My Experiences During The Covid-19 Pandemic
I knew about Covid-19 before most people did. All the way back in January, when it was nothing more than a “little epidemic” affecting the people of Wuhan. Being a journalism major, you have to keep up with the current news in the world. I had some thought in my mind that it was going to turn into a pandemic, but I never imagined how fast it would happen. To let you know now, this is going to be somewhat opinionated and political.
I am currently a sophomore at Ball State University studying Telecommunications and Journalism. However, I am no longer studying on campus due to Covid-19. As things got worse, our campus got more and more strict with rules and guidelines to prevent infection. It got to the point where the university closed down. A week or two before I left we started doing online classes. With this comes no class schedule. Because usually I would have to get up around eight each day, usually with only four hours of sleep. So now I no longer have to worry about having the time to fit in something before my next class as I can do my work whenever I feel like it. Of course given the situation, it may not be totally appropriate to call that a pro. With school closing down though, I have been resorted to returning home early.
My eating experiences during this have changed a bit, but not too severely or
anything. My family has some GREAT cooks in it, so eating out really only happened once in a while. And even then, it hasn’t changed much as it would just be to-go. However, it has changed at least two occasions. The first being birthdays. My family has had two birthdays during this span, my younger brother, and my older brother. And for birthdays, we would usually go out to eat with extended family to celebrate. For both of them this year, we just had to get takeout from somewhere to celebrate with my close family. Our extended family had dropped cards off in the mail. The second being Sunday lunch. My close family and extended family (My grandmother, grandfather, aunt, and cousins) would eat lunch every Sunday at our little local diner in town. As of
April 25th, we are no longer allowed to do that at the moment.
My sleeping schedule, as unhealthy as it is, is a lot better now than it would be
during a regular college schedule. At college, I would spend hours late into the night working on my musical projects, and go to bed at time like four in the morning just to wake up back at eight for classes. I am good at running on four hours of sleep, but overtime that can really mess you up. Back home I’m able to get a full eight or nine hours since there is no set schedule.
Regarding work, I’ve refused to seek employment during this time just to be
cautious. However, I have another income. I produce and distribute my music and although of course it’s not a livable income, it is luxury money for me to do what I please with. I think further into the summer when everything clears up, I may go and fill out a resume again for the place I have worked at for the last two years during the summer.
Entertainment wise, I’ve tried to do new things or take up new hobbies. I really
wasn’t much of a TV watcher as I felt I never had the time, but this has changed it. I finally started watching The Simpsons in chronological order and found myself enjoying my time doing it. This lockdown has helped me with my music too. It’s given me more a reason to focus on producing my new album, and I can easily spend four or five hours staring at a screen making new tracks. It’s also given rise to new hobbies. I’ve been able to dedicate time to learning more Spanish to help talk to my fellow friends in our Pet Shop Boys’ fan clubs on Facebook and also picking up on some sign language, so that’s a plus.
My close family and I’s interaction has not changed. As we live under the same
house, I see them everyday. However, to be safe, I haven’t been able to see my
extended family. Which is a bummer, as I’d like to give my grandma some copies of my musical projects. However, I’m unable to see my friends for the time being which sucks. It is very lonely being cooped up inside and having nobody near your age to discuss topics with in person.
Covid-19 has not affected my sex life in anyway as I am someone who is able to
resist sexual temptation during a global pandemic. I am a single man who is also bisexual, and so with that I of course get a lot of messages from other men on social media and what not. And the way the male LGBT community is taking this situation is disgusting. There are still men out there having unprotected sex with strangers, who unbeknowingst to them could have the virus. And unfortunately to me it is reminiscent of the AIDS epidemic.
My hygiene is still the same as it was during our normal broadcast of planet
earth. There is really no excuse for it to be different. The water has not shut off nor have toothbrushes gone out of stock. I have let my beard grow out but that’s also because I definitely lost my electric razor. And I will say regarding the mass toilet paper issue, we never had a problem as for some reason my mother had multiple packages of it before the pandemic.
With media consumption, I personally have stayed on track with the news how I did before everything went down. I’m still constantly checking CNN, BBC, and Fox for info. This also includes bias though, as I know CNN and Fox have a pretty bad history of political bias. It’s interesting to see how they’re reporting such things. Anyway, I still check the news about as much as I did before.
With social distancing in place as a means of quarantine, I have not went out
once. And by going out I mean leaving my property. I have been helping my brother on some carpentry projects outside but other than that I have not left our house for over a month. Before it started though, I went out the day before lockdown to get a haircut. Our downtown area was nearly dead, save for I and the other patron’s in the barbershop.
Nobody was really wearing masks or anything either. Of course, I have no masks as everywhere has run out. But there’s less cars on our streets at night now. Something memorable that has happened during this though was that I was able to start a musical duo on the side as a project with one of my friends. I had been working on my album for months and was frustrated at the fact that I couldn’t sing my own songs as I had no voice for it. I posted on Facebook asking for a female vocalist as I thought it’d be better suited for my sound, and one of my friends from high school responded to it and agreed to join me in my musical career. It’s even more unique with the fact that we’re doing all the recording of tracks away from each other, as she has the necessary microphone and equipment to record. I send her the track, she gets the vocal down, I mix them the best I can, and we got a product. It’s fun and I enjoy it.
A big negative of this whole thing is my schoolwork. As much as I love online
because I can do it whenever, It’s hard to learn looking at a screen. I learn much better when I’m hearing my professors talk in person. It also sucks that I am unable to force myself to go outside as I would at school to get to my classes. The only big positive to this is that I get to sleep when I want, and not have such a bad schedule.
Overall, my emotions have been decently tame. I really don’t have much to be
sad or mad or happy or whatever about, as I’m really not doing anything to warrant any of those emotions. However, I was a little uptight about not being able to get 1200 due to being a dependent. I’m trying to stay positive at least in such a dark time, and I’m doing well.
I just want to say I find it strange how we never had this sort of reaction to H1N1 in 2009. I remember the news making a panic out of it, and I remember going to get the vaccine for it. Over 60 million people in the United States got infected with it which I find strange as there was never really a global shutdown over this. Obama did what he could at the time. Donald Trump however has done a very poor job. He should have been briefed and prepared to deal with this all the way back in January. Instead, he let it
spiral out of control, and still has not done much to deal with it. It makes me sick.
Overall, experiencing a historical pandemic like this has not changed much in my life. Yes, I have had to adapt to different routines and yes, some events have happened differently. However, it’s almost like summer again to me. Being in my house for months without anything to do. But being a student in a time like this has definitely been an interesting experience and one that I think is overlooked.