Amalya Teitelbaum, Business Editor & Manager
Friendly reminder that we are still in a pandemic.
Friendly reminder that people are still struggling.
Friendly reminder that people are still affected.
Friendly reminder that this was not a pause and play on life. A pause and play indicates that one restarts where one paused. A pause and play indicates that no time has passed, no problems made capable, no struggles made real. A pause and play indicates that nothing has changed. When the pandemic started I was about to begin the second half of my senior year in high school. Currently, I am about to begin my second year of college. That is a life transition. I know people who were not in a relationship before the pandemic and are married now. I know people who were together before the pandemic and now don’t speak to each other. People who were students and are now working in the rat race. I can definitely say that I am not the same as I was when the pandemic started, and I am sure many would say the same.
Friendly reminder that this was and is not a vacation. It is not a reprieve from life, a time of zen and peace to recharge. To start projects, new hobbies, a time for entrepreneurs to emerge. While it is wonderful that people were given the opportunity to create incredible things during this time, it was not a time of hope. It is a time of struggle, a time that is not yet over. Zoom class was a massive adjustment and a struggle for many. Yes, to professors and yes, to parents, but most of all to students. I had classes where it was difficult for me to pay attention to in person, and therefore near impossible to focus on through a computer screen. My grades were certainly affected somewhat and my work ethic definitely slipped between the cracks. It did not feel like school, it did not feel real. And yet it was real, almost too real. Less work should have been given to accommodate for the traumatic time, yet it seems as the work doubled exponentially. “In these trying times…” was the preliminary sentence of every email and yet it felt like no one was trying at all.
Friendly reminder that just like life tends to be, this was a time of change. Changes of physical nature, changes of social nature, changes of mental nature. People are not going to be the same and that is something that is essential to understand. Too much of the change was unsolicited and unavoidable. The pandemic forced many people to turn inward on themselves to stop the outside world from destroying them. People, including me, were definitely forced to stay inside or limit social activities to a certain extent. This affected many people’s personalities and mental states. As things are slowly returning back to normal people are having difficulty readjusting. When my friends and I were first able to see each other again, there was a definite change in the air. Of course, as we continued to meet up it went back to normal but we must allow time for people to adjust.
Friendly reminder of things we are not going to do. We are not going to be insensitive to people’s new and current situations. We are not going to comment on people’s physical appearances. We are not going to pretend that we are all at the same level of normalcy. We are not going to invalidate others. We are not going to invalidate science. When the pandemic first started my caution levels shot up to the sky, especially due to the fact that I am immune-compromised. I did not leave the house without a mask, I did not go anywhere unless it was completely necessary, I completely steered clear of people I knew weren’t cautious. After all, thousands of people were being hospitalized, and even more, people were, unfortunately, passing away. This is why it was so infuriating to me that there were people who, to put it simply, did not care in the slightest. I would swipe through social media, seeing people who were getting together without masks and social distancing, promenading in public places, hopping on flights halfway across the world. They would call it a hoax, a senseless phobia, and not care about the people it was affecting around them.
Friendly reminder that we are not yet out of the fire.
Friendly reminder that we are still burning.