stress that came with it I began to second guess the decision I had made. Every day I try to convince myself that it was the right decision and that I am doing good considering the situation we are all in. I also feel as though my mental health has been rapidly decreasing. With that being said, I know I am not the only one that feels as though the combination of no human interaction and online school that isn’t teaching us anything has caused mental health issues to increase. A good friend of mine created a group of classmates at the University of Arizona and composed a letter to the President, after being asked in a class how they were doing, explaining how bad they were doing. They received no response; it was a very good concept but not enough to make a difference. -
2020-08-20
Helping my little brother move in
Starting college can be hard at any time, and it's even harder for kids starting school during the pandemic. Since only so many people are allowed to help people move in, my brother had to pick between my mom and myself to be the last person to see him the night he moved in. He picked me, and my mom told me over the phone that she cried. Not being able to visit him has been hard because I don't even know how he's feeling during all of this. Being seperated from him because of coronoa for the first time this summer is horrible, and I know there are so many others out there separated from their loved ones because of Covid-19, as well. My brother and I hung out in each other's rooms all day over the summer, and now we can only see each other by appointment. I just hope my brother's first day of college was alright. -
2020-06-20
Making the Most of It
This is my best friend and I taking graduation pictures. COVID-19 closed schools and cancelled senior events, and my best friend moved away. We made the most of it and she spent so much time with me. We filled each day with different celebrations or activities before college. I had to move away first, so we made the most of the time we had. That is what the COVID-19 pandemic has taught me. We need to live right now while following safety measures. It may not feel normal, but you will still have fun. Make the most out of it because there is no use in waiting for normalcy. -
March 31, 2020
COVID Share Your Story #RITtigers #21, Accounting Major's Point of view
It has been very difficult. I just finished moving into a new housing assignment after dealing with a demon roommate, then less than a week later RIT made us all leave. Two times in a week I had to move all my things by myself. My family lives in Los Angeles and all my friends were home so I had no one to help me. I've been fighting with both the California and New York DMVs to get my car registered for the last year, so my car is unregistered and I couldn't go anywhere. Luckily my aunt rented me a car so I could drive to St. Louis to stay with my grandfather. My mom didn't want me to drive to LA by myself, even though I've driven from LA to Rochester twice, but with my mom. My cat Poppy and I drove the 12 hours from Rochester to St. Louis in two days. I don't really like St. Louis or LA, I'd so much rather just be in Rochester, mostly because I've never been able to get a job there and I have a job on campus. In terms of classes being all online, I think it will be helpful for me. None of my professors are doing synchronized zoom meetings so I don't have to get up for class anymore. This is good because I didn't go to class all the time anyway. I can do the coursework more on my own terms now. I'm retaking a class I failed last semester and I think I'll pass this time not only because the class is exactly the same, but because the tests are open book and aren't under a time limit because they're online. If I could give a message to myself at the start of this semester, what would I say? Be ready for challenges and approach them creatively. Adapt to the situations at hand. -
07/26/2020
Alexandra Phan Oral History, 2020/07/26
Alexandra "Alex" Phan shares her experience of the pandemic. Alex is a Master's student at the University of Ottawa studying Virology and working in a lab which focuses on emerging viruses- most recently SARS-COV-2 (Covid-19). She describes her activities during the pandemic and the sense that she and other researchers are somewhat removed from the collective trauma the rest of the world is experiencing, as their routines have not changed drastically. She also discusses the changes in student life and what it is like moving out of your parents house/living on your own for the first time in the midst of a tiered lock-down. -
2020-08-01
Moving in with COVID-19
Moving during COVID-19 made my transition unnecessarily more difficult. I am a 22 year old female who just had made a life changing decision to move in with my boyfriend and his family the beginning of March. During that month I was stressing out about college course, settling into a new environment, and trying to work out financial struggles. My stress level peaked within the second week of moving in to the point that I had physically gotten sick. I do want to make it clear that I was not sick with COVID-19, thankfully. All that worrying made my immune system drop and I ended up catching a case of strep throat. This had stopped me from continuing to work at my retail job two weeks before quarantine was enforced. In April I applied for unemployment but was not able to receive any benefits. This left me worrying about how I would financially pull my weight. My boyfriend works doing industrial flooring which allows him to be financially stable enough to support the both of us and our two Yorkie's. In May my boyfriend was working on a big project and had offered me a job for a couple weeks. So for those two weeks I got to learn about epoxy flooring and how long and tedious of a process it is. That experience made me appreciate my boyfriend and all the work that goes into making a floor. The next couple of months consisted of DIY projects, movies, and my summer college courses. Recently, my work has reopened allowing me to have some source of income, even if it's just working once out of the week. Starting a new stage in my life during this pandemic made it financially difficult but at the same time allowed me to learn how to enjoy the little things in life as well. -
2020-03-14
Military families dealing with the stop movement order
This is a news article covering how the stop-movement order for troops has affected military families.It is personal to me since my family was supposed to P.C.S. in April and then was suddenly told it was to be rescheduled when we had already taken steps to sell our house and move across country and this type of incident occured all over the country during the pandemic. -
2020-05-13
Three Different Cities in Quarantine
Three Different Cities in Quarantine -
2020-05-13
Moving While Quarantined
This is my account of what it was like to move to a new city while in quarantine. #CSUS #HIST15H -
2020-04-19
My First TikTok Dance
It had been exactly 39 days since the last time I saw my partner. At the beginning of March, I made the decision to move in with my Mother in Tucson, where I had resolved to stay with her until the crisis was over. I needed to move out of my Tempe home by April 30th, so I made the trek from my parents’ house in Tucson back up to Tempe and enlisted my partner’s help in moving the last of my possessions. It felt dangerous, and even though it was essential travel and we’ve both been strict with social distancing since March, I must have asked at least ten times if she was sure it was safe. She assured me it was. I told her I was not sure if I could hug her. She told me it was okay. Before this whole crisis began, we had just started a conversation about moving in together. The 39 days apart provided some clarity: We wanted to take that leap as soon as it was safe to do so. As we looked at the stacks of boxes on my kitchen floor, we decided that some could be stored in her apartment. It was strange, because when 2020 began I had this vision of us packing up my stuff and moving in together. Here it was happening, but it wasn’t this joyous event, it just felt solemn. She cleared out space in her guestroom and we hauled boxes up three flights of stairs before we sat, winded, in her living room. It was so bittersweet—the hope of imagining this future together and the reality of our current separation. My favorite thing about our relationship is that it’s been defined by laughter. We’re always on some type of adventure, working on some new inside joke, and always pranking the other. But in isolation, it’s been hard for us to keep up the playful parts of our relationship. We can’t go on adventures, we can’t prank one another, and sometimes everything feels too serious to joke at all. Somedays, we’re too tired and sad to even talk much. As we moved things from my apartment to hers, she tried her best to cheer me up. She checked in with frequent are-you-okays and trotted out her best comedic material to elicit laughs. She’s become quite the TikTok aficionado in quarantine, and many of our jokes right now are shaped by the absurdist videos on the internet. Sure enough, each time we placed a new box in the car, she loudly yelled “CAROLE BASKIN”, a reference to the TikTok Tiger King inspired dance. Soon, throughout the afternoon, we’d both break out in the TikTok Song. CAROLE BASKIN! Killed her husband, WHACKED HIM. Can’t convince me that it didn’t HAPPEN Fed him to tigers THEY SNACKIN CAROLE BASKIN! As we sat in her apartment on Sunday evening, I got an idea. I walked to the front of the couch like I was presenting at a conference. “Play the music!” “What music?” “Play the Carole Basking song!” It took me a few times before I began to freestyle some moves. “You have to use your hips more!” she directed. “What? No, I don’t!” She pulled up another video for reference. “All the good TikTok dancers use their hips!” I tried again, this time bouncing my hips in ridiculous fashion. CAROLE BASKIN! (I shook my hands above my head) Killed her (I drew my thumb across my throat) husband (I pointed to my ring finger) WHACKED HIM (I mimicked an axe movement) Can’t convince me that it didn’t (I wagged my fingers and made an X across my chest with my arms) HAPPEN (I tapped my arms by my side) Fed him to tigers (I gestured from my chest out) THEY SNACKIN (My outward arms made the alligator chomp twice on beat, before I drew my arms up to claws) CAROLE BASKIN! (I bounced on my hip and flared my tiger claws outward with a rawr expression) By the time the dance was over, my partner was howling with laughter and I was too. It was the hardest we had laughed together in weeks. Before this pandemic started, I thought TikTok was silly. I still have no plans to join TikTok and I sincerely hope my TikTok dances never end up on the internet. I’ve also never seen Tiger King and I have no plans to and I keep hearing about Joe Exotic with no idea who that is. But honestly it doesn’t matter what I think about TikTok or Tiger King, because I know they make my partner laugh. They bring her joy during this terrible time. I know that a lot of other people feel that way right now too. So here I am, documenting my first TikTok dance; Or, as I like to think of it, a strange act of love in the midst of this pandemic. -
2020-04-05
Moving Out
About a week ago, my folks and I had to make a mad dash to my college resident hall to salvage all of the stuff in my room. My dad made extra sure to let me know how it important it was that we got the toilet paper from my room. The whole experience was really bizarre. For starters, there was actually parking spots in the parking lot, something the school is usually pretty lacking in. In addition, the place was practically dead. There were some other students coming to get their belongings as well, but it was pretty much just me and my dad walking up and down the hallway. Considering it was my first year at college, it was a little depressing moving out so unceremoniously. Everything had to be quick and orderly. No time for goodbyes or anything like that. I almost feel like I'm missing out on the college experience a bit. -
04/01/2020
Moving to Rock Hill
I took this picture when my family moved into our new townhouse in Rock Hill. We had already planned to move to our new place before the COVID-19 outbreak, so we decided to follow through with our plan. This photo of my bedroom was taken shortly after we moved in, which explains why my room is filled with boxes and other stuff. While our move still went on as scheduled, our packing process was somewhat disrupted by COVID-19. Because we are practicing social-distancing, none of our friends or extended family were able to help us pack and upload during our move. My mother was the most upset by this because she wasn't able to say goodbye to any of her friends before we moved. Overall, our move has been successful, but COVID-19 has prevented us from exploring our new city and neighboring areas. -
2020-03-30
Relocating to home office. 50 Lonsdale St. 30/03/20
Staff are encouraged to work from home and are scrambling to get what they need to do that - for some unknown period of time. This woman has gathered her work needs and is sitting on her office chair waiting for transport to take it all home. -
2020-03-26
COVID-19 and the Biggest Uprooting of my Life
At this moment my partner and I are packing up our lives because of the COVID 19 pandemic. I think if we weren't both students we would feel a bit less anxious, but now with no work and no income to support ourselves, it's time to minimise and Marie Kondo this tiny unit and move an hour and a half away from our lives here in the South-East suburbs. While I am grateful to be moving away from what could become a more dangerous place to live, I'm remorseful and not really ready to leave my first house. It's quaint and while we are staying at home the garden is enclosed and peaceful. Here's hoping the spread will be slow enough so that we can move before we have issues getting food. Hopefully it doesn't get as bad here as it has in other countries.