Community Engagements Through the Arts: This I Believe #8 by 8 pm 3/23

Wednesday, March 11, 2020

This I Believe #8 by 8 pm 3/23

Post and comment on 10 other's

150 comments:

AnonymousMarch 12, 2020 at 2:08 PM
In light of Covid-19 and the panic and cancellations that have surrounded it, I find myself feeling rather distraught. Despite respecting the decision of different organizations, schools, events, etc being cancelled for the greater good of the public, I can't help but gawk at the extreme choices being made in such a short time. However, I am not here to discuss the effects that this pandemic is going to have on society as a whole. I am here to discuss my extreme passion and yearning for hands-on education and the advantages of being on a school campus, which have rose to my attention during this crisis.
Since arriving on Transy’s campus I have thrived under the access to studio space, studying space, in person advice from professors, activities within walking distance and the community of the campus. I frequently spend my friday nights in the ceramic studio into the early morning hours working on projects alongside peers. Between classes I meet with faculty to further assignments and ideas that I am dealing with, along with gaining moral support and advice. The library has frequently housed me during late night writing sessions and last minute print jobs where I can sneak in a quick bite to eat and get what I need. Throughout all of these occasions and many more, I met friends, acquaintances, mentors and people who I choose to maintain relationships with.
Starting Spring Break I was disappointed enough to be leaving my new home, the place where I find myself thriving more than ever before. However, now learning that I will not be able to return for approximately a month, I am dumbfounded as to what to do now. With little access to the campus facilities, classes, and most importantly the relationships I have been building, I am at a loss. As we are all dealing with similar sentiments and concerns at the moment, I'm sure most of us will find our way through this chaos in time. But no matter what, this experience showed me how strongly I believe in my hands on education and campus environment. I will miss all of this for the next month, and look forward to seeing all of you upon return.

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AnonymousMarch 14, 2020 at 7:14 PM
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Marissa PriceMarch 14, 2020 at 11:29 PM
Note: I wrote this a few hours after I first heard the news about Berea canceling the rest of their semester. Before that, I hadn't heard of any universities closing or switching to online classes, so it truly shocked me. I feel better than I did when I wrote this, but I'm still sort of stunned and sad. Fingers crossed this situation gets better soon.

Also, some of the information I wrote might be outdated now so feel free to correct me if something is untrue. I like the idea of sharing this with almost no changes to the way I initially wrote it.
---
When I received news of Berea canceling the remainder of its semester, I read the article as my anxiety rose regarding whether our own university would do something similar. Harvard and Indiana Universities are among several that have decided to send students home in favor of continuing classes online only. Berea canceled everything-- no online classes and their seniors are just... done. Just like that. They'll get their diplomas without fully finishing this semester.*

I know that it is precautionary and I get it. But it's scary to think about our lives turning upside-down.

I thought about what would happen if I were suddenly asked to leave my apartment. Pack up in 5 days and move home.

I strongly dislike going home. I'd be miserable there, and thus, I'd fight tooth and nail to stay here. Just like I already am in terms of post-grad.

I thought about what might happen to my post-grad job prospects if I suddenly had to live at home, where I likely would have a more difficult time trying to apply for more jobs in Lexington and find a place to live.

I thought about what would happen if my classes suddenly halted-- all the projects that suddenly would maybe never be finished.

With my impending graduation, I think a lot about how much I love my life here. I don't think a day goes by where I don't think about how glad I am to be here. And then I realized more heavily just how quickly all of it could go away. How quickly I could lose even what little time I already have left here. How lucky I am to be here.

I don't know how to end this. I only know this: I believe in Transylvania, a tiny little university with a spooky name that has come to mean much more to me than a "second home." It has given me a place where I feel much more at home than I ever did in my hometown. A place I believe I'll see as a home, even long after I have a diploma with my name on it. And long after the threat of the coronavirus dissipates.*

*I think Berea still allowed for a few more days of classes before the cancelation took effect-- I’m not sure
*I am running on faith that it will, eventually, dissipate
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AnonymousMarch 15, 2020 at 4:44 PM
I believe love is about making sacrifices.

My boyfriend is a pretty avid hiker. He loves being out in nature, and he has a specific interest in higher elevation trails.

I love to create. I spend almost every free moment painting or drawing or weaving.

The issue is, I have a medical condition that makes the physical activity of hiking very difficult, and he’s color blind.

I tried to hike with him a couple of times, and we even tried to pick the easiest trails imaginable, but I barely made it the first hike. On the second, my medical condition ended the hike before we even started on the trail. I always felt terrible that I couldn’t participate in his favorite pastime with him.

He’s tried to craft with me, with varying success. I’ve found he’s particularly good with acrylic pouring, so I try to focus our crafting sessions on that. Even then, sometimes his color blindness results in some pretty unsavory combinations.

This weekend I completed a hike with a 300 feet elevation. I’ve spent about two months going to the gym and trying to slowly raise my activity levels to fight off my medical condition’s side effects. I was so happy that all my work paid off, and I was able to finally enjoy and complete a hike with him, and I know he was appreciative that I sacrificed my time and comfort to do what he loves.

He’s completed a lot of crafts with me, and though I can tell he doesn’t always like what he makes, when I took him to the workshop at the Plantory, he was very invested in his work. Although he was hesitant to go with me, at the end of his time there he was obviously very proud of what he’d done. Although he stills needs a bit more practice on his techniques, I was just happy he went with me and had fun.

We’ve both sacrificed our time and pushed ourselves to do what makes the other happy, and although there are several bumps in the road on the way to doing so, we never complain. I think we both know it’s best to leave our comfort zones, and having the other person there to encourage and help along the way just motivates that change ten fold. I’m staying committed to going to the gym and raising my stamina because I want to continue to enjoy nature with him, but it also keeps me healthy. He’s committed to doing art with me because it’s what I enjoy most in the world, but it also keeps his mind active. Sometimes making a little sacrifice for someone goes farther than you think and benefits you more than you realize.
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AnonymousMarch 15, 2020 at 9:30 PM
When I got into Lexie’s car freshman year, I had no idea what I was truly getting myself into. We were the two first years on the women’s golf team and had a little spare time during August Term, so we decided to go try out our new golf course. We knew nothing about each other. However, after a solid 30 seconds in the car, it was clear to me that we were very, very different: Lexie pumped rap music which my sheltered ears had never before heard, drove like a Nascar driver weaving in and out of traffic and braking on a dime, and was way more comfortable socially than I was. And interestingly, the more of my teammates I met, the more things I found about them that were unlike myself...a former D1 athlete, musicians, business students, intensely studious pre-med students, and some who’d rather not study. From the person I was my first year to whom I’ve come to be, one of the only common threads I have ever had with my teammates is our sport.

I believe a golf team is a different kind of team. I generally dislike teamwork, yet I am happy as a part of a golf team. What unites us is a common goal...not much else. We are probably as different as any group of individuals can be, yet the game we play and the struggle we endure together bond us. The irony of a golf team is that golf is played individually. We rarely even see one another during a round. We practice individually; we compete individually. However, the scores are us together, and the trips are all of us together. Somehow the terribly cruel and isolating game of golf unites the crazy combination of people that have make up our golf team.
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AnonymousMarch 22, 2020 at 3:44 PM
This was written before all the corona jazz hit the fan.

One week in March I get to leave my normal routine and fly down to Florida. I love spring break. A week away from the stresses of real life. Most of my friends get to go together on vacation. They go to Ft. Laudy or Miami or wherever. Spend the week getting plastered and having fun. Making memories with each other.

My parents have never let me go on one of these trips. At first I was really mad at them for not letting me go with my friends and making these memories, but now I could care less. Every spring break I alternate between my grandparents' houses in Florida. For years all of my grandparents have lived in Florida. I thought it was so unfair that I had to go to my grandparents for spring break. But I had no idea how much I would cherish these memories. I love going on spring break to my grandparents. I know that my grandparents will not be around forever so since they live so far away I want to spend as much time with them as possible.

I could not imagine not going on spring break to my grandparents. I will hold on to these memories forever. I believe in spring break.
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AnonymousMarch 22, 2020 at 8:04 PM
It seems COVID-19 has made many of us a little more on edge and uptight than usual. I can understand this because who wants to be locked in the house for an unknown amount of time to come- definitely not me. While I was excited to see my family, nothing matched the thrill I felt when I opened the door to my house to find my two Jack Russell Terriers wagging their tails and jumping up and down to greet me. Since we had all returned from a trip to Florida for my cousin’s wedding, my dog, Toast, had spent a long weekend at doggy daycare with her friends. When she stays there, she plays hard, and she always comes home exhausted from running around nonstop. However, this time Toast came home with a limp. As she walked around she kept holding up her left arm. I began to ask her if she had a sore toe, and she finally let me look at it. Somehow her front claw had been snagged and almost ripped off of her foot; it looked painful, so I made her an appointment at the vet for the next day. Toast does not mind going to the vet. In fact, I think she looks forward to it. We go in, and the ladies that work there immediately shower her with attention and pets as she looks at me and wags her tail to make sure I recognize how popular she is among the staff. The vet explained that Toast’s toe had begun to grow a new claw before the old one had come off completely. Poor girl had been in pain! The vet and her assistant took Toast to the back room where they had to pull her claw the rest of the way off, but this did not slow Toast down in the slightest. She came back into the exam room where I was waiting for her with a prideful look on her face. I had told her all morning that she was going to have to be a big girl at the vet, and she knew she had been successful in tolerating the pain. After getting some antibiotics and pain relievers, I knew Toast deserved a reward. When we were living in Lexington together, I would take Toast through the Starbucks drive-thru for a pup cup after a day of adventure, but the closest Starbucks to my house is over an hour away.I decided we would try McDonald’s. As we approached the ordering screen on the outer lane, the lady taking orders waited on three cars before taking my order. I was so annoyed. Toast was becoming impatient, and I couldn’t believe how much time I was wasting sitting there. Finally, they took our order. “A large sweet tea and a cup of whip cream, please,” I said toward the speaker. After a long pause, she said, “I’m not sure what you are wanting, just a cup of whip cream?,” I responded, “yes ma’am.” She told me my total, and I pulled up to the first window. There were two workers standing there, and one of them said in a rather hateful tone “you just want a cup of whip cream?” As I went to respond the second lady looked out at me, and she said “awww it’s for the dog.” I smiled as I handed them my card, and Toast sat in the passenger seat as radiant as ever as she loved their attention and affirmation of her. As I looked at Toast, my annoyance with the workers faded, and I realized how stressful this time is for all of us. The ladies at the drive thru had smiles on their faces as we pulled forward, and Toast was thrilled with the acknowledgement and her cup of whip cream as she ate every last drop. Although things are crazy right now, I believe a little bit of compassion, patience, and a dog can make this time easier for us all. Toast stepped up to the plate to bring joy to the day, even though she had a sore toe. I believe in Toast.
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AnonymousMarch 22, 2020 at 8:53 PM
March Sadness. My roommate and I live for March. Since both of us love college basketball more than life, we planned to have the ultimate setup to watch as many march madness games as we could during these weeks. We have 2 tvs in our living room already, and we both bought projectors so we could have 4 games on at one time. Now when I walk into my apartment, I am reminded of the excitement we had last year, and wonder what could have been this year. Would there ever be another 16 seed upset a 1 seed? How many buzzer beaters will happen on the first day? Being able to scream and yell at a screen when the players can’t hear us is still so silly to me, but you better believe if my team is down two with a minute to go then I will be yelling until they win. I couldn’t have imagined shutting down school from this virus a month ago, and I would never have thought we would see the cancelling of every single sport in the world either. These times are unique, scary, and unpredictable. I am thankful that I have a house I can stay at since students have to get off campus, and I am thankful for the teachers changing their plans for the year on a dime to continue to help us learn. We are in an unknown time, but I know we will handle it together.
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AnonymousMarch 23, 2020 at 10:28 AM
I believe my family needs a puppy.
This past fall my family lost our two Great Pyrenees. The are wonderfully massive dogs. They would have been thirteen this January. For dogs that size, that is very old. I loved them with my whole heart, and they made it clear they loved the family. Before them, my family had a basset hound. His name was Hercules. He was the best damn dog ever. He was as obedient as a basest hound could be and he taught all the kids how to walk. Since he was so short, we would grab on his back or ear and he walked next to us as babies. He died in the summer of 2007. He was 12 years old. All the dogs my family has ever owned were perfect. We have always been a dog family, but currently our family has open spots for new members. My mother and I want a puppy desperately. We already found one that we wanted to adopt, but my father is not allowing us to get one because they will be traveling too much and he says it is not the right time. BUT GUESS WHAT? Since classes have moved to online, I will be home for the next 6 months anyways. I’d be HAPPY to take care of a pup. The puppy is a Neapolitan Mastiff. Another disgusting large dog, I LOVE IT. Somehow, even when we showed a picture of the puppy to my father, he still turned it down. The reason he is refusing is because he doesn’t think we can raise the puppy while he is gone. He is great at training dogs, but I gotta learn at some point! The puppy isn’t available for two more weeks so stay tuned to see if we will be getting a dog or not.
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AnonymousMarch 23, 2020 at 11:12 AM
Yesterday I went into the woods and just walked. I found a few different types of moss and lots of lichens. That was my whole afternoon. I loved it. Today it will be a little too cold for a trek, so I will add another inside day to my COVID-19 diary. Inside days aren’t bad. I have gotten to read more than I have in a long time.

Always reading at least three books, I am currently cycling between "The Creation of Patriarchy" by Gerda Lerner, "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" by Noam Chomsky, and "Policing: A Class Society" by Sidney L. Harring. “Heavy topics,” one might think. “Maybe you should stick to feel-good books during this pandemic,” a concerned family member has informed me. Yes, it is of course upsetting to read about all the topics surrounding inequality of the world but truly these things are important to know.

Much more selfishly, these topics help me daydream. These are not books I am encouraged to read. I wonder how much more they would have been discouraged had I been a turn-of-the-20th-century upper-middle-class young lady. What forbidden knowledge I possess between my hands. Well, all the better that I sneak away to read in private, away from Father who does not believe it to be becoming of a lady to read such anti-american filth. Slowly I am piecing together the secrets of the state’s hidden motives. Power, money, control. [Lunch break] Containing the lower class, keeping women enchained. Thoughts of national revolution circle my self-educated mind. Now I am reading in private before a CIA secret operatives group discovers the extent what I am piecing together. I refuse to live in fear. I am tired of being on the run, though. I am an old, old woman, so far past my days as an activist. My daughter carries on the torch. I simply read to remember and keep my mind sharp now. Oh yes, the Vietnam protests, truly my life’s highlight. It’s been a long journey. Maybe I’ll just cut off the world and philosophize in my home cat-in-lap next to my sunny window (this one’s a limited time offer. It’s much harder to do when I have places to be). Once I’ve cycled through these, what do you know? Another day passed. I believe that though quarantining has the power to make each day feel like a lifetime, I have the power to shape that day’s life course.
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AnonymousMarch 23, 2020 at 4:45 PM
While we all sit in our houses, miles away from campus, our friends, and any type of normalcy, I can’t help but to find myself looking out my window every 5 minutes. Some days it's freezing, some days it's warm, some days it rains, and some days the sun shines. Whatever the weather is, I keep feeling the need to just be outside.
I, just like anyone else, can find myself falling into a battle with myself during this crazy and chaotic quarantine. Should I work on my school work? Should I go lay in bed for 5 hours and watch Netflix? Should I make my third meal of the day even though it is only 2 in the afternoon? I try all of these things but I still feel restless and weirdly trapped. I don’t feel relaxed while watching Netflix and I don’t feel amazingly content after eating yet again. But I do find myself looking out my window.
After some trials, I have finally discovered the one thing that makes me feel even slightly normal while everything else feels so wrong. Just going outside. Being outside is a cure all. It brings with it fresh air that my bedroom doesn’t have. Sounds of life that the walls of my house keep out. I can even tell that spring is coming because every once and awhile, the breeze brings with it the smell of flowers. Whenever I feel stressed because I have gotten 50 emails over the weekend, I can go outside to feel free from my now constant contact with the online world.
Even while writing this essay, I sit on my porch with the sounds of birds all around me and the woods around my house playing with the sunlight. I believe in going outside. It helps you to not lose connection with things outside of our now ever present laptops. It allows you to recall what life was like outside of the 4 walls of your dark bedroom. Outside may not be campus, our friends, or our normal, but it is better than our other possibilities.
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UnknownMarch 23, 2020 at 5:11 PM
I believe in dreaming. With all this quarantine stuff going on, I've been so bored to where I’ve had an absurd amount of sleep. You can consider this a good or bad thing but all in all, I believe that the concept of dreaming is very important. It drives our imagination, fuels our creativity and can be the foundation to innovation. It has gotten to the point where I’ll get excited to take a nap just because I'm excited to see what dream ill be taking part in. I love the unpredictability; It can bounce around from living the life of a professional soccer player to surfing on volcanic rock, to just hanging out with the latino pop artist bad bunny. Yes all three of these dreams happened during quarantine. My point is that the fact that we really cannot control our dreams is what makes them so amazing. It’s like our minds go off on a extreme tangent with endless capabilities. I know that in the past, famous inventors such as Alexander Graham Bell, Einstein, and Elon Musk, all of which are dream enthusiasts, would go to bed with a note pad under their pillow just so when they would wake up, they could record their dreams to help them not forget. Some of the greatest inventions were founded in a simple dream, and therefor I encourage everyone to pay a little more attention to what it is they are dreaming about for the imagination is priceless!
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Kremena TodorovaMarch 23, 2020 at 6:25 PM
Though initially Saturday, March 14, 2020 had all the signs of a typical busy Saturday, in the end, it was a day marked by absence.

These are the things I did not do on that Saturday:

I did not run the Shamrock Shuffle 3K, even though it was a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity, an organization I do my best to support. In fact, I had recruited both the rest of my family and a couple of neighbors to run the race with me

I did not go to the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in downtown Lexington either. Though folks who have been to big-city parades grumble about it, I am quite fond of its small-town vibe. This year, I was looking forward to seeing a friend’s first public performance with the March Madness Marching Band: always a treat.

I did not attend an afternoon soiree about the future of art at the hip 21c Hotel in downtown Lexington. Nor did I make it to the Kentucky Crafted Market, the largest art show locally this time of year, even though I hoped to get locally made gifts for friends and relatives in Bulgaria.

Instead, at 10 am on that Saturday morning, a man in his 50s pulled up next to me in his truck and asked me if I needed a ride. I was out walking and listening to a podcast.

The man’s question perplexed me. I wondered if he thought I was a prostitute. Personally, I didn’t think I could be mistaken for a prostitute; my yellow-neon top clearly signaled intentions of exercise. Or so I had imagined. Then I felt bad for assuming prostitutes look a certain way.

By 5 pm that evening, I realized I hadn’t looked at myself in the mirror all day. So I did. It was then I discovered my first white hair. My first white hair made sense to me at the end of a week full of anxiety. I had worried about my work place closing, about local public schools shuttering, about the future of the world as we know it.

On that Saturday, I took a pair of children’s scissors from my son’s room and cut my first white hair.

But I know that hair is going to grow back, white as before. I believe our bodies bear traces of the stress we live with.

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AnonymousMarch 23, 2020 at 6:33 PM
Alex: I had a conversation at the dinner table about the first doctors and physicians of ages gone by, in particular about the medicinal use of snake oil and mercury. Getting to mercury later, the use of snake oil as a euphemism belies the actual substance, the oil from Enhydris chinensis- the Chinese water snake- which is rich in Omega-3 fatty acids that can reduce inflammation, and thus plays an important role in traditional Chinese medicine. Of course, when this idea was ported out into the West, people tried to use native snakes to produce snake oil, none of which had even remotely the same inflammation-reducing properties. I can only guess as to how the idea of snake oil came about, perhaps someone had spilled some on a cut and found it healed faster.

Going back to mercury as mentioned earlier, yes, it is highly poisonous, but you must remember that mercury is a one-of-a-kind substance, a metal that is naturally liquid. Other similar metals such as caesium and gallium exist that can easily be melted too, but mercury was the only known one at the time; plus, it’s much harder to freeze than caesium and gallium, both of which can be frozen in a common refrigerator. Even then, its poisonous properties take a long time to take form, and do not easily affect you unless you’re interacting with organic mercury or in high temperatures where it can vaporize. It’s no surprise that people thought it had mystical properties that may heal someone

Now, I know what you’re thinking: why is this in a This I Believe essay and not a write-up for a biology class (and also sourceless smh my head)? Here’s your answer: The people who used these substances medicinally were people who worked with what they had. They made educated guesses, built on what worked, and scrapped what didn’t work. They put a ton of work into building modern scientific theory, and we are no smarter than them, we merely stand on their shoulders. They were curious, and their curiosity brought us to the knowledge we have today, that allows us to develop vaccines and antibiotics and chemotherapy.

Because of these pioneers of medicine, I believe in our natural curiosity.
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AnonymousMarch 23, 2020 at 7:16 PM

The thing I first noticed while being at home is the quietness. I am a person that really does value quiet times and peaceful hours, but the silence at home is different. My parents both work during the day and do not usually come home until 5:30 or 6pm. I spend my days at home only in the company of my dog, Benny.

My dog is pretty lazy and only really barks when something interests him outside. He spends most of his time napping, much like I do now. I enjoy some of the quiet moments with my dog, but I miss the bustle of school. I miss my friends at school whom I was with all the time. There was really never a dull or quiet moment at my friends apartment. Laughter and music always filled the air.

To combat the silence that lingers in my house I have decided to play my guitar again. I plug in the amp and play for a couple of hours. The silence still comes back somehow. Talking to my friends has taken up some of my time. It feels nice to share the company of someone and to ease the quietness in my house.

The silence is just a part of my life at the moment. I will learn to live with it and find ways to cheerfully combat it. I hope that the silence doesn’t stick around for too long...

I believe in combating silence
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AnonymousMarch 23, 2020 at 7:27 PM
During this quarantine time I have become fixated on binge watching The West Wing, and in this show so many diplomatic problems are presented to the President and White House staff and how they handle them. These are domestic, political, and foreign problems that almost never have a direct answer. Here is a position, an ally’s president is murdering women and children in their own country with no direct evidence that it is them but everything points in their direction. What are you supposed to do? You can eliminate them from power/assassinate him, but X country will no longer be an ally while many other world leaders will change their mind of you regarding international law OR you can just let it go and knowingly allow that president to continue their tirade. Now, you are left the decision. Which one do you make? They are both right and both wrong. What I gather from this show that I am taking into my own life is there is not always black and white. What all you can do in situations is gather all the information you can and use your experience from the past to prepare yourself for every decision you make. So in all, I believe preparing yourself with information and experience will never give you the right answer but the best one you can make.
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KurtMarch 23, 2020 at 8:03 PM
I was up, working on what seems like a brand new syllabus until 4:30.

Though I needed to be, I was not working on a 2-days-overdue letter of recommendation for one Zach D Hall. I was not working on a now 2-weeks late-report from an observation of brilliant teaching by Daniel Bennet. And I was not working on a not-quite-yet-overdue This I Believe essay.

Will students know the syllabus itself took this much time? Probably not and it doesn’t matter that they do. What matters is that I feel prepared. Looking directly into the face of something that no one has any idea how to prepare for makes preparing difficult. So I utilized deadline-induced adrenaline to stay awake until just 90 minutes before I had to start the next day and I woke, as I do from all such marathon nights of work, with a feeling that my body is consuming itself from the inside out—hunger.

Motorcycles are for folks who want do their 65 mile per hour commutes alone, without any room for another person to casually ask to be picked up or driven to grocery store. Sometimes a motorcycle owner changes their mind and decides they do like people, but just one at a time and they would be happy to take one person to the grocery store provided they were willing to ride in a sidecar (a small non-powered, adult-sized pram made for attaching directly to the side of a motorcycle). Narcolepsy is my motorcycle. It is a part of my life that other folks are interested in but thankful to be free of. Hunger, strange as it may seem, is a sidecar for narcolepsy. Due to having narcolepsy and how it impacts my physiology, I almost never feel hungry. But like a sidecar to a motorcycle, I don’t tell stories of not feeling hungry. No one wants to hear that kind of story. It is, like that sidecar that actually stabilizes a motorcycle and makes it a bit less of a reckless thrill, a sort of embarrassing thing one pretends does not really exist.

But when it does, when someone laughs at your sidecar and how it turns your motorcycle into a tricycle, when hunger grips your body with a hollow rumbling of your core (for someone who almost never feels hunger), it is brutal.

But I know I will wake 24 hours later feeling fine. I have access to food and feel this pain due to poor sleep habits. Others in my community and around the world fight this pain every day and it is not because they abuse the adrenaline their body delivers in order to stay awake all night. Others are, and more will soon become, truly hungry. The intellectual pain of knowing this dwarfs anything I have physically endured. I believe my body delivers occasional reminders of how privileged I am and how easy my life truly is just in case I forget these points in moments when I feel burdened by a sudden need to engage my students online.
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AnonymousMarch 23, 2020 at 9:53 PM
I believe in the importance of social distancing during this time. Before the Coronavirus really started impacting people in Kentucky, I was scared. Now, I’m exhaustingly horrified. I know it “only kills elderly people and people with underlying health issues” but that is a big deal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so worried I’m making myself sick, and sad. However, everyone has to do it. We have to do this to get better. Everyone’s plans are changed. I’m trying to be positive but today I truly struggled. I want this to end. One thing that is really helping me is puzzles. When I do school it just reminds me that I won’t walk. Today my papaw asked when the next time I’ll come see him, and that killed me. I’m trying not to be selfish, but I seriously just want this to be better. Maybe I’ll try and go on runs to ease my mind, or force my friend to sit outside on the porch with me. I wish I never complained about waking up to go to class, because now I’d give almost anything to go.
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AnonymousMarch 24, 2020 at 3:07 PM
I believe in checking up on each other. These are difficult times to not be able to leave your house and even more difficult if your home life isn’t very stable. I believe in checking up on each other because everyone struggles at some point and when you do it’s nice to have someone who is ready to catch you. In times such as now (COVID-19) when we are all struggling is the time to start checking up on each other, however I believe it should continue when the disease is gone. My mom is part of a phone tree at the church she attends where in times of crisis they call each other just to check up and make sure they’re okay. I believe we should check up on each other even when we aren’t in a crisis like this one.
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AnonymousMarch 24, 2020 at 3:59 PM
My mom is a single mom. She had me at the age of 36, after her husband died 17 days into their marriage. She worked at the UK Hospital as a cath-lab nurse. If you were to ask me what that is, I have no clue. When I was younger I looked up to my uncle, because he was a lawyer and the father figure in my life. It wasn’t until this pandemic of 2020 that I realized my mom is my hero. She has sacrificed so much for me and others all throughout her life. Due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, my mom has had to restrict me from coming home. She, alongside my uncle, takes care of my homebound grandparents.
My grandmother was told to leave the hospital in the middle of her rehab from back surgery to go home so she wouldn’t get infected. My grandfather has end-stage COPD, which is a respiratory disease. He can no longer walk due to the inability to breathe. If either of them were to get this virus, they would die. My uncle retired to take care of my grandparents full time, but he was soon diagnosed with diabetes, which can immobilize him some days. If he were to get this virus, he would die. My sister and her two sons have moved back into my parent’s house, because both of my nephews have asthma. Since my mom is a nurse, everyone expects her to have the answers and the ability to help. So, she does all she can, giving her all each and every day. She still has to go to work. So everyday when she comes home, she immediately washes her clothes and takes a shower. She is taking every precaution to not get sick and infect our family. My mom has done so much more throughout my life, I could talk about her forever, but the current world crisis is what finally called my attention to something I should have believed all along. I believe my mom is my hero.
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Kremena TodorovaMarch 26, 2020 at 11:24 PM
Your mom IS a hero, Sarah. I hope you are able to give her a copy of this essay one day...
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