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2020-04-06
A Letter to My Future Self
Dear future self, Welcome back to the wonderful world of the COVID-19 outbreak. It’s been a year, so you will be in 2021, 17 years old and about a month from graduating high school. Current status: I don’t even know, the US is doing the worst in the world (for COVID-19 cases and other assorted issues haha) and last time I checked 34 of the states have stay-at-home orders. It’s April 6th, 2020, and we have been self-quarantining for about 3 weeks now, but the actual stay-at-home order from Ducey is fairly recent. All I’ve been doing is go to work a few times a week, babysit twice a week, and do online school. I’m excited to be a senior next year, especially because I’ll have a half day. When the outbreak first happened in China, I can’t say I cared or knew a lot about it. Come February it was getting worse, and we heard about schools closing, but looking back I was in a bubble, and I felt like it wasn’t going to really affect me. (“They won’t close schools, and it’s not like anyone I know will get it”). We joked about it constantly, but we’re Gen Z, we’re nihilistic about everything - walking through the school I heard banter about people trying to get COVID-19 just so they will cancel school. Around then was when I started to see real effects of Corona, movies not being released in theaters, talk shows filmed at home. So, I began reading the news and listening to a news podcast every morning in hopes of educating myself. As I started to grasp the situation, my bubble burst all at once. It was the day after I took my SAT (I was one of the few who did take it: most test centers had been closed due to the virus - once again I was not directly affected), and it was announced that school had really been cancelled, so my first week of quarantine began. Spring break was coming up, and I still had a lot of hope: that we’d be back in school, that this would be over soon, that we’d still go on vacation, that life would quickly return to normal. Everything accelerated so quickly about a week after that, and the situation became stressful. All of the sudden my daily routine of waking up, going to school, coming home, sometimes working, sometimes going to French Honors Society: it was all gone. I realized I wouldn’t see my friends in person for months, and that I would have to try to keep my grades up from home. The only thing that really brought normality was my favorite show (Good Mythical Morning) that brought new episodes (now from their homes) daily, so that’s what I woke up for each morning. The next week I continued work, which I had taken a week’s break from to assess the situation, and started babysitting for two kids whose parents needed someone to look after them now that we are all at home. Having something to do brought a schedule to my life, and shortly after that school started up again online. I hope that by the fall the outbreak has calmed. I have been listening to the news podcast for a couple weeks, and scientists such as Dr.Fauci say the virus might be seasonal, meaning it would never really go away. However, the swine flu was really bad like 10 years ago, and now it is just one of the strands of flu we get shots for. In my free time I’ve been playing a lot of Switch, FaceTiming with my little cousins, and hanging out in the backyard. It’s really interesting to hear about the situation from the perspectives of younger kids because they see things much more simply than we do. It seems like they just miss going to school, and are waiting for this to be over already: I’d guess it’s hard for them to grasp the severity of the situation, especially since it seems like a lot of adults are failing to do so. I think the main thing I will remember from this time is the confusion and some of the hopelessness I feel, staying at home to protect myself and others but wanting nothing more than to go back to normal life (as I suspect everyone who goes through an upheaval in their life feels). Anyway, I hope you’re doing well, future me! P.S. Do you still listen to the same music and podcasts I do now? Right now I’m loving The 1975, Nirvana, Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Mayer (as I have literally my whole life - no way that’s changed), and the Mythical Feel Good Quarantine Playlist that Rhett and Link made. As far as podcasts, I listen a lot to Ear Biscuits, Philip DeFranco, and NVC, and some Dolly Parton’s America. -
03/31/2020
How My Internship Was Affected
During my Spring 2020 semester at Arizona State University, I was able to become an intern at the Tempe History Museum which is located at 809 E Southern Ave, Tempe, AZ 85282. Due to the pandemic I have been unable to attend the museum which put me in jeopardy of earning credit for it. This added more stress than I needed. For me to get the credit I had to have 135 credits by the end and I was sitting at 60 credits. MY thoughts went into downward spiral . All the 'what ifs' started running through my head. I thought that if I do not get my credit I could not graduate on time, if I can't graduate on time it could prevent me from being able to get a job, without a job I would have no money, with no money I could not pay the bill. It just kept getting worse and worse as I started to think about it. I emailed my advisor and she told me to try and find a remote project. Lucky enough we were doing this project that this journal is located on. I was looking forward to being able to gain experience that would help with me a future career and because of this pandemic that has all been put on hold. I was able to attend the internship before the pandemic and it was the highlight of me my week. I am actually doing something with my life that help better the future. Now that I am not doing that I am kinda losing my mind. We as humans are very routine based creatures and for that routine to be interrupted we tend to freak out. Well for me anyway. I feel like people are not taking this pandemic seriously. They are just going about their normal days as if nothing is going on. Yesterday March 30, 2020, our Governor Doug Ducey declared a stay at home order. This being said all non-essential places would be shut down until at least April 30,2020. Having the stay at home order is really going to make me able to go to the movies, go out to eat, go to museums but especially being able to hang out with friends. Being a non-essential business has really made me mad that I am not able to learn from people that I enjoy being with. I enjoy going to the museum and now that it is taken away for a short period of time I am not gaining any experiences in the museum. We do not know how long this pandemic will last. We are hoping it will end soon. We are hoping that this will all be over by August 2020. -
2020-03-30
What is Normalcy These Days?
A blog post talking about how Covid-19 has affected daily routine. -
2020-03-25
Our family home schooling schedule.
My son's school closed on Monday. He is a high energy kid and copes better when he knows what the day holds. So I devised a schedule for us where he can continue to learn whilst school is closed. We are finding that having a schedule is really helping with our daily life. It is meant to be flexible and serves more of a touchstone for when things get difficult throughout the day. Many people are saying that time in isolation is a great opportunity to learn an instrument or language, master a hobby or really relax - but those of us with children don't have that luxury. -
2020-03-24
The Gym V.S. Covid-19
This piece by Evan Bowie explains how their gym experience and proximity to COVID-19 cases had made them more self conscious of the virus in its early stages. Evan took social distancing seriously and implemented thorough cleaning measures while using exercise equipment, up until the point businesses were forced to shut down. Bowie's habitual activities were heavily altered and claims that this virus is a once in a lifetime experience that is going to affect everyone. [created by curator for added context]. -
2020-03-24
My Quarantined Life
This piece by Sydney Jones provides the reader with a glimpse into her daily life, and how the 2020 pandemic has changed her daily routines, habits, and inclinations. Sydney includes personal thoughts from her family and herself, including: the contracting economy, grocery store policies and panic-buying, her competitive role in sports and college, as well as many other changes that have occurred her local community. Sydney's story highlights many continuities and changes in her social and personal life. An important notion brought up throughout is Sydney's family "staying true" and strong during the pandemic. [added by curator] -
2020-03-18
Self-Care Planning
"The weeks and months ahead will be challenging, but that doesn’t mean they have to be miserable. Knowing what social distancing and (voluntary) self-quarantine may entail is a great first step to being prepared and setting yourself up for a (possibly even) personally rewarding response to these trying times." The following piece of media describes various strategies to employ during the pandemic, ensuring that your mental, physical, and emotional needs and stresses are managed and tended to. [This was added by the curator.]