Items
Date is exactly
2020-08-23
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2020-08-23
Covid-19
Last year, Covid-19 was at its peak. It was the beginning of the year, and it was during our football season. During the week of our 2nd game, about 5 of our seniors got quarantined because of some kid at their lunch table. He got Covid, so they couldn't be around anybody, including the football team. So, they had to sit out of football for 2 weeks. As the year went on, we had a bunch of people that couldn't play because of Covid-19. It got so bad that our coaches got Covid and we couldn't play in sectionals. Covid-19 completely ruined our season last year. -
2020-08-23
Social Wedding: socially distant décor
Pictured is a sign titled "Remember, distance makes the heart grow fonder" which serves as a reminder to socially distance at weddings and other events during COVID-19. -
2020-08-23
A Unlucky, Lucky Case
This screenshot is a routine "how are you?" text I got from one of my coworkers. She is a mother figure at work, and always made sure to check on me and keep me updated on work drama, updates, and just positive thoughts. She knew I was bored and made it a point to have a conversation with me almost every day. I was so bored because I was a lucky case and barely had any symptoms. I'm a healthy, twenty-two year old who caught it after taking a trip to Iowa to visit some friends. The whole group had it and it varied on the severity, but no one was affected too badly; although, one girl did lose her sense of taste for three weeks. My boyfriend and I were holed up for nearly two and a half weeks, due to waiting for negative test results for job-return purposes. While my boyfriend had symptoms that kept him in bed for a week, I simply lost my taste, had a stuffy nose, and minor body aches. I was very lucky because I could barley tell I was sick, and after 3-4 days everything cleared up except my sense of taste, which lasted a week. I will always be thankful that I didn't experience a bad case and that all my friend were okay after. -
2020-08-23
Strained Relationships
This pandemic has strained multiple relationships in my life. When the stay at home order was first issued, it seemed like everyone moderately close to me took it pretty seriously. In retrospect, this may be because of the lack of answers we had about covid-19. The increase of fearmongering yet informational warnings in the media affected people to staying in their home for days at a time. Eventually, people’s fear were wearing off. Only a couple months into a quarantine and people around me began participating in nonregulated social events. Not only did I witness the increase in parties again, but an overall lack of awareness. Putting on a mask in public is not a very hard task, but even at this time, people I knew fought it relentlessly. People in my own family would continue to physically greet people in public and would come back home carelessly spreading germs from the outside. I did understand that this was a very different transition from normal life just months ago, so I understood the initial ignorance. After many conversations and pleas of mindfulness, it was easy to see that it was no longer ignorance, but selfishness. With people in my life living with underlying diseases that gives them a lesser possibility of surviving, I made sure to be well aware during this time. This was not met with reciprocating energy from some of my friends and family. The negligence around me began to offend me. I made sure to continuously live in a cautious manner for the safety of others around me, yet I was surrounded with others that just cared about themselves. After this realization, I did not care to contact these people as much. Pairing this with the stay at home order, I basically cut these people off. With the people in my family that treated the pandemic differently from me, I chose the same to not reach out as much even though I could truly never cut them out of my life. After observing these various irresponsible acts, I realized some important people in your life will disagree with you at times. Unfortunately, because of the state of the world right now, those disagreements can truly damage a relationship. -
2020-08-23
Steal Your Breath (With Worry and Tension)
The document I'm submitting is a collage of poems, interview excerpts, and personal reflections. It was an exploration of lockdown and how that affected the people of the community I grew up in. -
2020-08-23
The face behind the mask
We went to get ice cream for a job well done at school. My mother was driving and my sister and I were in the bed of the truck. That’s when we stopped at a stop sign and someone yelled, “Put on your mask!” We looked around to see where the voice was, but couldn’t find it. This made me realize that even though we were far enough, people still panicked, people still wanted to get assured, and people got mad. We then put on our masks, afraid that people would think that we had the virus. -
2020-08-23
Underwear, Socks, Mask.......check!
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine submitting a picture of my sock and underwear collection - but here I am. In the name of history! I am a teacher. I teach 7th grade social studies for the 3rd largest school district in Idaho. Our school board voted to start our year online as our COVID cases were spiking. Additionally, they decided to push our start date back a week. Our superintendent made the argument that we normally give teachers about 5 days to prepare for a normal school year and this was not a normal school year, so we got some extra time. Our district has been amazing. They are allowing the teachers to decide if they work from home or school. During the first week I chose to work from school. So, on August 23rd I was preparing to return to school. As I laid out my 'first day of school' outfit I realized it would include a mask. Well, here it is pals. Masks, socks, underwear....check! I am ready for my first day! -
2020-08-23
Portfolio_Beattie
Throughout my time curating and finding impacts of the pandemic named COVID-19 I have learned that through the many hardships that Americans have encountered over the past several months we are adaptable and resilient to change. I have also learned that human beings ARE mostly generous and giving entities especially when faced with communal heartache. Many of us have felt empathy at its finest by living in a difficult situation that is similar to the difficult situations that those around us are going through. Through this collection, and through the collections of others, I have seen that people have deserted self-centered mentalities placing them with more understanding than ever before. I look forward to seeing where these unselfish and positive mentalities take the humanity of our world. I have thoroughly enjoyed my work curating, archiving, creating oral histories and working as a team towards a common goal in this difficult time. I look forward to refining these beginning skills I have acquired over the last 15 weeks by continuing to work in cyber archives, whether it be professionally or recreationally. This experience has been unforgettable for me personally and professionally and I am proud to have been a part of saving this historic time in global history. -
2020-08-23
Cody Brown Portfolio
When I first began the Journal of the Plague Year internship, I wasn’t completely sure what to expect. I wanted to be part of something impactful and important during the pandemic and was hoping to learn some new skills that could be applied in furthering my academic studies or in future job pursuits. What I discovered as the internship went on is that I was going to get to do all of that and so much more. What I thought was going to be a “standard” internship was instead a fast-paced, jump in with both feet without looking, rollercoaster ride. I had no previous experience doing public history work beyond conducting an oral history interview with my great-grandmother for an “Aging in Rural America” course during my undergraduate studies. What I discovered was the entire behind the scenes effort that makes these pieces of information readily accessible to the public. As the internship progressed, not only was I adjusting to constantly changing best practice regarding curation, but I was also learning new skills that I would have likely not learned anywhere else in my academic career. What started, in my mind, as a simple internship turned into one of the greatest learning experiences of my academic career, to date. Never had I imagined that I would learn, let alone use, some of the skills that were cultivated during this internship. While I am not a fan of the redaction portion of public history, likely because I don’t feel very adept at it, many of the other skills introduced and learned during this internship appealed to me greatly. During the blog post writing assignment, I discovered the challenge of attempting to write an attention-grabbing piece that was interesting to read to a general audience yet informational enough to convey the necessary information while maintaining a condensed length so as not to lose a reader’s interest. This was extremely challenging for me as I tend to be long-winded and include to much “fluff” in much of my writing. I, however, found the challenge enjoying and plan to continue to hone my blogging skills; maybe even someday start my own history related blog. One of the most enjoyable skills that I learned was the entire range of conducting and polishing an oral history. The development of questions, the interview itself, the transcription (the first few attempts were very rough), and even the cataloging and archiving of the history were a joy once I understood and was comfortable with the process. Finding new tools to use as part of the oral history portion of the internship such as otter.ai was also an extremely rewarding aspect of the process. This skill will likely prove itself especially useful in my further academic and professional pursuits. Finally, the experience of interaction between the interns was unique in my experiences working with others. Never have I participated in an entirely digital project or team experience before the JOTPY internship. The experience was unique and very rewarding, and the interaction between the interns was exceptional. Not only did we conduct weekly meetings regarding the archive and internship and work remotely within groups using digital tools within the internship group, but we connected, interacted, and worked with other groups and individuals associated with the archive using the same tools (Zoom, Slack, etc.) I have had some of my fellow interns in other classes during my program, but being able to actively see, speak, and work with my colleagues was a wonderful experience and I was lucky to be part of such a great group of historians. -
2020-08-23
Portfolio_Camby
When I embarked on the journey that was the JOTPY internship, I was unsure of what it would entail. I knew there would be assignments centered around collecting information in regards to COVID-19, but I did not know the extent. I was very surprised to learnt that we would be in fact completing our own oral histories. At the beginning, it was easier to contribute items to the archive, and extremely fun. But, as the work got more in depth, things got tougher. I had dabbled in oral history before, but had only done it to the extent of transcribing myself. By being introduce to Otter AI, my job got a lot easier. However, I'm still not a fan of oral history transcription. This course/internship taught me a plethora of skills. These included working with a team, curating fro an archive, software skills and more which I hope to incorporate in my future classes and career. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the course and look froward to seeing it come full circle. -
2020-08-23
Portfolio_Camby
When I embarked on the journey that was the JOTPY internship, I was unsure of what it would entail. I knew there would be assignments centered around collecting information in regards to COVID-19, but I did not know the extent. I was very surprised to learnt that we would be in fact completing our own oral histories. At the beginning, it was easier to contribute items to the archive, and extremely fun. But, as the work got more in depth, things got tougher. I had dabbled in oral history before, but had only done it to the extent of transcribing myself. By being introduce to Otter AI, my job got a lot easier. However, I'm still not a fan of oral history transcription. This course/internship taught me a plethora of skills. These included working with a team, curating fro an archive, software skills and more which I hope to incorporate in my future classes and career. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the course and look froward to seeing it come full circle. -
2020-08-23
What Protects You?
This story is very significant for me as its something that I never thought i would have lived, a pandemic. I was very lucky of passing this past six months in my home with my family where I have learned to value everything a lot I spend most of the time in my home. What I have uploaded is a video from a very recognized mountain called el Avila which happens to be my every morning view from my balcony. El Avila represents protection to our city, the same way the mask is protection for us in these very critical moments. -
2020-08-23
Chris Twing Internship Portfolio
I had planned to take the summer off from classes but when I saw an opportunity to be part of real time archiving in relation to the crisis I was living through I eagerly jumped at the opportunity. While I was initially worried, we, as interns, would get stuck doing the repetitive tasks no one else wanted, I was thrilled to be part of the creation and problem-solving process of a real time archive. While most students in my program focus on American or Global history my focus has been on public history. One of the tenants of public history is involving everyone. The archive became a place to see this in real time. We weren’t collecting only around famous people, important people, or large movements. We wanted to collect the stories of everyday people and also took the time to figure out whose voices were missing and attempt to remedy that problem. To that end I took on an extra project to add Black voices to the archive. I collected a list of all the historically black colleges and universities and also searched for museums and cultural or heritage centers across the country that we could contact in hopes they would want to work with us to add those voices to the archive. In addition to curating and adding items to the archive each week we focused on learning a particular skill set related to the archive. The one I struggled with the most was oral history. Though I am fine speaking in public and am not an introvert, I found conducting my first two oral history interviews exceptionally unnerving. However, I also discovered how important they are and what an incredibly rich source of information oral histories represent. What I learned from oral histories was so impressive that I have plans to conduct an oral history program in conjunction with my local historical preservation commission in the future. I am also no longer nervous about conducting oral histories. By the end of our fifteen-week internship we had become even more than a team, we had become a family. I believe this was partially due to a shared crisis. We were living through the Covid-19 pandemic together. For many of us, our weekly Zoom (online meeting platform) was nearly the only face to face contact, though virtual, we had with anyone. This was the case for me. Another intern joked he was going to rename his journal about the project, “The Summer I Distracted Myself from a Pandemic by Thinking about the Pandemic”. I realized that is exactly what happened. The pandemic really started in mid-March for me. I spent the initial month or so sewing face masks and that was how I kept myself focused and sane. Once the internship began in May I began processing my experience of the pandemic by working on the archive. I believe this summer will have been one of the defining moments of my life. -
2020-08-23
The new social distancing norm as a college freshman
At the beginning of my senior year in high school all I could think about was what college, at Suffolk University, was going to be like. I was excited to see a new part of the world, and to get the chance to meet new people. However the covid-19 pandemic changed every thing, and the image of the perfect college experience in my head was met with a stark reality that includes getting regularly tested for a deadly virus, avoiding physical contact with other people, online classes, and signing up on schedules for every day activities such as doing laundry, going to the cafeteria, going to the library, getting the mail, etc. While I am great full that Suffolk has taken the time to put in place all the necessary precautions needed to stop the spread of covid-19, I can’t help but to feel that myself and many others are going to face many challenges that did not exist before the covid-19 pandemic, and miss out on many experiences that we are no longer able to have because of the ongoing pandemic. Even though the my first full semester of college has yet to start, I have already gained some experience in attending class in a virtual setting, through an online summer course. At first I thought taking this course online would be difficult and that I would struggle to learn since I was not it a learning environment and was surrounded by many distractions. While I did sometimes find my environment to be distracting, I did find that over all it was not to difficult to focus in class. What I actually found to be most difficult about the online courses was coordinating group projects with other students. Although group project partners did a great job doing their share of the work, it was still difficult coordinate our projects since we all lived in different states, and were unable to meet in person. Other than this I found my online class to be just as engaging as class I have taken in the past. Though the struggles of online class is not my only concern for this fall semester, instead I’m more concerned that this new social distancing environment will make it more difficult to meet new people and to make connections. Suffolk has gone to great lengths to provide not only safe learning spaces, but also safe public spaces and single room boarding for its students although theses new policy make living in a new place feel even more lonely. To combat this new social divide Suffolk has been creating virtual and in person social distancing events that have allowed students and staff to get to know each other. These events have done a great job at making me feel more apart of the Suffolk community, and have lessened my fears about this upcoming semester. While the covid-19 pandemic continues to bring many struggles and create new challenges for people all over the world, I still believe that I will be able to thrive in college, and that the new challenges brought on by covid-19 pandemic will be met by creative solutions. I plan to continue to strive as a student and as a member of the Suffolk community, and to embrace the new social distancing norm. -
2020-08-23
Having No Mouth
My story of the Quarantine is that initially I was kind of excited about the prospect of having an excuse to stay indoors. This is due to the fact that I am a homebody and would rather chill with my friends rather than go to parties. However, one thing that I did not think of was that not only would I be staying home most of the time, but a majority of the rest of my family would as well. When I was younger, having everyone home was not a problem, but now we are all grown up, and we all need our space. Due to Quarantine, getting that space that I wanted was rather hard. It felt like I was having a hard time being able to be alone without someone hearing what I was saying. Not only that, but it was also hard because the conflicts in my family came to become more and more prevalent/ This is due to the fact that things like the college process and transitioning from high school to college seemed to have been made a lot harder. Instead of this Summer being relaxing and giving me room to breathe, it was made into one of the hardest times of my life. The short story titled "I Have Mouth, and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison captures how I felt during the pandemic. In the story, the characters are trapped underground and are totally helpless to the situation that they find themselves in. In many ways, I felt almost the same way to these characters. I felt like I was trapped in a place that I felt as though I had no control over anything because it was not my domain. Like the narrator of the story, I too felt as though I had no mouth by the end of it all. This is due to the fact that I am not the best at standing up for myself or handling conflicts. Not only that, but I feel like whenever I would try to argue my point, I always felt like nothing would happen. Even if anything did happen that went my way, it always felt like it was not enough to feel like a victory. By the end, it would just reinforce my unwillingness to speak up for myself or to just let things go and allow them to continue. I hope that I will be able to improve things once my time at Suffolk starts and when this Quarantine ends. -
2020-08-23
"Hope"
This mural caught my eye because it represents hope and love during a time of distress. I think we forget that love and hope is what we need as a global community. We are all going through this and we get caught up in the derision and life. As the artist said that he wanted to "provoke hope" of life after lockdown. "And also to show the tightrope between fear and love that many of us are walking at the moment." -
2020-08-23
A Diabetic's Quarantine
Quarantine was incredibly tough for all of us. I am a Type 1 diabetic so I was limited to what I could do with friends and family. School and other activities did keep me busy as I was stuck at my home. My family and I decided to create a shrine to our family dog, who passed away last year. With the help of a family friend,. we were able to create this shrine. -
2020-08-23
Plane Phobia
COVID-19 is something that will forever be engrained in our minds. It has impacted the world in ways only imaginable in apocalyptic movies. We as a society are differential in our cultures and ideas, but COVID-19 has brought us together. COVID-19 spread throughout the world at an alarming rate due to 21st century modes of rapid transportation (specifically airplanes). Normally, walking through an airport brings excitement and happiness, but tensions felt high travelling during this time. Excitement was replaced with anxiety, and happiness with cautiousness. For my addition to the Moakley Archive, I decided to include a photograph taken on a recent flight from Miami to Boston. More than half the seats were empty and I couldn’t help but notice how desolate the flight felt. 2020 has been an economic recession, and a social depression. Travelling will never be the same at least in this lifetime, and for many, flying will be a last resort. Nobody knows when COVID-19 will end, we are fighting a war with an invisible enemy taking one day at a time blindly. -
2020-08-23
Hermit HERALD VOL 1 ISSUE 58
Russian poisonings -
2020-08-23
Tick Tock
The pandemic was the least of my worries as a freshman in college who was still adjusting, but it soon overtook my life. Not only did I not come back from spring break, but the entire university shifted to online learning as it was too unsafe to be in class. I left my perfectly curated dorm, my professors, and friends to something that I had not given ten minutes of my time a month prior. The pandemic had been looming in the background and I had heard about it and never really thought it would affect me but I was very wrong. The virus changed my view of schooling, the way the government looks at its citizens and how we treat one another. During the initial lockdown I observed many ways in which everyone tried to cope with our reality. There were those making banana bread, sourdough bread, and binging tv shows on Netflix such as Tiger King. Then there were the college and high school kids who were all staying up till the early hours of the morning mindlessly scrolling through social media, more specifically TikTok, since there was no school to wake up early for. Now I understand that social media can be, and is toxic, but the app TikTok has made a relatively good space for all people and has proven to be a good way to spread information to a younger generation rapidly. As someone who had only a few months ago been writing papers and doing homework in my dorm I can without a doubt say I would never have envisioned myself on an app watching 30 or 60 second videos for hours on end. The videos on the app are comedy related, informative on niche topics, activism, such as the Black Lives Matter Protests, political and just about everything under the sun. Although it is only an app that could vanish at any moment, it has become part of millions of college and high school students' lives. It has offered a distraction from all of the uncertainty in the world and an outlet to share their experiences. I personally attempted to make a TikTok with my friends as we kept six feet apart from each other and although it never turned out it still offered a distraction from the fact that we were not able to just go to one another's houses and hang out - we had to meet in our old high school parking lot. The app seems so benign to those who are not on it, but from what I have seen it has offered happiness in a time of world turmoil. -
2020-08-23
NYC Ghost Town
When people think of NYC, they think of how crowded and busy it is. To walk down the streets of NY, especially Times Square, and see nothing short of a ghost town, is a scary site. It almost reminds me of something out of a movie, more specifically the movie “I Am Legend.” Who knows the next time you’ll ever see an empty street in NYC like this again. -
2020-08-23
Creativity In Solitude
Being in quarantine meant two things for me. First, my summer job as a camp counselor was shut down. Second, I was legally required to stay home. In short, I have way too much time on my hands. I have always struggled to find motivation, even for my hobbies or passions. But having so much time to spend helped me push myself to delve deeper into art, which I have been doing since I was a kid. My mental health improved with each origami or drawing, because not only did I feel productive and accomplished, but I also was finally bringing myself to pursue my hobby. Furthermore, with a close family friend of mine being treated in a hospital out of state, I have been able to write her letters accompanied by a small drawing or paper animal. Each week I make a new origami and drawing/painting, and each week she gets to open up a new set of trinkets to hang on her wall. I feel like I am doing right by me, but by her also. The mental health of the general public has taken a nosedive since the Pandemic began, so it helps me to know I am doing something useful to improve myself and others. -
2020-08-23
Alex Hinely Internship Portfolio
As a second-year graduate student in the History MA program at Arizona State University, I found myself enrolling in the HST 580: Professional Experience course after viewing an online announcement outlining the unique experience of a remote internship. With prior experience as a digital archivist with the National Archives and Records Administration, the Smithsonian Institute, and the California Digital Newspaper Collection, in addition to years spent as an undergraduate research assistant at the UCLA Center for Korean Studies digitizing reels of microfilm, I initially believed this internship to be hours of busywork without much substance. I was quickly proven wrong, however. Unlike the previous archives mentioned, A Journal of the Plague Year is a living and breathing archive, recording stories as they occur. This constant fluctuation resulting from live submissions created a dynamic, and sometimes turbulent, workspace that required interns to possess flexibility, problem-solving, and innovation skills. Far from my initial understanding of the internship, the archive provided curatorial interns with a wide-ranging set of skills applicable in any professional environment. Using Omeka-S, Otter.ai, and Slack, interns learned to enhance accessibility to historical documents by curating and transcribing crowdsourced items into a searchable resource. Curatorial interns carefully handled thousands of photographs, articles, and recordings, while assisting with branding, legal compliance, and writing for diverse platforms. Through archival collaborations with international universities and institutions, interns were able to advance their communication skills to convey necessary, time-sensitive, and fluctuating information concerning the live curation of items. This interactive and innovative internship challenged my understanding of public history and pushed me to appreciate the archival process in a new light. As calls for submissions urged individuals to share their everyday experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic, I recognized the importance of documenting daily happenings and confronting historical silences. As a result, A Journal of the Plague Year reignited my determination to support rural K-12 students and ensure that their stories are documented alongside their urban and suburban counterparts. While I have no immediate plans to become a public historian, I have learned an innumerable amount of skills that will surely advance my career in the educational sector.