Corona Virus Journal One (I'm off school)

About a week ago today we were all joking about Corona Virus, trying to figure out how we can get our school to shut down to avoid the midterms we have this coming week and figuring out which one of us would be the one to ~anonymously~ call the school saying we've contracted the virus and take one for the team.

Little did we know how insensitive that is given our present situation.

The next day, Wednesday March 11, I went to classes as usual at the University of Calgary here in Calgary, Alberta. After my final class I met up with my friend Sabrina and we went to the dinning hall for dinner and then she came over to my res room where we film a few Tiktoks, watched some YouTube videos and hung out together as usual. We washed our hands more so than usual as the media coverage of this whole thing started increasing but, if I'm being honest, I had my same "this doesn't effect me so I'm not going to react" mentality. Later that night, though, I fell very ill with a cold (just a cold) but it was the first time I was sick in a while so it hit me pretty hard and I moped around for the remaining hours of the night, calling my boyfriend so he could talk to me while I laid in bed with a red nose, surrounded in a pile of blankets and a garbage full of tissues.

The next morning I woke up feeling even worse than the night before, so I decided not to attend my classes that day, not knowing it would be the last day that I would attend classes for the remainder of my sophomore year. Carson came over later that night and we did some school work together and then he left and I fell asleep around 10 pm.

12:30 am Friday - U of C released a notice that classes would be cancelled on Friday so they could discuss further action regard the recent COVID 19 outbreaks in Canada. There are approximately 150 confirmed cases in Canada. I did two (2) face masks and then was picked up from res and my dad drove me home so I could recover from my cold and not frighten anyone given the current events.

2:30 pm Friday - U of C announces that we will be transitioning to online learning and delivery, stating that all courses will now be administrated though D2L (UofC's learning management system software) and Zoom (a sort of Skype), as well as all examinations including final exams will be written in an online format. Professors have until Thursday, March 19th to come out with a new course outline that will present the new course requirements given this unique situation.

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful as well all attempted to make sense of this new situation that seemingly arose from "nothing" into a full lifestyle change in the matter of minutes. Still, although I am in no immense danger at the moment, this whole situation feels surreal.

The next morning I did a big spring clean of my room which hadn't been properly cleaned for about a year as I usually live at school. The best thing to do in a time like this were both your health is compromised as well as needing to stay indoors for extended periods of time is to clean your space so you don't feel overwhelmed. So that's what I did on Saturday while I recovered from my cold which was getting a little better. I dusted and organized everything so, with all the mess that's going on outside, inside felt like a safe space for the time being. I accompanied my mom to the store here in Cochrane where I was genuinely under the impression that we would be able to find food and the memes were just memes but, to my surprise, the shelves were basically empty. We couldn't even find rice. We couldn't find canned pineapple for the slow cooker ham which is my favourite and my dad was making it specially for me since I was home from school and feeling sick. My dad also has this weird thing he's been doing for about a year now that he calls the "European Diet" where we buy food as we need it, which is basically a nice way of saying we have literally no food in the house ever. And now, with no food in the groceries stores, he's still set on the fact that we'll be able to eat healthily. I'll keep you updated.

On Sunday I did my first trip into the city since I left on Friday. I should preface this by saying Calgary is about a 30 minute drive from the town that I live in. At this time there are around 250 confirmed cases in Canada, the majority of people have move out or are in the process of moving out of residence and 52 cases in Calgary. At this point, traffic on the streets was pretty sparse. I stopped at res to pick up some clothes and other things I'd need for every day life given when I first came on two days ago I thought it would just be for the weekend. I then went to visit Carson at his house before we went to the mall to get some food (the last time we will be eating out for possibly weeks) as well as look for some hand sanitizer and rice, both of which we were unsuccessful in finding. I drove us down to the south of Calgary to spend the afternoon with his sister and parents where we ate a good meal, a nice change of pace from my house where we have a suspicious lack of food, and then I dropped Carson back off at his house by the university before returning home.

When Monday rolled around U of C announced that they were suspending classes again today while they worked out how they would successfully deliver the material online. Again, I cleaned and walked the dogs with my dad. I also decided I would start working on more art again. If you knew me in High School you'd know that I was the artistic one while Leah, my younger sister, was the athletic one. When I declined my film school acceptance I stopped writing in all forms for a very long time but recently I've decided I wanted to pick it up again. So to do this I painted a nice picture of a cow that was featured on my Instagram story and I'm very proud of it. I want to hang it in my room but my dad doesn't let me put pins in the wall :(

Finally, today was the first day of online class and I went to a grand total of 0. A couple of my profs has online office hours or wanted us to Zoom into some labs but I didn't feel like it. I like to think of it as a learning curve and that's how I'm justifying it to myself. I did, however, finish my stat midterm which we get unlimited time between now and Friday to do, sent in my BTMA assignment and finished my BTMA quiz so I will be writing off this day as a productive one. I did a hair mask and showered and now I'm sitting in bed writing this blog post.

So far, this has been quite a bit adjustment and I don't want to be the "thoughts and prayers" hoe but that's really all you can do at this point since we're all so isolated. You really realize how dependent and connected you are to people when they're taken away from you. I don't believe in God and I especially don't believe in leaving your fate to some unknown mystical force or divine intervention but I do believe in the strength of the human race and I think together we'll all figure this out. Right now I know, especially people my age, aren't too concerned about our situation given we live in very privileged circumstances with access to health care but I think it is our responsibility to look out for those who are elderly or immunocompromised.