Items

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  2021-04-14

  I Thought It Was Safe

  It's been over a year since my daughter has gone to a birthday party. She got invited to one at an indoor kid's place and I had plans on taking her. She's gone to school online and only had playdates with one child ever since the pandemic began. She is not more likely to catch the virus than any other child, but, if she were to contract it, her symptoms would likely be severe and it would be very difficult for her to recover from it. My family has been very worried and take tons of precautions to protect her. We got an invitation to a private 2 hour party at an indoor amusement facility for kids. I got a text two hours before the party was set to begin saying that the party was cancelled because the family had just been notified by the school that there was an exposure to COVID-19 in the birthday boy's classroom. I am so glad the family was notified before the start of the party, but it just really hit me how dangerous it is to go to a simple kid birthday party. I immediately began to beat myself up... I had a thousand "what-ifs" go through my mind. I don't know when we will be able to go to indoor play facilities and I don't know when we will get to go to another birthday party. It's still just too scary and risky.
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  2021-04-09

  Small Sense of Normalcy

  My daughter often has medical procedures and my husband and I have a system of working together to care for her during hospital stays and surgeries. Since the pandemic, there have been tons of restrictions and we are not able to physically support each other. Only one parent can go inside for appointments and procedures. Only one parent can stay in an inpatient room at a time. We had the appointment scheduled for over a month, but did not get the news that some restrictions had been lifted until the day before the procedure. My schedule is more flexible than my husband's so the original plan was for me to take our daughter and FaceTime him for the doctor consult. Luckily, my husband was able to get off work on short notice and we both were able to be there at the hospital! The only restriction was that only one parent could go back into recovery room and parents could not switch out. We did not receive good news, so it was good my husband and I were able to be together.
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  2021-04-02

  Why is this so hard?

  Every week, write an entry in JOTPY. Seems like the easiest assignment ever. I thought so, too. But, I have really struggled. I have found myself behind in entries and I probably need to write 2-3 times a week for the rest of the semester to stay on track. I've always had trouble journaling and writing in diaries ever since I was a kid. I've always viewed those things as really personal thoughts and I like to keep mine in my head. I viewed writing my innermost thoughts and viewpoints would give others an advantage over me, a way to see my weaknesses. A super intimate view of myself through my own lens. I've read thousands of pages, researched for hours, written a dozen response papers, drafted a 25-page paper, and still, this write in JOTPY every week has been the hardest assignment all semester. Maybe it's because it forces me to think about COVID and how it has affected me, my family, and the rest of society. COVID has taken over my life for the past year and this assignment forces me to confront that fact and my feelings about it head-on. It forces me to publicly share these thoughts. At first, I wondered if it was even beneficial to assign students to write for a project like this. It's supposed to be shared experiences but how authentic are the entries really going to be when people are not writing on their own, but writing because their grade is dependent upon it? I cannot speak for other students, but I feel that this entry I am writing now is very authentic. Although I am scrambling and having to submit a few times a week, I am grateful for this assignment. It really helped me grow as a student and a person. I still have a ways to go, but I am becoming more comfortable with sharing my personal thoughts and opinions in writing.
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  2021-03-25

  Is This the End?

  Personally, I feel that we are not near the end of the pandemic. However, it really seems like things are beginning to open back up. Some states have already lifted mask mandates and others have set dates for current mask mandates to expire. Businesses here in Arizona have opened back up to full capacity. I just think it's weird for a state to lift the mandate, but still say that "Masks are highly encouraged." They also still require masks to be work in government offices and COVID testing and immunization sites. If it's highly encouraged, and need to be worn in government buildings, why not out in other public spaces? It's all just because of the economy and business. That truly trumps human welfare and common sense and decency in the United States. It really is business interests and capitalism above all and it's disgusting.
• 2021-03-03

  March Madness

  It is March and everyone is talking about how it has been an entire year since the pandemic began. For me, honestly this time has gone by very quickly. However, I am not surprised at all that it is not over. I knew in March 2020 this was going to last at least a couple of years and the effects would last for decades to come. It affected the entire world and people within the same government can't even agree on how to handle things. People are so divided on what needs to be done I don't see an end to this anytime soon.
• 2021-02-04

  I Don't Want It

  Did you go get your vaccine yet? Did you have a hard time scheduling? I'm trying to get my grandparents scheduled. Are you experiencing any symptoms? Is this your first or second dose? We will be able to meet in person soon for class now that the vaccines are rolling out... All the talk around school (Zoom) the past couple of weeks has been the vaccine. It's crazy to me that my classmates and professors (some of society's most educated individuals) ignore the fact that there are some people who don't want to be vaccinated for a number of reasons. I know that my colleagues know about the issues of distrust between the medical community and people that look like me. I, personally, don't want the vaccine because I have suffered from serious medical issues due to taking FDA approved medicines and doctors never disclosed the long-term effects and over-prescribed. I have to deal with the effects of this for the rest of my life. I don't trust medicine just because the government says it's ok to take. My personal experiences in addition to the numerous instances of medical abuse on the black body (the entire foundation of the study of gynecology, Tuskeegee, Henrietta Lacks, etc) have me refusing the vaccine. I don't have anyone around me that wants to be vaccinated or that talks about it so positively until I log on for class. But, I am also the only black person in any of my classes. I stay silent when the vaccination talks come up because I don't feel like my classmates care. They are trained to research and think critically. They know the history of abuse. Yet, they are totally blind to the fact that their assumptions that everyone will get vaccinated and the world will go back to normal are wrong. Being the only person that looks like me, I don't even want to try to defend my viewpoint because at the end of the day, I'll just be the angry black girl. When trying to move forward in life, especially in academia, you're often forced to be the silent black girl.
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  2021-01-26

  Pandemic Kindness

  The pandemic has caused so much death, destruction, and sadness. I wanted to share something positive that has happened to me during this difficult event. While this begins in tragedy, I promise it turns around... My service dog passed away suddenly from cancer one month after his first birthday. It was April and the virus was spreading rapidly so there were new restrictions being imposed everywhere. I had to go through the process of my dog passing away all on my own and my dog had to spend a lot of the time alone in a cage in the vet's office while I was forced to wait in my car. My mind was plagued with thoughts of my dog long after he had passed. I could no longer ride in my car that I had spent so much of my dog's last hours in. Everything was closed because of the pandemic so I was forced to stay at home and everything in my house reminded me of my dog. I became very depressed and barely came out of my room. I forced myself to get up and get a blanket from the living room and I saw a rock on the table near my daughter's crafts. I don't know what it was, but I just decided to paint one. One had a triangular shape and I turned it into a shark head because it reminded me of a shark tooth. I had never drawn or painted prior to this but I was proud of my work and, at the end of it all, I realized that I had spent hours in my living room! I decided to get up the next day and paint another rock. I did this for a week and once I gathered a small pile, I put a few in my pocket and went for a walk, dropping painted rocks in random places along the way. The rocks had made me so happy at one of the darkest moments of my life and I wanted to spread that feeling to others. The whole thing really taught me how something really small can make a big difference. Painting rocks has helped keep me connected with others during the pandemic. I've found communities of rock artists and we share ideas with one another. I've also discovered I have a talent for drawing and painting and have recently begun taking commissioned art requests. I still make sure to paint plenty of "freebies" and I leave them everywhere from gas pumps to hidden in trees. I am so grateful to be able to spread even a little bit of kindness during this difficult time.