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2020-10
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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. -
2020-10
Liberation School: the Mobilization of Back and Brown Parents, Healers and Educators
Liberation School was a free, virtual online school that offered academic support courses, social-emotional support, healing centered practices, and political education courses to NYC public school families throughout the 2020-21 school year. Created by the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, the city's largest parent organizing group, Liberation school was designed as a response to the failings of the Department of Education to adequately provide the resources and support needed for marginalized students. While many principals, teachers and school staff put their hearts and souls into supporting NYC children during this global pandemic, it was clear that families could not solely rely on City Hall and the Department of Education to deliver a safe, quality education to children finishing out the 2020 school year and going into the 2020-21 school year. Black and brown students and families in New York City have faced the harshest, most devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racism. Previous inequities in the school system have revealed themselves and worsened. The Department of Education (DOE) and City Hall did not provide the necessary resources and support for parents and youth navigating remote and blended learning for the first time in a timely fashion or accessible to non-English monolingual families. While many white affluent families were hiring teachers to create learning pods, CEJ designed Liberation School for Black, Brown, Immigrant, and low-income families, who don’t have the financial resources to hire personal teachers or tutors. An important value that shaped the creation of Liberation Schools is the idea of what it truly means to be an ‘inclusive school’. Language Justice is also Educational Justice. CEJ created sessions accessible to the public in multiple languages. Through both multilingual instructors and simultaneous interpretations of English workshops, LS also offered sessions using commonly-used online platforms, outdoor spaces, and live streaming on social media. All courses that were culturally responsive in content and pedagogy and many were conducted in English and Spanish, and some workshops in, Bangla and Mandarin. CEJ was inspired by the tradition of Black Freedom Schools in the 1960s. After Brown v. Board, many schools were still segregated and led to many student movements organizing and fighting for true integration in Northern Cities like Chicago, Boston, and NYC. The first examples of Freedom Schooling were created in the North as an alternative space for students to go to during boycotts in 1963 and 1964. One of most prime examples of Freedom Schooling were the Freedom Schools created by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi. Freedom Schools provided an educational experience for young Black Mississippians to challenge the myths of society, find alternatives to the segregated and racist white supremacists society, to understand the conditions of their oppression, and to create directions for actions in the name of Freedom. There were three general areas for the curriculum of Freedom Schools. One was academic work, which centered around the needs/or interests of the students that incorporated their real life experiences and learning about Black History or understanding the structural institutions. There were also creative activities such as writing, journaling, or arts. The last area was on developing leadership skills and helping students be a part of the change in society. -
2020-10
Pandemic Birthday at the Aquarium
Last October 2020 I celebrated my 22nd birthday. Between COVID-19 and the death of my father, my birthday wasn't high on my list of things to prioritize. However, my family and I decided last minute to go to Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut as it is one of my favorite places & they had socially-distant protocols in place. I enjoyed seeing the belugas, seals, penguins, and jellyfish in a safe and distant manner. -
2020-10
A Journal of a Plague Year
The object I am uploading shows us how fashion is also impacted by Covid, it is really interesting. -
2020-10
How Tribal Communities Have Dealt with the Pandemic
A cursory look into A Journal of the Plague Year reveals that the pandemic is nondiscriminatory, all of are affected. Yet, the reality is that Covid-19 is having more impact on certain populations in American communities. Arizona State University's Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict partnered with the Henry Luce Foundation to provide rapid relief funding to marginalized communities in the southwest. As part of the rapid relief program, the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict is collaborating with A Journal of the Plague Year and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication to raise awareness about the marginalized communities that were assisted via this grant. By joining this "Southwest Stories" project, we at the Podcast of the Plague Year were granted the opportunity to spotlight one Native American community in Arizona- the White Mountain Apache Tribe. -
2020-10
Quarantine Tattoo
In August I got a tattoo that I did not want and did not like for seemingly no reason. Then in October I mentioned this to my psychiatrist and was promptly diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I had gotten my tattoo during a manic episode. The typical risk-taking behavior that I would do in my day to day life became more drastic and dramatic during COVID. When I am not manic I'm very careful with regard to the pandemic so the pandemic made my behavioral differences more pronounced and more obvious to a doctor. Due to the pandemic, I was able to receive a diagnosis and begin treatment. Had there not been a pandemic I likely would not have sought treatment as I would have continued to assume that these behaviors were just a normal part of my personality. -
2020-10
Keep Trucking Along
In the beginning of the year 2020 no one knew just how historical this year was going to be. As a high school senior, senoritis was really kicking in and graduation was in sight. One day, in my global studies class, on the news, we heard of this crazy virus going around in China. I remember thinking, “Oh, it’s fine. It won’t affect me in anyway.” Little did I know there was a whole storm of challenges, obstacles, and battles coming my way. At first, I thought I was just getting a nice two-week break from school and we would be back, and everything would be fine. That two weeks has tuned into over 150 days of lockdown and a completely changed way of life. Every single person all over the world was affected someway by this virus, which is crazy to think about. Nearly everyone struggled with mental health and life changes throughout this time. I did as well, and although my mental health was at its utmost low during the Covid-19 pandemic, and is still recovering as the virus is still taking its toll with a new strand and heightened cases, I want to bring attention to an even bigger struggle I dealt with during this unpredictable, utterly horrible time period: the loss of my best friend. On October 26, 2020 my grandmother passed away at the glorious age of 90. My grandmother had health issues for the past five or so years of her life, but her state started to rapidly decline in August of 2020. At this same time, I was preparing to leave for my first semester as a student-athlete at Duquesne University. Leaving my family, my friends, my hometown, and my significant other was already so difficult but adding on the fact that leaving and knowing that it would take away my last moments with my grandmother was a pain I never thought was possible. I chose to still go and start off the semester since my grandma was moving around hospitals and I could still call her and see her on weekends if I wanted to go home and do so, and it was what she wanted me to do. I talked to her right before leaving for school. With the pandemic, she was only allowed two visitors everyday between the times of 2 and 5pm. So, with the majority of our family living around the hospitals, we had to all schedule times each day so everyone could get a chance to talk to her because of the one visitor limit in the hospital rooms. And I will never forget talking to my grandmother through my face mask about college and hearing how excited and proud she was for me to be where I am in my life today. Only a few days after that conversation, my family and grandmother made the decision for her to go into a hospice facility. This hospice facility was far more strict than the hospitals. My grandmother was allowed no visitors in her room. The only way we could talk to her was over the phone. We are extremely lucky that she was given a room with a window. My family would go and stand at her window so we could see her and more importantly so that she could see us while we talked on the phone with her. I came home for a weekend or two to talk with her through her window and got to see her in her chair with her favorite blanket smiling at all the accomplishments and stories I wanted to share with her. Once her health was at its lowest and her long, well deserved time here was nearing an end, me and my two siblings got to go into her room and say our goodbyes. The next morning my mother got a phone call that my grandmother had passed away. Losing someone, especially someone so close like my grandmother was to me, is the hardest thing in life. But with a global pandemic on top of it … the difficulty and feelings of it all cannot be explained. In the end, I know my grandmother would want us to keep living our lives and “keep trucking along” as she used to say. So that is what we did. Knowing now that she is at peace, out of pain and that she does not have to deal with this crazy world situation in her unstable health condition anymore, gives me and my family closure and security during this time of uncertainty and fear. And I will always know she is right beside me, pandemic or not, watching over me and cheering me on each and every day. -
2020-10
Family Inheritance
My grandmother passed in July 2020, a few months after the Covid-19 pandemic began in the United States. She left behind a lot of miscellaneous things, including a number of family heirlooms that I have inherited. When we were packing up her trailer and storage containers, we had totes upon totes filled with family documents, awards, newspaper clippings, objects, and photographs. I feel as if I have my own personal archive of our family within these totes. I can't help being emotional about these things I now possess and grateful that my grandmother was a family-history hoarder. I can carry her memory on by taking care of them. One of the various objects was this letter/certificate in a frame, giving thanks and recognition to my great-grandfather for his military service after he had passed. I don’t know much about the paper itself, it seems pretty common and not a unique letter, but it was something nice and surprising to find within the boxes. -
2020-10
Jewish Melbourne: Jewish Museum of Australia's 'Sukkah'
"While we won’t open our doors until January – and set hearts aflame with MIRKA from Valentine’s Day – we’re delighted to reunite with you at Sukkah. A collaboration with Zahava Elenberg, Creator of Clikclax, Director of Move-in and Co-Founder of Elenberg Fraser Architecture, Sukkah invites you to reflect on humanity and what it means to be in a community. Crafted from Polycarbonate in translucent earth, sky and desert colours, it provides shelter and encourages us to look out towards the never-ending sky and beyond adversity. So until we can meet again at our Museum, we hope you enjoy Sukkah – and think, dream and feel together." -
2020-10
Jewish Melbourne: TBI online course on medical ethics
"JEWISH MEDICAL ETHICS TUESDAY 13 OCTOBER AT 12PM Commencing tomorrow, Rabbi Ettlinger will be hosting a 4 part series on Medical Ethics. This 1-hour lunchtime session promises to be fascinating! "What is permissible, what is not, how far can we stretch our understanding of science for the better good? As science develops, it creates ethical dilemmas, which we could never have contemplated 10 or even 20 years ago, never mind 100 or two." Over the next 4 weeks, topics will include: Prenatal intervention, genetic identity, pain and drugs and heroic measures in dying." -
2020-10
Northcote Public Golf Course #PeoplesPark
HIST30060: The Northcote Public Golf Course was reclaimed during Melbourne’s second lockdown as the #PeoplesPark. Members of the community had repeatedly broken into the course by cutting through the wire fence and bending it back. When I visited, the hole had been turned into a semi-permanent doorway and was covered in signs and notices such as this. The #PeoplesPark was a vibrant community space, with an abundance of picnicking families, groups of friends, dog walkers, and frisbee throwers. My friend described the space as a ‘slice of heaven’ – it was a blissful and joyous break from the stress of lockdown. -
2020-10
An early return home
HIST30060 These images demonsrtate the ways that people online and in charge of covid responses have responded to the pandemic. These are all demonstrations of how I have been impacted by the pandemic, by having to leave my exchange, and by my university having been moved entirely online. -
2020-10
Pets, the Unsung Heroes: Grad School in Quarantine
I don't know where I would be without my cats, Alvin and Cornelia. This year as been stressful on all of us, people dying, not being able to leave the house, unemployment, schoolwork, the list goes on and on. Without them and their cute, furry faces I'm sure I would have broken down a lot more often than I already have. Alvin (orange) is about 4 years old and is the most talkative cat I know, he's always meowing at us for pets and love. Cornelia (brown) is incredibly anxious, but that doesn't stop her from demanding cuddles when we're about to go to bed. They are a constant in my life, something I am so incredibly grateful for. They don't even know how they make my life better, they just offer the love and want some in return. They are truly the unsung heroes of this pandemic, at least for me. -
2020-10
Jewish Melbourne: Chabad on Carlisle Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah at home resources
Simchat Torah occurred during lockdown, and so Chabad on Carlisle-Jewish Russian Centre provided resources for their community to observe Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah at home -
2020-10
Small joys - HIST30060
This collection of photographs were all taken during Melbourne's second-wave of Covid-19, towards or right at the end of our severe lockdown. After a fairly miserable winter and hundreds of cases each day, the light at the end of the tunnel was often pretty hard to see - but when the announcement finally came that it was safe to start opening up, it coincided with some of the most beautiful spring weather we'd seen. The local shops on the Mornington Peninsula started sharing a countdown until we could visit them again and it felt a bit like being a kid at Christmas. -
2020-10
Vacation and Covid
Here is a picture of my husband on a short trip to North Carolina. It was the first time that we had gone anywhere outside of our town in 7 months due to quarantine. We wore our masks at all times except when we were by ourselves. Here he is enjoying the small river we stayed near. -
2020-10
Jewish Melbourne: Kehilat Nitzan Sukkot singalong
Kehilat Nitzan held an online 'special Succot singalong', and emailed their members inviting along -
2020-10
Jewish Melbourne: 'Thoughts on Isolation' by Stan Marks
Stan Marks, who is 91 years old, reflects on living during the pandemic, and also shares a letter he wrote to share with the students in Year 12 at Brighton Grammar, his old school -
2020-10
Using downtime to cook
I’ve always enjoyed cooking, but between working and going to school full time, I often find it very hard to find the time to try new recipes. When I was furloughed from my job for a few weeks, I used some of that downtime to try exciting new recipes. This picture is of my sister-in-law Elise’s pasta and sausage dish that she makes. Since it is my favorite meal, I made it myself a few weeks ago and it was fantastic! -
2020-10
Apollo
As per quarantine, most people have had more time to create. With that time, my friend Apollo has drawn out a picture of him and his boyfriend. As with a lot of queer individuals, art can be a form of escapism and it certainly has come to flourish with the times of quarantine as many closeted individuals find it harder to grow in less than great positions. -
2020-10
Cooking in the Fire Pit
Avoiding restaurants in an attempt to quarantine and social distance has led me to try new things. One of those new things is cooking over coals in my fire pit. I cut up a pineapple and seasoned it with Tajin, wrapped it up in foil and placed it in the hot coals for about 15 minutes. Took the pineapple out, let it cool for about 5. Delicious! Absolutely delicious! -
2020-10
Stuck Inside
I started a new job in February 2020. Not even a month later my work life completely changed. I do not know what my workplace is like outside of COVID. Not to mention, I do not know what any of my coworkers look like without a mask on! I sleep all day when I am not at work, which is very unhealthy, and I have little to no human interaction when my work day is over. On the bright side, I did start seeing someone who has changed my life. -
2020-10
The energy crises revealed by COVID: Intersections of Indigeneity, inequity, and health
This article highlights the glaring structural energy inequalities experienced by Indigenous communities in the United States. The Covid-19 pandemic has laid-bare many of the systemic inequalities in the United States, with Indigenous access to consistent and low-cost energy to be no exception. Access to energy is a bare minimum requirement for functioning society, yet it is commercialized and a steady income is required for access. With so many losing their jobs during this crisis, the article examines the concept of energy sovereignty and why it is key for Indigenous communities, especially now more than ever. -
2020-10
Enrique Fernández Chacón la tiene clara "taxi comunitario"
Video of leftist political candidate and Lima mayoral candidate Enrique Fernández Chacón defending his statement that Taxi and bus drivers should be allowed to work, although the video is from September 2018, it is referenced in recent political cartoons and memes about transportation and mobility during COVID-19.