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Date is exactly
2020-08-01
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2020-08-01
The Pleasant Sounds of a Quiet Town
The photograph captures a moment of my family in Helen, Georgia. It marked our very first vacation as the pandemic began to subside, and society slowly started to reopen. Throughout the challenging year of 2020, I wrestled with numerous dark and trying circumstances. My engagement dissolved, my health deteriorated, and my battle with depression intensified. I often felt isolated, with nowhere to turn for human connection, as everything around us remained shuttered. The deserted streets and vacant stores seemed to echo the emptiness I felt inside. However, this trip to Helen breathed new life into me. For the first time in a year, I felt a spark of vitality. In Helen, I could once again frequent bustling restaurants, immerse myself in the sound of live music, and explore the welcoming shops. It marked the beginning of a remarkable turnaround in my life, which has since led to some of the most fulfilling years I've experienced. Today, I cherish even the smallest moments, such as a simple trip to buy groceries and the comforting presence of people in my life. -
2020-08-01
No Smell, No Taste
In August of 2020 while attending a course in Virginia I lost both my sense of smell and sense of taste. For 6 months I tasted nothing, and smelled nothing in the food I ate, or the candles, soaps, drinks, I bought. I did not smell trees, or grass, or flowers. Only habitual hygiene assured me that I myself did not give off an odor that I could not even detect if it was there. I slowly "relearned" smell and taste (that is my theory anyway). Much like it is difficult later in life to learn a language or change your perceptions, now many things are lumped together for me in terms of distinction. All citrus smells the same to me. Onions, garlic, and often other people smell exactly the same. I can no longer stand the taste of anything peach or mango flavored, though I still enjoy the fruits themselves. Having gone so long without smell or taste, it negatively affected every day life. Relationships, conversations, memory, awareness, and even my ability to focus deteriorated and made me realize how integral our senses are socially and physically. Some smells that I distinctly remember initiating a sense of nostalgia no longer elicit the same reaction in me. This is deeply saddening, as I suspect a significant portion of my memories are inaccessible or at least markedly more difficult to recall without a fragrance to tease it out. -
08/01/2020
Rorschach Test
A comic strip about Covid-19 -
2020-08-01
Schooling during covid
At the time of August 2020 I was a new student going back to college as a 30 year old. Now this was during the pandemic so there were many challenges. Firstly we had to wear mask in class and this made it very difficult to understand the teacher at times. Not to mention we had to be socially distant so we were spaced out throughout the classroom which made things more difficult to hear. And this is all if you were lucky enough to get into a hands on class that would be held in person. As most classes had moved to a virtual classroom (zoom) at this time. The classes that I had on Zoom presented their own challenges as you didn’t have that personal touch as if you were in person. There was also lots of time where students were talking over each other. As these obstacles presented challenges I’m very fortunate to have at least been given the opportunity to go ahead with my education instead of it being put on hold. -
2020-08-01
Guessing the Numbers
As Melbourne’s second wave crested and fell in mid-2020, “the presser” was appointment viewing; “the number” could bring hope or despair. Sometime in the dreary days of lockdown, my family started guessing how many cases would be reported each day. Keeping a running tally of who was closest to the pin. Perhaps it was a way of taking control of the uncontrollable. Dealing with the apparent randomness of the numbers that controlled every aspect of our lives. Some of the scraps of paper we used to write on were time capsules of a vanished world: a rough sketch of enrolments for the second half of my BA; an invoice from a tradesman; a reminder note to pick someone up from hospital. Plans, visitors, outings – all overwritten by inexorable quotidian sameness. Submitted for University of Melbourne HIST30060, Semester 2 2021. -
2020-08-01
THE PANDEMIC
The Pandemic change my life for better. -
2020-08-01
#CoverYourFangs with Rattler Man
St. Mary's University are the Rattlers, represented by Rattler Man. St. Mary's used this image of Rattler Man masked up to encourage students and our campus community to #CoverYourFangs. This is the iconic image that I'll remember from this campaign. -
2020-08-01
Vaccine Causes Moral Questions
With the recent release of the COVID-19 vaccine, many moral questions arise. The author of this article asks a few such as who gets the vaccine first and last? There has been talk about a vaccine since the beginning of the pandemic but I think there's been less talk about what we do once we get it. Obviously there are main goals like making sure everyone gets the vaccine and ramping up its distribution but there's a lot of work to be done between the day the vaccine is created and the day everyone is vaccinated. -
2020-08-01
Staying close through zoom beveraginos
During lockdown my group of friends stayed close through sharing videos and memes on facebook and participating in tiktok trends. We had a weekly zoom set up with people from Melbourne and Geelong where we’d talk about our mostly uneventful weeks, gossip about uni and celebrity news and little bit about Dan Andrews or as he was lovingly known Daddy Dan/Dandrews. Regularly having a zoom call was a comforting experience because before the pandemic we stayed in contact mostly by planning parties and lunches. The pandemic definitely made us closer through creating group chats and organising to play a game together, usually Among Us on Wednesday night. This post includes the tiktok beveragino trend where people have drinks with their mates and film them popping out from random locations. HIST30060 -
2020-08-01
The newest fashion accessory, the mask.
Once we realized that masks helped stop the transmission of the virus, we began to collect them. It became our newest accessory, and we enjoyed finding new patters and designs. My husband found that he had to get special ones to go over his beard, and everyone complained how much they hurt their ears. This picture is of my Casa de papel (a show that my husband and I binge watched during the lockdown) mask that I bought in Etsy. It's not very breathable, so I don't wear it often. -
2020-08-01
2020: A Wild Year of Change
I feel like this photo is a great representation of what 2020 has been in my life. For me, 2020 started with a bang. At the beginning of January, I was flying across the country to California with about 10 people for my wedding. We were determined to start the year off big and what’s bigger than going somewhere you’ve never been to marry your partner of 10 years?! It ended up being even better than we had planned. Looking back, I am so glad that we decided on a random Wednesday in January to get married because if we would have waited, it never would have happened. This is one of our wedding photos, just the two of us holding hands, looking towards the future, and ready to take on anything…little did we know what was in store. We weren’t even out of the honeymoon phase when February hit and rumors started flying around about news of a deadly virus that was becoming a major deal in most of the world. We worried what would happen if it became a problem in the United States and how would that affect our family. By the end of the month, we were traveling to our best friend’s intimate wedding, while wondering if we should even be attending (my husband was the best man). On our way out of town, I got a text from a friend telling me our city was going to announce a lock down that weekend and would probably take effect on Monday. We stressed and cursed ourselves for leaving but we were only 20 minutes away from our destination. A few hours after the wedding ended, the city announced the lock would be happening. We were so thankful that we had recently gone grocery shopping since we knew a panic would begin. The next days were us waiting to know if I would still have a job. The city deemed brewery production “essential” so off to work I went. It was eerie. The brewery staff met, and we discussed our options on a short-term and long-term basis. There would be a lot of switching to the full-time employees taking over all responsibilities in order to meet salaries and keep our jobs. It seemed like an okay plan and I was just thankful to have a job. While the days, weeks, and months dragged on, each day became more draining and grimmer. Was it worth it to be living in a city we were planning to leave before the pandemic happened? Was it worth it to be working a job with increased stress and less hours/pay? My husband is self-employed, my job is deemed “essential”, but I had qualifications to take those skills anywhere. I’m working on a bachelor’s and my husband is almost finished with his master’s. I did awful in the Spring semester due to work related COVID-19 stress and was ready for a change. We were already going to leave but we became too afraid to follow our plan. After a long night of discussing stress and how our living situation was just causing us depression, we decided there was no time like the present to change our stance in life. We could follow stay at home orders no matter what our address was, and social distancing is the same everywhere. I put in my notice at my current job and we both began the job hunt. I landed a job within a few weeks and that was it. We had to set this into motion. We have been in California for almost three months and it was the right decision. We both have jobs that make us happier, we’re content staying at home in our new place when not at work, and I have all A’s in college! While it is extremely hard to see any kind of light or hope during such a tragic and extreme pandemic, life does continue. My bills and rent are still due every month. I still have to acquire a paycheck and take care of my family. And I deserve to do them in a place with lots of sunshine in my backyard perfect for hanging with the family and studying. -
2020-08-01
Guitar helps me decompress
During quarantine I was very stressed because of all the uncertainty. Playing guitar really helps me to de-stress so I learned the intro to Nothing Else Matters during quarantine. During quarantine I found it hard to stay busy. There was little to do since I couldn't leave the house so I decided to take advantage of quarantine to learn some new things. I feel that this is something lots of people did during quarantine. It was a great time to use to learn new things because there was nothing to do. I also learned many other songs but this one is the one that I always play when I am feeling stressed. It’s lots of fun to play but also very calming. -
2020-08-01
Family Funeral
We had a family funeral. Not everybody could be there, not everybody should. Our family arrived at the plot and we were reminded to keep our distance still. A funeral has never been an overall positive experience, but the individual tragedies involved with people being unable to arrive due to health concerns makes that funeral that much more tragic. -
2020-08-01
Weight Bias and COVID-19
It may seem strange to reference a study about obesity and H1N1 but if you are a member of the fat community it makes complete sense to reference medical mistreatment to understand what is happening to fat bodies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Obesity is said to be one of the risk factors with the highest death rate for COVID-19. As a fat asthmatic, I find it hard to believe that my body fat will be the death of me faster than my inflammation prone lungs. What I and others living in large bodies know is that medical professionals carry a traumatic and often dangerous bias against us. We swap war stories in the comment section of social media posts about the multiple times doctors have mistreated, ignored, or nearly killed us due to their often blatant ignorance. This study shows just how that bias has resulted in the death of patients before and how that bias may be the reason more obese patients die from COVID-19 then thinner patients. -
2020-08-01
Coronavirus in Prison: The Cruel Reality
This article from Prison Legal News gives an exhaustive overview of the situation faced by the carceral system and all the people it touches. The author, Christopher Zoukis, explains the state of the virus, news coverage, community response, covid in prisons, Federal Bureau of Prisons, state prisons, discrepancies in date, states responses, lack of testing, medical care, and PPE, the personal impact, and human rights. -
2020-08-01
The Importance of Understanding
My experience with Covid-19 and quarantine has consisted of me being anxious and confused most days. It has been a stressful, heavy burden on my mind due to the many ongoing, worldly events. This is especially true because I am an American citizen. To me, this post speaks very heavily about the message that needs to be heard by all Americans. Many people are not taking Covid-19 seriously enough and are only thinking about how Covid could affect their health and not others’ wellbeing. This screenshotted post is important to me because I believe the reason America is having such a hard time fighting this virus is because people are only thinking about themselves and how the virus affects them versus how it could affect others with different immune responses to Covid. -
2020-08-01
University of Denver Researching the affects of COVID on Bodies and Eating
The University of Denver is recruiting study subjects to answer questions about the relationship between COVID-19, food habits, body issues, and emotional responses. -
2020-08-01
Moving in with COVID-19
Moving during COVID-19 made my transition unnecessarily more difficult. I am a 22 year old female who just had made a life changing decision to move in with my boyfriend and his family the beginning of March. During that month I was stressing out about college course, settling into a new environment, and trying to work out financial struggles. My stress level peaked within the second week of moving in to the point that I had physically gotten sick. I do want to make it clear that I was not sick with COVID-19, thankfully. All that worrying made my immune system drop and I ended up catching a case of strep throat. This had stopped me from continuing to work at my retail job two weeks before quarantine was enforced. In April I applied for unemployment but was not able to receive any benefits. This left me worrying about how I would financially pull my weight. My boyfriend works doing industrial flooring which allows him to be financially stable enough to support the both of us and our two Yorkie's. In May my boyfriend was working on a big project and had offered me a job for a couple weeks. So for those two weeks I got to learn about epoxy flooring and how long and tedious of a process it is. That experience made me appreciate my boyfriend and all the work that goes into making a floor. The next couple of months consisted of DIY projects, movies, and my summer college courses. Recently, my work has reopened allowing me to have some source of income, even if it's just working once out of the week. Starting a new stage in my life during this pandemic made it financially difficult but at the same time allowed me to learn how to enjoy the little things in life as well. -
2020-08-01
"Too Many Black Americans Are Dying from COVID-19"
From the article: "The U.S. has been roiled this year by two crises that seem on the surface to be unrelated: the coronavirus pandemic and law-enforcement killings of black Americans—the latter leading to mass protests and police violence toward protesters. Although the immediate causes of these two tragedies seem distinct, both have their roots in structural racism. The virus has killed a disproportionate number of black people (as well as other people of color), and black people are by some estimates 2.5 times more likely than white people to be killed by the police. Support is building for police reform, and we can take concrete steps immediately to protect the health of black Americans."