Items

• 
  2023-10-31

  The Answer and The Problem

  This story is about the proliferation of digital communication after the pandemic.
• 
  2020-08-24

  First Day of School Picture

  The picture I chose to add to the archive is my first day of school on August 24, 2020. In this picture, I was laying in bed with my laptop because everything was online. If you were lucky, you got a professor that taught class on Zoom. That is the closest to being in a regular classroom as it got. You were able to see your classmates (if they turned their camera on), you could have discussions with everyone, ask the professor questions and get immediate answers. On the other hand, you could get stuck with a professor who chose to use youtube videos and websites instead of teaching. These were the worst, poor to almost no teacher-student interaction, just discussion boards and Google. It was impossible for me to learn like this, I felt like I was not being taught! It was always stressful when trying to do assignments for classes like this because I did not understand the curriculum. If I needed to contact my professor, I just had to send an email and hope they would email me back soon with answers. Sometimes, I would not get a response until days later, a few times I never got a response. After a while of this, I started to feel miserable, stressed, and depressed. My grades started getting lower and lower and knowing how much school costs, knowing that I was going to lose my grants and scholarships because I was failing, I started having anxiety attacks. In my head, I kept saying, “I cannot learn like this, I know I am going to fail, so why keep trying?” Things got to a point where I would open my laptop, look at my assignments, cry, and then just close my laptop back up. I lost all my motivation and I lost sight of my dreams to be an optometrist. I remember the day that I dropped out, the defeat that I felt, feeling like a complete failure.
• 
  04/14/2020

  Todd Leonard Oral History, 2020/04/14

• 
  2023-05-15

  Pandemics and Human Tendency

  Human beings have experienced pandemic throughout the history. However, the there are always conflicts, violence, and division occur. In order not to repeat the history, it is important to learn from the past and apply to our everyday lives.
• 
  12/14/2021

  Anonymous Oral History, 2021/12/14

  Anonymous is a person who, in his senior year of university, was hit by covid. Anonymous goes into detail on what went wrong with the pandemic, how new sources are at the biggest fault, and how it affected his personal life when looking for a job, and interacting with family and friends who both do, and do not want to be vaccinated, and self-isolating with many precautions despite Wisconsin having very few mandates.
• 
  12/01/2021

  Rosa Gomez Oral History, 2021/12/01

  Rosa Gomez is a third-year student at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. She/they are double majoring in journalism and political science with a minor in. Rosa shared her experiences on the pandemic, school, news, and media, as well as her thoughts and feelings on Covid-19. Her hometown is Minneapolis which allowed them to have two different perspectives on how these states dealt with the outbreak. Closing with why she got the vaccine and what she has learned during this period of their life.
• 
  11/28/2021

  Brogan Daniel Maxwell Oral History, 2021/11/28

  Brogan Maxwell was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota but raised in Rochester. He currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland as a graduate student at John Hopkins University. Brogan discusses the impact Covid-19 has had on his education, work, and social life. He brings a different perspective on communal efforts to flatten the curve and what his school has done to ensure safety. Touched on the government handling in his area and how he feels they are doing, and discussed the importance of being vaccinated and staying up to date on the pandemic.
• 
  12/07/2021

  Heather Perrault Oral History, 2021/12/07

  Heather Perrault is an Eau Claire, WI resident and currently works for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections as a parole officer. In this interview, Heather talks about her experience with COVID and how it affected her life as a stay-at-home mom/ pseudo-teacher for her kids as well as her job that she rejoined about halfway through COVID. She also talks about how COVID has affected her family and friends in terms of their physical and mental health and how the people she oversees as a parole officer may be affected by COVID as well. Heather also gives future generations advice on how she thinks they should look at information about the pandemic in the future.
• 
  11/30/2021

  Melinda Ruzich Oral History, 2021/11/30

  Melinda Ruzich is a 20-year veteran kindergarten teacher from Hibbing, Minnesota, a rural town 229 miles (about 4 hours) north of Eau Claire. Melinda is also undergoing treatments for breast cancer, and she has been immunocompromised for the entirety of the pandemic. In her interview, Melinda discusses how her cancer treatments impacted her ability to teach during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020 as well as how her job has changed over the past 20 months. Melinda shares how childhood development has evolved at the early childhood and kindergarten levels and how her role as a teacher has shifted. Melinda also discusses how parents and the public have interfered with her (and other teachers in her district) abilities to teach in schools safely. She discusses her school district’s mask mandate and the public’s response and pushback to vaccinations and masking in the small, rural community in Northern Minnesota.
• 
  12/01/2021

  Taylor Schneider Oral History, 2021/12/01

  Taylor Schneider lives in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and currently works in sales and marketing. She discusses that she did not think that the virus was a big deal initially until everything started to shut down. She talks about her job opportunity and how it was rescinded because of the virus and how job searching was difficult because no one was hiring. She discusses how her communication with her friends and family was changing since the beginning of the pandemic with the use of FaceTime and Zoom. She goes on about how the mental toll of being on lockdown and staying at home affects her and the ways in which she passes time during the time.
• 
  12/12/2021

  Anna Shearer Oral History, 2021/12/12

  Anna Shearer was born in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, and recently moved back to the area for her student teaching placement. In this interview, Anna explains the impact COVID-19 has had on her college experiences, student learning abilities, accommodating parents, and her personal struggles from the pandemic. Anna spends a large portion of the interview discussing the direct impact COVID-19 has had on students. She uses her fourth-grade placement class to talk about their struggle with handwriting, basic social skills, and general anxiety. As a recent college graduate from Winona State University, Anna stays optimistic and hopeful for employment within the Cottage Grove area and even feels comfortable teaching remotely online.
• 
  12/06/2021

  Peter Waselk Oral History, 2021/12/06

  Peter Waselk is a sales and account manager of Komatsu, a company that manages iron ore mines and sales of mining equipment based out of Virginia, MN that services Northern Minnesota, Northern Wisconsin, Southern Wisconsin, and Northern Michigan. Virginia, MN is located about 30 minutes west of the Wisconsin/Minnesota border. Still, Peter often works with iron ore industries in Northern Wisconsin (Superior, WI) as well as Milwaukee, WI, and Detroit, MI. In this interview, Peter discusses how the pandemic has impacted the iron mining industry, as well as how the pandemic has slowed infrastructure progress, including the automobile industry, appliances and cellphone production, and international shipping costs that have driven up the cost of so many products in the Midwest and the United States as a whole. Peter also discusses how the mining industry will most likely change over the next five years due to labor shortages and technological shifts to mining and industry as a whole.
• 
  12/08/2021

  Lissa Ziehr Oral History, 2021/12/08

• 
  12/06/2021

  Jodi King Oral History, 2021/12/06

  Jodi King is an eighth-grade math teacher and district mentor coach in the Kimberly area school district. Jodi was born and raised in the Kimberly area and discusses how the pandemic has affected her, her family, her students, and her coworkers. She shares her experiences throughout the pandemic, from the transition to online learning to adjusting to teaching in person during the age of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jodi also touches on some of the politics that were brought into educational discussions, such as mask mandates and vaccination status, as well as social justice issues that affect the way she teaches in her classroom today.
• 
  12/10/2021

  Shae Havner Oral History, 2021/12/10

  In this interview, Shae Havner discusses her experiences as a mental health therapist during the pandemic and the changes in her career and her clients. She talks about how the pandemic affects mental health, both positively and negatively, and the rise in domestic abuse cases. She also gives insight into how COVID-19 affected her home life as a mother and how the pandemic has affected her sons as well as what her family and friends did to have fun during the shutdown. She lives in Fall Creek, Wisconsin, and works in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and compares how the two cities responded to the pandemic. She also brings up vaccinations, the booster shot, and getting her children vaccinated.
• 
  12/07/2021

  Wyatt Goetz and Sloana Goetz Oral History, 2021/12/07

• 
  12/10/2021

  Courtney Erickson Oral History, 2021/12/10

  Courtney Erickson is a single mother who lives in Chippewa Falls, WI with her four children, as young as kindergarten through 16 years old. In this interview, Courtney Erickson discusses her experience being a caregiver during COVID-19 while also balancing school and work and the difficulties that go along with those responsibilities such as overseeing her children’s Zoom meetings and working from home. She shares the ways the pandemic affected her family life, the health of those around her, as well as her struggles with recovering from addiction amidst the pandemic.
• 
  12/12/2021

  Cheryl Oral History, 2021/12/12

  Cheryl is just one of my many Eau Claire County residents who have been experiencing the many issues of COVID in the nursing home environment. But what makes Cheryl’s story unique is that throughout this pandemic she has seen three different outbreaks within her facility and just recently experienced Covid for the first time earlier this month. However, Cheryl claims that thanks to COVID nursing homes, especially her current facility, will never resort back to normal. Much like her potential to engage in therapy, COVID has halted many aspects of Health care’s motivational tone and instead turned into an isolation facility. Through her limited experiences with staff and her few conversations with family and her roommates, Cheryl has hit rock bottom a few times. Yet through her love of the holidays and association with such a supportive family, Cheryl continues through, what she predicts, to be the next major virus that will never leave.
• 2023-03-21

  My experience

  Since I am a homebody and like my solitude, the lockdown was not terrible for me, personally. I was thankfully able to work remotely, and used my sparetime, cooking, taking on line classes and learning about homeopathy which I use as my health path, but delved more deeply into it by taking on line classes. The meditation groups that I would attend in person, were able to convert classes to zoom, which was a truly wondrous thing. Other groups followed suit, and before I knew it, I was involved in groups all over the world by zoom - AMAZING! My cousins and I would meet every Sunday on Zoom to share experiences and catch up on "us". My mom who is now 95 was able to facetime with family several times a day (she was given an ipad by her grandson the year before) and it saved her from feeling isolated. Food deliveries were readily available, thanks to Pam Silvestri keeping us aware of the food community happenings. I realize many people had negative experiences, job losses, etc. or not able to cope, and I myself knew many people that passed during that time. I think this is a great idea to document the stories of the lockdowns and how it affected people in different ways. There is so much more to say, but I will keep it summarized and leave it here.
• 
  0202-04-11

  Ender Dragon Fight with my friends

  This photo was taken of my friends and me right before we fought the ender dragon on the first Minecraft world we played at the start of the pandemic.
• 
  2020

  Zoom Meetings

  This was a meme my friends and I shared around after Zoom became the #1 way of communicating, both in work and personal lives. It's poking fun at how awkward and stiff people usually look on camera, as well as the learning curve around using different Zoom functions.
• 
  2020-04-05

  Zoom birthday party - HIST30060

  My 20th birthday party, held on Zoom. We tried to convince George that his microphone was muted, and he proceeded to abuse us via Microsoft word and the “share screen” function. While they didn’t compare to real life interaction, Zoom provided many new creative ways to converse which we had a lot of fun exploring.
• 2020-08-11

  Long-Distance Learning

  The American response to the global COVID-19 Pandemic was multi-faceted. However, of specific importance to the nation were the changes made to public education. As the Pandemic resulted in the closure of businesses, teachers and students were required to continue their educational programs online from the privacy of their homes. Although the effects of distance learning will continue to be seen, virtual learning severely limited the ability of students and teachers to use sensory perception as a tool for learning and instruction. First, distance learning no longer enabled American teachers to utilize the sensory perception of “proximity.” Throughout public education “proximity” is used to encourage student engagement with both instruction and content. Many teachers will walk their classrooms during student activities and use sensory perception to sensorially inform students that they are near to them and are assessing their engagement. Teachers use this strategy as a reinforcement tool to develop students’ ability to stay on task. Yet, during the COVID-19 Pandemic, social distancing policies made “proximity” not only impossible, but also illegal, limiting to what extent teachers could use sensory perception to foster engagement and learning. Second, not only were educators no longer allowed to use the sensory perception tool of physical proximity, but also many educators were forced to rely solely on the sensory perception of sound. School districts throughout the state of California, for example, did not permit educators to require their students to verify their attendance in live video format. The result was educators and students were engaging predominantly through speaking and listening. Furthermore, being denied the sensory perception of sight, educators could not assess to what extent students were engaging with instruction and activities. In conclusion, the COVID-19 Pandemic enacted emergency response strategies which directly affected the education of Generation Z. For both students and educators, sensory perception became more limited for every student. Yet, the sciences, including social science, are built upon the empirical information a human being receives through them. Perhaps this video will serve as evidence to answer the question, “Is the right to sensory perception and scientific information included within the natural rights of life, liberty, and property?”
• 
  2021-02-06

  Model UN in the time of a Pandemic

  I uploaded a screenshot of my Model UN conference that had to be conducted over Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a normal year, a Model UN conference would take place at a large event space, usually a university or a hotel. Model UN teams from high schools across the globe participate in the conferences that my school attends. Unfortunately, I did not get to have this unique experience during the pandemic year. Instead, my school took part in an online form of the conference via zoom and discord, through Boston University. Although it was not the same, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to meet plenty of interesting people from all over the world! This screenshot shows the "bloc" (or alliance) that I had formed with students representing countries such as Mexico, Nigeria, and Russia. I can be seen in the middle box on the right, representing the nation of Afghanistan!
• 
  2021-03-20

  Debating Through the Pandemic

  I've been doing Model United Nations since my freshman year. Although it is a club infamous for the insanely intense students it produces, it's also known for its beyond fun 4-day conferences with food, a delegate dance (like a Homecoming), and chaotic debate sessions. However, COVID changed all of that for me, when all MUN conferences started going virtual, including our school's own conference. We started making speeches on Zoom and raising our virtual hands to get called on. We used Breakout Rooms to talk with other delegates and sat at our desks through four long strenuous days of debating. This story represents the dozens of other school clubs and sports teams that were thrown off guard in trying to alter their events to fit these new guidelines of the pandemic. But, to echo a larger sentiment, it represents how kids and their interests were able to adapt. Students still had safe spaces to pursue their interests, even if it was over Zoom. During this time, communities banded together and in some cases, even expanded, allowing classes of COVID-impacted kids to continue building their passions. In my case, I actually learned to love MUN for what it is, rather than be distracted by its bells and whistles. So, while the pandemic brought along its own challenges, it fostered adaptation at its finest, and relationships centered on keeping a sense of normalcy alive, even with something as small as a school club.
• 
  2020-06-01

  The First Hug

  The pandemic was a time of separation for all of us. The two weeks of isolation to lessen the curve turned into months of remaining at home, at least six feet away from friends and loved ones. As an intensely social creature, this was a time of anxiety and loneliness, despite being quarantined with my husband and three children. The person I missed seeing most was my best friend, Allison. We spoke on the phone daily, and attempted FaceTime (though it felt awkward to both of us). Prior to Covid, we saw each other at least once a day, working closely together to serve our church and meeting at the playground after school with our children. In April of 2020, we planned a coffee date with our daughters as a way to see each other and get out of the house. We went through the drive-thru line of a coffeeshop, and drove to adjacent parking lot. We parked opposite of each other, climbed into the backs of our SUVs, and had the first "coffee date" in over a month. Seeing my best friend's face, in person, brought me to tears - as did the distance between us. I needed a hug, desperately. As I drove away that day, I wondered when I would ever get to hug someone outside of my immediate household, when I would shake hands with someone, when I could high five my daughters' friends. In June of 2020, our church cautiously reopened for in-person services. Masks were enforced, and the six-foot rule was heavily encouraged. However, when I was finally in the same room with my best friend, I couldn't maintain the six foot rule. With my mask on and my hands carefully sanitized, I gave her a hug. It was one of the best hugs of my life.
• 
  2020-12-08

  Teaching Middle and High School Virtually in the Pandemic

  I taught both middle and high school during the pandemic, which required virtual learning. I lived with a roommate and both of us couldn’t teach at the same time in the same room, so I taught exclusively from the floor of my walk-in closet. I sat on the floor of that 5’x3’ closet every work day for 9 months. The carpet was scratchy and my legs would often fall asleep from sitting in one place too long. I often woke up just before class started at 7:30AM and was groggy. Many of us ate breakfast during first period. The thing that bothered me most however was the silence. The only sound of class was me, talking. My lecture, my out loud readings for accommodated students, and my replies to students typing in the chat were the only things I heard for 5-6 hours of the day. There were none of the usually noises I associate with my job: idle chatter from every corner of the room, tapping of pencils, the pencil sharpener, a student blowing their nose, clicking of pens, hoody zippers, crinkling paper, students moving around in their chairs, chip bags opening, metal water bottles falling on the floor and a student yelling “foul” afterwards, occasional shouting, crying, and groaning. Students very rarely, if ever, turned on their cameras or mics to talk to me. I surely was isolated more than the average remote worker; yes, I talked all day, but it felt like it was talking to no one. I don’t have much tangible evidence to show from the pandemic. Frankly, I didn’t do anything noteworthy of documenting. The three pictures attached are from the beginning of the pandemic, around December 2020. Google Meets hadn’t quite caught up to some of their pitfalls technologically and teachers had to “kick out” each student manually, and when 7-10 of your students are AWOL, it can get tedious. I started to make up dumb games and sing songs to entertain myself, please enjoy my new line to the Oompa Loompa song. You can see that all the students are just icons—no faces, no voices. For reference, I have attached two videos of the end of the school year from before the pandemic. You can hear how loud the classroom is with all the students talking to each other, or playing games and dancing to music. After seeing these small clips, you can understand just how soul-destroying it was to teach to a bunch of digital circles who made no noise.
• 2022-05-24

  New Hobbies and a New Normal

  Like many other people who suddenly found themselves at home for an extended period due to the COVID-19 quarantines I picked up many new hobbies which have now become a part of my normal life. In March of 2020 I suddenly found myself unable to go into nail salons that had been closed as nonessential businesses. I found online advertisements for at-home dip powder nail kits and ordered to materials to turn my living room into a makeshift nail salon to do my own nails. The smell of a nail salon is distinctive, and I found that smell filling my living room every time I did my nails. Also in March 2020, my office shut down and the entire staff was sent to work from home. At the same time my kids’ school was also closed and they were sent home for virtual classes. My quiet private office at work was traded for my noisy house with dogs barking, teachers teaching over Zoom, and kids in group videos talking with their friends. With all our usual reasons to leave the house gone I found little escape from the chaos that was now a typical day at work in my house. Looking for a reason to get out of the house I took up running. A few days a week I would head outside for a quiet neighborhood run trading in the sounds of Zoom calls with teachers and kids for the occasional neighborhood bird. Over two years later and life has returned to a version of what we used to call normal. Nail salons are open, I am back to working in my office, and my kids are back to learning in their classrooms. However, some of these hobbies I picked up out of necessity have found their way into my life permanently. I still do my own nails at the house, turning my living room into a nail salon every other weekend. I still go for neighborhood runs a few times a week either before or after a day at the office. While these have become fixtures in my life now, the smell of a nail salon in my living room still reminds me of the earliest quarantine days and when I head out for a quiet neighborhood run, I still recall the peaceful feeling that brought me when life at home was becoming too stressful in 2020.
• 
  2020-04

  Sudden Change to the Nature of Library Work

  This story shows how pandemic radically changed workplace experience, including sensory memories, for my occupation as a library worker in Washington County Utah in April 2020.
• 
  2020-05-23T09

  Sampling a dystopian world

  We lived in a very town in western Illinois as the pandemic arrived in America. Covid-19 seemed abstract until circumstances caused us to travel to a major international airport. The eerie quiet, in place of what should have been a noisy, madcap atmosphere, elevated sounds I normally would not have heard. It was as if a scene from a science fiction film had jumped off the screen and into my life. The experience had a nightmarish quality that has stayed with me two years later.
• 
  2022-05-03

  CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders

  This is a news story from Vice by Joseph Cox. The CDC bought access to location data harvested from millions of phones in the United States. Although it was originally purchased for lockdown related reasons, it is intended to be used for non-COVID purposes too. The way they did this was through purchasing data from SafeGraph. The author of this piece mentions how the decision to do this was not without controversy, as it brings into question the freedom of movement and the rights to privacy. Google has banned SafeGraph from its app store in June.
• 
  2022-05-20

  Online School Problems

  Having such a difficult school year before the pandemic hit, I initially couldn’t be more excited for this break from those all nighters. After getting the opportunity to recharge for a few weeks, finishing the school year was relatively easy. Summer flew by, and I soon realized that my entire junior year would be online as well. I quickly found the homogeneity to be unavoidable; I could sleep and attend school without moving more than a few feet. Each day was the same, a mechanical routine of jumping from Zoom meeting to Zoom meeting. Countless students would log into these meetings for roll call, and simply tilt the camera at the ceiling fan as they went out with friends or took a nap. It was easy to think this situation was just an obstacle to get past, another building block for the vision I had put in place for the years after high school. For me, this vision was about college, building knowledge towards my future career, and compiling a worthy resume. However, there was no reason I couldn't give value to this time period, to give meaning to each day such that they didn’t all blend together. From the daily differences in curriculum to the unique interactions of each period, I found these minute contrasts to be more significant. Realizing the importance of being mindful, even when little to no dynamic quality existed, allowed me to continue furthering my studies and interests. Looking back now, during a time when I have gotten accepted to one of the best schools I could’ve ever asked for, I think about how difficult that year and a half was for me, and how much harder the situation was for many other individuals. Again, the biggest lesson I learned was the importance of mindfulness. Whether it be a triumph or a tragedy, these life events should not be skimmed over like a mountain or trough to pass through. They are all lessons in some form, pieces of knowledge that should be taken with thought.
• 
  2022-05-20

  Online School Problems

  Having such a difficult school year before the pandemic hit, I initially couldn’t be more excited for this break from those all nighters. After getting the opportunity to recharge for a few weeks, finishing the school year was relatively easy. Summer flew by, and I soon realized that my entire junior year would be online as well. I quickly found the homogeneity to be unavoidable; I could sleep and attend school without moving more than a few feet. Each day was the same, a mechanical routine of jumping from Zoom meeting to Zoom meeting. Countless students would log into these meetings for roll call, and simply tilt the camera at the ceiling fan as they went out with friends or took a nap. It was easy to think this situation was just an obstacle to get past, another building block for the vision I had put in place for the years after high school. For me, this vision was about college, building knowledge towards my future career, and compiling a worthy resume. However, there was no reason I couldn't give value to this time period, to give meaning to each day such that they didn’t all blend together. From the daily differences in curriculum to the unique interactions of each period, I found these minute contrasts to be more significant. Realizing the importance of being mindful, even when little to no dynamic quality existed, allowed me to continue furthering my studies and interests. Looking back now, during a time when I have gotten accepted to one of the best schools I could’ve ever asked for, I think about how difficult that year and a half was for me, and how much harder the situation was for many other individuals. Again, the biggest lesson I learned was the importance of mindfulness. Whether it be a triumph or a tragedy, these life events should not be skimmed over like a mountain or trough to pass through. They are all lessons in some form, pieces of knowledge that should be taken with thought.
• 
  2022-05-09

  Predominantly Black college to shut down after Covid-19 and cyberattack burdens

  This is a news story from CNN by Omar Jimenez. After more than 150 years, Lincoln College in Illinois will be closing its doors due to struggles on cyber attacks and COVID. This college is significant because it was the only college to be named after Abraham Lincoln when he was still alive, according to the US Department of Education. COVID created many economic burdens for the college with the transition to remote learning. COVID also created drops in enrollment.
• 
  2022-04-19

  Pride month events return with new mission to uplift people of color, trans civil rights

  This is a news story from USA Today by Bill Keveney. Pride parades will be returning to full-scale since 2019. With the events that happened during COVID, some changes have been made in how it is celebrated. For 2022, more people of color and trans people have been added to leadership positions. Participation is also going to be more accessible for disabled and low-income as well, by making some events online for easier access. Police brutality will also be addressed due to the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. Seattle Pride has banned police from Pride. Along with this, there is also the theme of speaking out against the anti-LGBTQ legislation that is happening across the United States.
• 
  2021-04-15

  COVID-19 Changed Education in America

  The pandemic has completely changed education. Students' views and attitudes towards school has changed, as well as been impacted by trauma and lack of normal school routine. School districts and teachers have been scrambling to accommodate to the new change while also trying to maintain a feeling of being "normal" during a pandemic.
• 
  2022-02-01

  How I've dealt with COVID

  My feelings and how I've dealt with COVID and its restrictions
• 
  2022-05-07

  Our Link to the World

  This photo is of my trusty laptop that got me through the pandemic. During the lockdown, I actually had to travel a lot for work. During my travels this laptop kept me linked in with work, school, and my family. Though my particular COVID story is different than most, I believe that my object is relatable to a lot of people. Many people can relate to having to telework, being forced into online school, and only being able to contact loved ones remotely. While remote working, learning, and conversing is nothing compared to real life, technology played a large role in our lives during COVID and I cant imagine how things would have been without it.
• 
  2022-01-13

  A Day of Travelling

  I created this handwritten story that I wrote in the airport and never thought that I would share it with someone
• 2022-05-04

  Covid-19 Experience (school)

  The impact on covid-19 brought upon an experience, an experience of both good and bad. I shall talk about my experience on Covid-19 more specifically on how it has affected me in terms of school. I was half way through my junior year when I got the news of how we would all be quarantined and won’t have school for three weeks. I was relieved, 3 weeks off from school who wouldn’t like that. The school district during that time (and all schools around the country) decided that we must continue with school, but online. Thus we stayed online for school for over a year. Through zoom, it was very beneficial because I had more free time, but sometimes being online distracted me and so it was very difficult to pay attention. During zoom I also did not like being in my house all day as it would be very tiresome and boring. There would be days or sometimes weeks where I wouldn’t leave the house at all. However, school during the pandemic allowed for such things as having hybrid classes which can present as a new school system, especially in college it could make managing students time more easier and efficient. Overall, my experience through online school during covid-19 brought upon a new change and experience that altered my perspective of school.
• 2020-10

  Applying to College Blind Eyed: Class of 2021

  The pandemic has forced students to come up with new routes of navigating the college application process while fighting against COVID-19. I graduated from the class of 2021, and I spent my whole senior year online. Although, I have to say applying to college wasn't easy. My high school hosted a few college zoom workshops at the beginning of my senior year, but my counselors were unable to assist each student's question as there were 70 students in the class of 2021. Because of this, I resorted to watching a few youtube videos on how to navigate the CSU/UC application as I had an array of questions that couldn't be answered in an email. At the time, the most reliant form of communication was emails during the pandemic, despite taking 1-2 business days. I and my peers alike were quite patient with our college counselors. Applying for FAFSA was another mess on its own. Applying to FAFSA is intricate as we students had to ask for our parent's tax information, and that comes with its own problems. Many parents don't want their children to know how much they've made in a year, especially my parents. I had to schedule an appointment with a college counselor to inform my father that FASA isn't a scam. Once this was established, finding my parent's password for their IRS account was the worst part of the college application process. The IRS had to send my parent's password through the mail. I eventually was able to submit my FAFSA within two months. I’m not entirely sure what applying to college was like before the pandemic. I have to say though that the pandemic made it much more difficult for the class of 2021 as we had to face the anxieties and struggles of the pandemic itself. I tested positive for COVID-19 on the day I started my UC application. I was already stressed out with college apps, and having COVID-19 made me physically weak. Although, I have to say COVID-19 made me independent, much like the class of 2021. We had to navigate the world of higher education with little guidance from our faculty.
• 2022

  Experience of COVID-19 in China and USA

  As an international student, I have witnessed the spread of covid-19 in both China and the United States. While the virus harms humans in the same way, each country does it differently to humans facing the pandemic. I was in high school in Boston when the covid first broke out (in December?). At that time, there were only two cases in Boston, so everyone didn't care much about the virus far across the ocean. As a Chinese, I know that coronavirus has caused countless pain in Wuhan, China. Therefore, I wrote a petition to the school to advocate wearing masks at school to avoid infection. However, the absurdity of things is far beyond my imagination. My high school principal sent an email to all international students (most of us are Asians) telling us that masks do not help people stay away from the virus. He also required us not to wear masks in school because it would cause panic among other local students. This implicit discrimination against Asians is a hurt. In March, I decided to return to China from the US to visit my family. It was a tough decision, not only in the sense of risking my life but in the process. I overcame the flight's cutting off and was cancelled by seven flights to get on the plane home. But when I finally returned to China and was quarantined for 14 days, I discovered the maliciousness toward international students on the Internet. Everyone was repeating the sentence, "you can't serve the motherland, but you can be the first to poison your country flying from thousands of miles away". This exclusion of outsiders is another harm. These hurt far more than covid did to me.
• 
  2020-05-25

  Drive-Thru Graduations

  As a 2020 graduate, my entire graduation experience with all its long-awaited anticipation was completely reimagined and all commencement proceedings were changed because of the pandemic. Seniors across the globe were forced to celebrate their years of hard work through drive-thru graduations, virtual ceremonies, and diplomas delivered via mail.
• 2020-09-02

  Horrible Online Testing experience during COVID

  Online testing during COVID is definitely horrible, especially if you need to write the answers on paper and be monitored only by zoom. For me, I had a pretty important trial exam in August. But on the test day, the sound of house renovation on the floor above is so loud that it is impossible for me to concentrate. Thus, I was forced to hop on a taxi to travel to my parent's friend's home, and since there is no table left for me to write my test, I had to sit and write the test on a piano. Moreover, since I don't have much preparation in summer as I focused mainly on my personal statement, many questions on the test seem unfamiliar. Even worse, when I finally complete the exam in a scratchy manner, the internet connection broke so I couldn't upload my answer for 10 minutes straight! With these circumstances, it is foreseeable that my score come out miserably. After that day, I started hating online testing to guts.
• 
  2020-05-18

  Essential Worker Hard Hat Sticker

  The attached picture is a part of my story during the pandemic. I work in the semi-conductor industry at a site that makes a large amount of important computer chips that are vital throughout the world. Our site was experiencing the pandemic just like everyone else, parallel to a time when everything we manufactured was in extreme demand due to many people working from home, schools teaching from a distance, cars needing chips, and medical equipment in high demand. It was absolutely critical that our site continued to operate safely and could not shut down. Our site and corporate managers made policies to ensure that only the minimum number of critical employees were on site to limit the chances of COVID-19 transmission, while following state-mandated essential rules during the early pandemic shutdowns. I was given a form to travel with and this sticker, additionally our badges would not let us in the site without specific essential worker access. This sticker is a daily reminder of what a crazy time I was part of, working on our site with minimal people pulling together to enable people to have the technology the needed to keep the world moving, from home...
• 2022-04-29

  It's The Little Things

  The pandemic was full of many things that turned the world upside down: the loss of jobs, death, and the decline in mental health for many students. I remember when the semester was transferred to fully online, many students like myself celebrated for the extended Spring Break and the ability to attend Zoom classes in pajamas. However, months passed and the daily lack of contact with acquaintances and friends, isolation, and lack of activities turned the days quite mundane quickly. The drastic change in an active lifestyle to such a slow paced one definitely had a negative impact on conditions such as depressive symptoms, health anxiety, and an overall learning curve of the lifestyle. Digging deeper, I know many families whose breadwinner of the family lost their job because many places were letting their staff go due to the lack of demand of labor. When dealing with a global pandemic, death was also a central topic to deal with. Many countries did not have access to medical equipment such as ventilators and thousands of people were dying in my motherland. I personally lost some family members and many people I know have as well. While the pandemic introduced our lives to a dark state, there was a slight silver lining, and that was spending time with the loved ones. Over the years before the pandemic, I feel like the world moved at an unbearably fast pace. My days consisted of going to class and work, possibly spending some time with friends, doing homework, and sleeping for the most part. As the world started to slow down because of the COVID pandemic, my father was finally able to work from home, my sister had online classes, and my mother didn’t have to rush to pick my sister up from school. Often, our meals during dinner would be inconsistent and spent near the TV as everyone had their own schedules. However, when the pandemic hit, it was advised to not eat at restaurants and take out fast food. Such restrictions led to trying out new recipes and laughing in the kitchen. Little moments such as conversations at the dinner table are still some of my favorite memories. In addition to cherished time with my family, I was able to finally rediscovered some hobbies that I used to enjoy years ago. Before the pandemic, my life had begun to revolve only around academics and I had forgotten what it felt like to spend the evening painting or trying out a new dance. However, spending months at a time at home forced me to redirect myself to other forms of entertainment when there was no use of travelling to other places. This really helped me define myself as someone who has so many other interests rather than just a student who studied 24/7. I still try to carry these hobbies into my schedule now that the world is slowly coming back to its fast pace.
• 2022-04-29

  Depression during a Pandemic

  The COVID-19 pandemic has been one the hardest things for me to deal with. I suffer from depression and often combat this by spending time with friends and family. Before the pandemic I would often spend my weekends with friends and visit my family after work on half of the weekdays. Throughout the pandemic, until recently it has been rather unacceptable to spend time in close contact with others. In the being of the pandemic during the first shutdowns and mandates I struggled deeply with having to stay home all the time. I became quite depressed and would often just sleep through my days off. I tried to do virtual hangouts with my friends and family, but it just wasn’t the same. I ended up planning socially distanced hangouts with my friends, often picnics/lunch in the park 6 feet apart. This really helped me because I was able to socialize with them in person. As the pandemic progressed, and I wasn’t able to see friends nearly as often as before I became more comfortable with being alone. I started to find the things I enjoyed doing on my own. I took time to really work on some of the issues I had been avoiding. I used the time I was forced to be alone in a productive way. Although the pandemic challenged my way of living, I still found a way to grow. Now that we are starting to get a better handle on the virus, life is slowly starting to return to what it was before. With the release of vaccines I have been able to start seeing my friends and family again. With the lower rate of cases a lot of the business I used to visit are reopening. As we start to return to “normal” I’ve found my new normal and I quite enjoy my alone time, just as much as the time I spend with others.
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  2022-04-29

  Religion and COVID-19: Effects on Public Life

  At the start of the pandemic, I became hyper-aware of the changes happening around me, specifically regarding religion. Unfortunately, many of the changes I witnessed were regarding death. Death is a concept most often associated religiously, for example, someone's soul or spirit going to some otherworldy peaceful place, or reincarnation. On a personal level, there is a catholic church across the street from my house. I had a front-row seat to the trauma and sadness the pandemic brought forth. In recent years, the church was fairly lonely, with only large crowds during big holidays or religious events. During the pandemic, not once did I see the church unoccupied. Whether for a funeral service, blessed sacrament adoration, prayer, liturgy, or confession. The image of the coffin and funeral service serves the purpose of relating to this specific effect on a personal level. When my family lost a child during the pandemic, I experienced how even my non-religious family members or friends offered to join in prayer with my family. Not only the catholic community, as well as other religious communities sought to spread the importance of prayer to the public during the difficult times. With services becoming more widely accessible such as live-streamed on TV for the public. Overall I realized how the pandemic may have affected the public sphere by connecting more identities together, no matter race, religion, or gender.
• 2022-04-28

  Growing up with COVID-19

  I wouldn’t consider my experience during the COVID-19 pandemic unique. What my experience was was life-changing. I was a graduate of the class of 2020 which was the first graduating class during the pandemic. What was unique about my situation was that I graduated in December 2019 a semester earlier than I was supposed to. I got a last day of high school, I’ve got a last football game, I got my last class. I think this is different because many people in my graduating class didn’t get these things they left for spring break in March and came back to their freshman year of college. I’m definitely grateful for the decision that I made to graduate early. Even though I didn’t understand the decision that I was making at the time I got to live more lasts than most people my age. Going into freshman year of college was difficult without walking across the graduation stage. We are taught that that is the moment where you become an adult and a member of society. It’s the closing of a chapter when you walk across that stage. With all that closing of the chapter I felt like I was just rolling through the motions coming to college. Even though it was just rolling through the motions they were the best motions of my life. Freshman year I rushed my sorority on zoom. This was the first time A zoom rush has ever been conducted and there were definitely some learning curves associated. I did end up finding my place within that process but I couldn’t be more grateful that it didn’t work out for me. I went through freshman year with the best friends I’ve ever made in my life and I would’ve met them without my decision to come to ASU. Coming to ASU almost feels like a fluke, I wouldn’t have committed to come here if Covid hadn’t happened. It was the only school that I had a chance to tour therefore the only one that I had enough knowledge about to make the decision to attend. This was the best thing that came out of corona.
• 
  2022-04-29

  My COVID-19 Story: Peace, division, and the paradoxical balance of the two.

  The COVID-19 pandemic is largely associated with grief, pain, brokenness, division, and death. While that is true, it can also be associated with peace, quietness, solitude, growth, love, and birth. In my story, I try to strike the balance and prove that it is a paradoxical balance that can be weighed evenly.