Reflection of spring quarter 2020. The quarter from hell.

11:24am. Thursday, June 4, 2020.

I just had my last zoom class session of spring quarter. That was the most wonderful class I have ever had. This was such a challenging quarter and a half to go through. It has been 4 months since I have been on campus and seen my professors and classmates. It has been a really hard quarter for everyone on so many levels. It has been such a multi-faceted and ongoing struggle that it just was so wonderful to have that space to talk with people who were so genuine. We all had to go through so much and it was the first time that everyone was going through something so scary together, it changed all of our lives in different ways. The classmates I had are the most down to earth, loving, caring people who are all passionate for social justice and dismantling the current systems of oppression that are the root causes of the inequity within our country and public education system. We have been talking all quarter about how these things are affecting us even more during the pandemic which provided us a space to work through everything that we were dealing with together. It was such a wonderful opportunity that we all had the space this quarter to collaborate and reflect with each other in such an important time in our history because keeping up with our mental health and checking in with each other was the most important thing for us to stay grounded.

I first heard about COVID on a spontaneous trip up to Canada to get a pair of boots with the Christmas money I got on January 29th, 2020. They were brown combat boots, the pair that I had been wanting for a long time and they were on sale so I went up to the Steve Madden store in a mall I'd never been in, which was insanely fancy. The mall was huge and I could barely find my way around. Not at all like the mall I was used to. I was on my way up past White Rock, and the clouds were so beautiful with the sunset.

I left my house around 4pm after I came home from class and it felt so good to just drive. I had been very busy and it was the first afternoon I had had off in a while. I was driving up and there was a bit of a slow down as usual on the highway past the border and, as usual, I was listening to the CBC radio. They were interviewing a woman and her daughter who were in China visiting family over the break and they were trying to get back. People were shut down in their homes and nothing was open. It was scary and sounded like war, everyone was wearing masks and had no idea when they were able to leave. They were on the phone with the father/husband who was still in Vancouver trying to get them a flight out but no one was currently able to. It was at that moment that I knew that this would be something that affected us all. Trudeau was acknowledging right away that this was something we all needed to prepare for and he was doing what he could to get all Canadians back quickly and safely. Cruise ships and planes really did not help with the spread of the virus.

Around this time, Trump had almost declared war. There was a lot of flooding in the river that caused a lot of damage to many towns in the area. I know people that lost their homes and are currently trying to rebuild and get back what they lost. I feel terrible, what an awful time to have to go through something like that while dealing with a global pandemic on a scale we haven't experienced before.

When COVID became something to worry about in the States, it started the last 3 weeks of winter quarter. I was in 4 classes and working 30+ hours per week. The week that everything shut down was already seen as an insane week. I remember on New Years Eve that everyone was so excited about 2020, starting a new decade and constant jokes about having 20-20 vision. The week in March where everything stopped there was a full moon, Mercury was in retrograde, there was Friday the 13th, daylight savings, my best friends' 22nd birthday, followed by St. Patricks Day. There was also a trend going around the internet of people standing brooms straight up right which eventually circled back around with the joke that if people hadn't done that the same week, stores and schools would still be open. I had just started going to a grief group at NAMI for suicide loss survivors. It was the first time I was in a room of people that had also lost someone they love to suicide so it was a bit overwhelming, but it was such an eye-opening experience to realize that support groups like this existed. I had no idea prior to finding out in one of my classes on child abuse and neglect, so I went to try it out several times.

The child abuse and neglect class was really hard for me, it brought up a bunch of uncomfortable feelings about my childhood and I chose to do my final research paper on "Understanding the Effects of Emotional/Psychological Abuse on Children" (my paper is linked here but I will write another blog about this topic) because there hasn’t been much done around this area of abuse as it is harder to identify. The Washington State law doesn’t define it as abuse because it is under both categories of sexual or physical. I remember printing out the giant poster right before campus shut down that I had made and I was so proud and scared to share this information because it was personal. I didn’t want it to seem like I was coming off as a person affected by this. It is hard to make someone understand something that they don’t understand at all because they had the privilege of not having experienced that. There are so many different dynamics in play with emotional abuse that it is even hard to describe at times. It changed my whole perspective on things, both good and bad.

When we first started quarantine it was really sunny all the time and incredibly warm. It was right before spring break so everyone was still traveling to their destination and some people were visiting family. It snowed and hailed a few times which was exciting because we haven't been getting that much snow but was mostly very sunny and warm for the first few weeks. Everyone was outside at the park, playing games and having a good time. I live in a very heavily trafficked area as I am right off of two main roads and right in the center of multiple outdoor recreation areas. Mountain biking, hiking, swimming, kayaking, boating, running, walking, trails, parks, waterfalls and near a lake! It was scary because all the schools and all the businesses were closed. So many people lost their jobs or had to move. People were told not to leave their houses for weeks and no one knew when it would be okay to go back to school or their jobs again. Although there are a lot of people that still are working like food service and grocery, doctors, first responders, laborers, etc. without a lot of protection. I had a note to leave the house incase anyone asked or I had to use public transit but there was no way for them to really police that. The restaurant I worked at gave it to me, in case I got pulled over, saying that I was an "essential employee" and was allowed to leave my house for work. Restaurants closed down. My friend was at Olive Garden when they announced it was a global pandemic and put out the "Stay at Home" order which must have been a weird experience. Our new normal became having to stand 6-feet apart and everyone was in danger because of the 2-week incubation period. That period of time would be if you would start to show symptoms but you could also be a carrier and not know. Nursing homes shut down and so did public transit and retail. Everyone began sanitizing, wearing masks, spring cleaning, riding bikes and spending time outside. Parks were closed, public bathrooms were closed. So much changed in such a short amount of time.

Everyone went home at the same time and so everyone was on Netflix or Hulu. This is when the show Tiger King exploded! It all started with Jo Exotic. It was released the same week or the next week that the stay at home orders went into effect. We were all here at the house and it felt like summer. I took a few weeks off of work and so did my roommates. We all were just hanging out at the house, and I was the only one in school that still had to deal with that whole new reality. There wasn’t much going on as this all started around the time of finals and spring break. Everyone kept saying that 2020 would be so great and that everyone had 20-20 vision and it’s gonna be great.

There was a shooting in Nova Scotia around April 18th, 2020 in which 22 people were shot by a man impersonating an officer. I have linked here the news story from the CBC website. It just feels like these last 6 months have been one bad thing after another. It never seems to end. The price of oil dropped into the negatives which was also something new and insane. So many people were staying at home and using their cars less so people were consuming significantly less oil which was helping the environment! The prices dropped to about the same price they had been in 2015.

When the border crossings closed between Washington and British Columbia (all of the Canadian/American borders were closed. Essential travel only) it was a hard thing. I can't imagine going through something historic like this without seeing my husband for months. They just recently opened up the park at one of the border crossings and a lot of families who had been separated were able to sit in the park together and have lunch.

In my opinion, Trudeau has really done a great job in keeping the country happy and healthy through outreach and collaboration. Everyone has been coming together in such wonderful ways and it really is beautiful to see how different countries are handling this. Umm...why are we just now thinking that this is a good idea? We could have been doing this all along! Let's keep doing this to make a bigger global impact on decreasing global warming, lowering prices of goods, increasing support of local business, improving our healthcare systems, reforming education policies, supporting teachers and "essential workers", better conditions for labor workers, and getting the same people out of power that have been there for years. Let's face it...they are doing a horrible job. The States did a mediocre job in my opinion and some states have been better than others. In general the States took much longer to implement safety protocols. That's why we vote though, to change the system to be what reflects us as a society. There has been a lot of discussion surrounding welfare/healthcare and the stimulus checks we were all supposed to get. All of it combined and in comparison to other countries' response makes me disappointed.

I found a bunch of songs that represent this time in such a crazy way.

Currently we just applied and got denied for phase 2 though by the time this blog post is up it we will have entered phase two. The Lummi Nation hereditary chief just passed away which is such a sad loss for the community.

So far it has felt like the longest 6 months in my entire life. Time is moving so slowly. Everyday was just long and boring and the same thing over and over again. There is no change and online school is weird. I am trying to accept the fact that this has been not only seemingly the longest, but the most globally difficult time in history. This has been insane and so much has happened in such a small amount of time that we all have to get used to. It is affecting us all. The way we go out and buy our stuff now, grocery stores and other businesses, the question of who is essential in our society and what is our government doing to actually protect us. It is really hard to do all the things that I have to do in the day. It is so difficult and yet I know that previously I was doing triple the amount of work and it was no problem.

There is so many riots and protests going on, it is beautiful to be alive while watching it all unfold. This is fantastic to be standing with so many people against the injustices in our society. I have been thinking this whole time about how if no real social change comes out of this pandemic, then this time will have really been a waste. At the beginning, people were immediately overcome with appreciation for educators. Hopefully we can still remember how important teachers are to society once all this craziness is over and we can increase funding to education and pay teachers more! People are now forced to see the situations as they are unfolding. This has highlighted the seriousness of the crisis that we are in as a global society. COVID-19 has affected everyone on every continent on the world in some way.

The use of social media in this time has been through a transformation. It went from being so individualistic and a false representation of reality to more real life. Celebrities are at home and not doing anything so you are forced to see them as real people. Social media became a way of celebrating yourself, your country, what your neighbors and politicians are doing, how people are living their lives and making themselves happy. Before this, everyone was out doing their daily busy routines and not spending quality time at home with the people that they loved and really working on themselves and the community around them. The commercials have all changed to be about how "we are here to help" or "we know how hard it is to afford things sometimes so here are our services free or at a significant discount". Companies are using we as a way to keep your business through these hard economic times. Part of me is annoyed that they could have been doing this earlier and providing more equitable services to and chose not to. The other part of me is annoyed that they think people have the extra money to spend right now. Surprisingly, our spending trends have increased during the pandemic. But really? In this economy??

How the COVID-19 Pandemic is Changing Americans' Spending Habits

So much has changed through ads and media in general that this has really been such a fantastic time to be a live. Everything is changing on every aspect because people are so interconnected nowadays with the use of social media that when people were forced to be home all the time it made them all realize that we are all watching the same things the same people dealing with the same daily issues as anyone else with kids or partners, mental health. It is all becoming about how we can lift one another up instead of how can we win against the other one. Everyone started sharing cooking things at the beginning, so many people bought flour and rice noodles. Toilet paper so many things were out of stock and still are because businesses were not prepared for such a spike in sales. There were so many people spending money on things that they never used before or that they just had the privilege of being able to go out and buy whatever they needed.

How the advertising world is coping with covid-19