Items

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  2022-03

  School Trip to New York COVID-19

  As a school, we take a trip to New York and Boston every other year. We had planned to take a trip in October 2021 but many of the venues in New York were still closed so we had to postpone until spring 2022. Even then, there were still a lot of students who did not want to get the vaccine that was required to enter all indoor venues at the time. We had to split the trip so those without vaccinations could go later when the mandate was lifted. There were still mask mandates and we had to present our vaccination cards at every venue. Despite the restrictions though, we had a great time in New York.
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  2020-04-06

  The New Plague

  Life in Self-isolation, "Love in the Time of COVID-19" Project, CIN 211 College of Staten Island
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  2020-06-17

  The New NormalS F

  Love in the Time of Covid-19. A great video by Shania Fagan, titled The New Normal. Will our lives go back to normal anytime soon?
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  2020-04

  MUSE 360 Assingment Juliee Decker RIT

  Assignment prompt given to MUSE 360 students of Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) by instructor Juliee Decker, Spring 2020
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  2021-04

  Masked Faces Through Foliage

  Ever since the pandemic started, I’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors in parks and public gardens. While outdoors, I often take photographs. Recently I was looking through my photos and noticed that many of the ones taken in March and April 2021 showed masked faces through foliage. Somehow this seemed like a good way to remember Spring 2021.
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  2021-01-24

  Almost a Year of Virtual Girl Scout Meetings

  When our Girl Scout troop transitioned online in the spring, we never foresaw the entire year being online. When my best friend/co-leader and I made the calendar in the summer, we originally made it through the end of 2020, thinking that by January we’d be back in person. I guess that shows how short sighted humans can be, a virus doesn’t run on a calendar, so it was silly to think things would be dramatically different without widespread access to a vaccine. So here we are in 2021, pushing through every other week. It has been really great to maintain the normalcy of meeting together, though. All the girls are either going to school on a hybrid (half the week in person, half at home) schedule or a full distance learning schedule, so it’s just nice to have the regular interaction with each other just like they did before quarantine. This also was a perfect opportunity to give the girls increased ownership of the troop. Now that they’re in fourth grade, we have made leadership roles, so the girls are responsible for different parts of the meeting. This takes the pressure off me for having to fill two hours on Zoom in a way that is fun and meaningful and doesn’t feel like school! I absolutely love seeing their creativity in making up games, activities, snacks, and issues/problems in our community they want to help fix. There also are some girls who used to be passive who have really loved this platform and have really stepped into being leaders. I am, however, running low on badges they want to earn that are easy to do over Zoom. The one shared here ended up pretty fun. To earn the “Simple Meals” badge, the girls worked in virtual groups to make different breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals. Then they basically did their own cooking show by walking the other girls through making whatever the dish was. Bonus - everyone was nice and full by the end! I miss my girls terribly, but we are so fortunate to be able to have the girls continue to meet, share, and support each other while we patiently wait for the cases to decrease.
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  2021-01-31

  COVID-19 Gardening in 2021

  The gardening industry saw a jump in the number of home gardeners in 2020 unlike ever seen before. People, with time on their hands and nowhere to go, jumped into the home gardening world. As a home gardener myself, I think that this is a great thing. I have been trying to convince friends of mine for many years now how easy and enjoyable growing some of your own food is. During Covid, many people picked up the hobby. I hope that people stick with it as there are so many benefits. However, I saw last year what panic buying and the uptick in home gardeners did to the industry. At times, it was nearly impossible to find seeds or gardening supplies. For this reason, I have already purchased all of the seeds that I will be using in my garden (a full 2 months before I would have normally even thought about buying them). The photograph is of a couple of the new seeds and varieties that I can't wait to start in the Spring.
• 2021-01-25

  Statistics and Thoughts

  I find that many people are comparing California to other states and freaking out because California has the most cases and deaths, but that is to be expected. People don't take into account the fact that California has the largest population out of all the other states. Recently, there has been a large spike, but that is because of the fact that it is winter. It is colder, so people are gathering inside more, and the sun isn't as direct, so COVID-19 is spreading more. But when spring comes, the spike will go down. In fact, the spike is already beginning to drop, and once next winter comes around, people will have been vaccinated and more people will have gotten it, and things will hopefully get better and restrictions will go away.
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  2020-05-04

  Diamond Dog - HIST 393

  Covid really began changing my life when the news broke that I would not be returning to my college campus. I remained home from my spring break with my family in New England and lots changed, both positive and negative. The most positive change in my life since the pandemic began has been my new family member, a mini Australian shepherd named Penny Lane. Penny is my family’s first dog and has been a big part of how we stayed sane throughout the initial craziness of Covid. Having a puppy to unite my family was a huge help because we were all feeling divided and found ourselves crashing more than usual due to the extended time at home. We were all able to bond over the teamwork required to take care of a pet and the happiness that a happy puppy brings to a household. Penny has helped all of us deal with our specific anxieties as well. In my case, I found myself becoming more reclusive, and finding motivation to do school work was more and more difficult. Experiencing a dog being happy to see me when I walked back home helped my motivation tons and made me want to retreat less into my negative thoughts. Penny had been a silver lining because we would not have gotten her if we weren’t spending so much time at home, and she made adjusting to the new way of Covid life much easier. As time has gone on, I find myself reflecting on the positive aspects of my quarantine experience more than the negative ones, and Pennny has been the most positive change in my life during he plague year.
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  2020-10-19

  Missing

  This conversation was between my best friend and i, hoping to return back to campus in a few weeks, but it never happened.
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  April 3, 2020

  Newburgh IN Newburgh Senior Center

  These photographs were taken to document some of what people in Evansville and its Tri-State region saw and experienced as the realities of the Covid-19 pandemic came to the area in the spring of 2020. Many of these images represent literal signs of the time, while others figuratively depict signs of the pandemic.
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  2020-03-17

  A French Pandemic Diary

  This is a diary of the COVID lockdown in France.
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  2020-04-24

  PANDEMIC, The empty spring leading to the river

  These photos were taken by my friend in New York. She usually used to work out in the gym. However, all the gyms had been closed because of the Covid-19. She had to carefully find a route for walking to avoid people. She hardly did so since she didn't like the crowded street but now it is hard to see people on the street. These photos record an empty spring in New York. We can see a cat looking outside the window which is rarely seen in usual because cats are afraid of the crowd.
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  2020-05-13

  Isolation in Spring

  feeling of isolation at the beginning of spring. acrylic on canvas.
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  2020-05-11

  Tulips in Spring 2020

  Spring, Leawood Kansas, mother's day. While taking walks we get to enjoy the beauty of Spring in Kansas. On mother's day i wanted to paint the beauty of tulips, and somehow the coronavirus become part of the beauty of nature... present, silent, intrusive.... and still part of our lives... in spite of our efforts to avoid it. The Spring is blooming in 2020, beautifully, while covid-19 is all around us.
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  2020-05-08

  Family walking in Port Meadow, Oxford

  A sunny spring day and a wider range of people than usual were walking in this public area, self consciously enjoying the air and exercise, but keeping physical distance.
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  2020-04

  Corona & Cherry Blossoms, Washington DC

  When Cherry Blossoms bloom in DC many visitors take in their beauty. At the same time, their is a tragic irony of the corona virus blooming across the region and the world. The cherries bring the joys of nature,, the virus brings the opposite.
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  2020-04-26

  Blooming season

  This is a piece I saw at the beginning of the Spring. It is the season that the flowers are blooming. I believe it can seem like hope. The spring is coming, and the virus will soonly being under control. This is a restart. #VART3030
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  2020-04-21

  Living Life Under COVID-19

  With the global pandemic isolating everyone in their homes and raising fears about future supply lines, many families are taking matters into their own hands by taking advantage of the Spring and Summer seasons and planting their own vegetable gardens. This is the beginning of such a garden. #VART3030
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  2020-04-17

  Tree Limb Peace Sign

  Regular walks have taken on new importance for me amid the stress-inducing experience of living in a time of uncertainty. Watching the incremental emergence of spring has been more than a little therapeutic. On April 11, on a walk through Cumberland Park, I noticed that someone had arranged tree limbs into a giant peace sign in a former picnic area. Six days later, I passed by the same spot. Many sticks wrapped in various colors of yarn now lay in the middle of the peace sign, along with a post that explained the purpose of the sticks, inviting people to take a stick home so that birds could pick the yarn for their nests. I like how the community is appropriating spaces in the park to take small actions to restore a sense of agency, however small.