anahorvath.com

Tag: covid-19 in Colorado

  • Not all Sunshine and Rainbows

    sunshine and rainbows
    Photo by rita peron on Unsplash

    Hello everyone! I hope you’ve had a good weekend. Happy Easter by the way as well! As I write this, I’m honestly very tired mentally. When I say this, I speak from an academic standpoint. This semester has been not been easy. As some would say, it really is has not all been sunshine and rainbows. There are a lot of good moments and I’ve had fun, but I’m getting really tired of everything.

    I’m tired of online coursework. I’m tired of communicating over long email chains with classmates and professors. If I never saw Zoom or Microsoft Teams again in my life, I wouldn’t be upset. I’m sick of not being able to interact with people in a manner where we aren’t concerned about social distancing or other public health protocols. More than anything, I’m so over going to school thinking I’ll be able to have more face-to-face interaction, only for things to be an absolute, unorganized disaster, resulting in me spending so much time in my apartment by myself.

    I’m not here today to write and complain about all of the sucky things about being a college student right now, but I also don’t understand why it seems to be ok to be a bit more disorganized and chaotic now. Take my chemistry lab for instance. We’ve had several labs canceled not because someone is sick but because the materials for the lab aren’t ready or haven’t been shipped yet. We missed the first week of lab because the professor and TAs weren’t ready to begin lab yet. I mean come on!!! You had all of winter break to prepare for this course and it’s not the first time this lab has been offered as a course. There have been several weeks in this lab, where something doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to or it doesn’t work at all and my TA throws his hands up in the air, laughs, and then says he’ll send some data over email and that we can all go home. Then why did I just waste an hour and a half trying to get something to work?? Why am I even putting any effort into this lab if it ends up with me sitting back in my apartment reading through a bunch of chemistry papers that I can barely understand to talk about something in a paper on a topic that my TA doesn’t even understand. Absolutely ridiculous.

    And I know, again, that this pandemic has been easy for no one. Again, it has not all been sunshine and rainbows! Things have changed so much and there are so many guidelines and regulations to follow and ensure safety and health of all. I fully understand that. I bet there are a lot of ways that the pandemic has affected how this chemistry lab that I’m in can operate. I think there comes a point though where you can no longer blame the pandemic on your inabilities to be organized and put-together.

    This class hasn’t been my only issue either. I feel like I really tried to be an optimistic and hopefully person about these classes at first, but I quickly came to realize that it was not going to be all sunshine and rainbows with two of my other classes… They have been horrible disappointments. It feels as if I’ve learned nothing. It feels like my professors try but all the words they speak have no true meaning. The thing that bothers me the most about this is that I pay for this. I pay a good deal of money for something so low-quality. It’s embarrassing and more than anything its frustrating! I was so excited for these two classes, developmental biology and chemistry of addictions, and I couldn’t tell you one really important or exciting thing I’ve learned in either class.

    Being online for most of my coursework and living alone (unless I’m just staying at home for classes) has been a very interesting experience and as much as I appreciate the alone time, it can be really hard sometimes. I’m pretty distracted most of the time, whether I’m working out or doing classwork or watching a show. It is hard though, when I’ve done all that I feel I can do for the day and I have no one to talk to and everyone is busy. I just feel lonely sometimes and that’s something I have not enjoyed one bit. We are social beings and being robbed of that has really taken a toll on so many of us. Sometimes I go on walks and it makes me sad sometimes to not even see another person on campus. Even just seeing another person can make you feel less alone, or at least that’s how I am. At least there’s someone else around, in your presence. And it’s so different to text a person or talk to them on the phone. Yes, it helps to know that another actual person is interacting with you but it isn’t the same as seeing them in-person. In my opinion, it’s the interactions that occur face-to-face that make things so much better and mean so much more.

    More than anything, I pray for better classes next semester with better professors and I pray for better days ahead. I’m really looking forward to spring break which starts next weekend and I’m thinking that will help with some of this burnout I’m feeling. I know I need some time to recharge and I’m sure a lot of you out there do too! I know that the world will not always be sunshine and rainbows, but I know that I can make the best of every situation I’m presented with and recognize that most of life is going to actually be pretty good. Life sucks sometimes though, and in these times you really just need to truck along and remember that things will be ok in the end. 🙂 Have a good week everyone. I’ll see you next Sunday.

  • Switching to Online Classes Soon…

    online classes

    Things have been so crazy lately and it’s crazy to think that it’ll be Thanksgiving soon and before we know it, December! With all of this comes the switch back to online classes. Before this semester started, my university made the decision to fully transition to online classes to hopefully prevent more students from contracting COVID-19. Hopefully that works.

    I’m all for fewer people getting sick, but I’ve really hated having to deal with all these online classes. I teach a class for the honors program at my university and that has basically been the only fully in-person class I’ve had this semester. It’ll be hard for me to transition to being online for that class and I can’t even imagine how difficult that will be for my freshmen. It has been a really weird semester for them already and so I can’t imagine what that’ll be like for them when we’re fully online.

    I’m honestly really excited for this semester to be over. It has been a big odd ball, that’s for sure. I’m practically done with my anatomy class, considering that was a class that I could take at my own pace anyway. I just have my exam on the upper limb tomorrow and then I’m DONE!! My business law class will also be finishing up in the next week once I turn in the last two assignments. My only remaining classes will be my cell biology class and macroeconomics (blehhhh). Having just those two online classes will be kind of nice but I’m worried that I won’t be able to find any motivation to do work. We shall just have to wait and see.

    If anyone else out there is switching to remote learning soon, I feel for you. It’s tough but we will get through it. 🙂 I hope you’re all staying happy and healthy. Have a good week!

  • Review of the First Week!

    first week

    So this week was the first week back at school. That was an interesting time, I must say. This week, I just wanted to share my experiences with my first week back and this weird time navigating a worldwide pandemic and college classes.

    Classes started on Monday, August 24th, and this first day of school was not like past first days. I didn’t try to dress cute or make myself look presentable which was honestly refreshing but also kind of disappointing. It made the day feel really different. Monday was a horribly busy day. I had five classes, cell biology, anatomy, a business class regarding the legal and ethical issues of business, macroeconomics, and my pre-thesis class. I basically sat at my table for five hours straight after I had breakfast and cleaned up and that was the worst decision of my life. After those five hours of classes and exploring the class pages and syllabi, I had lunch, and then it was time for more class work. I ended my extreme first day of classes with a pre-thesis meeting and then after that hour I crashed. My sister and I ordered Noodles and Company for dinner that night as a celebratory dinner and as a way of saying, “Yay we did it! We survived the first day of classes!” It was a good dinner and if you’ve never had caulifloodles, I highly recommend you look them up and then try them. 🙂

    My second day of classes was a breeze. I had my online session for cell bio lab and then online lab for my anatomy class. For my cell bio lab we have an online portion and an in-person portion. I alternate when I meet in person every other week. When I meet in-person, I’m required to wear a face mask in addition to a mask which seems a bit excessive, but I understand the precaution, so I will do what I can to keep myself and others safe! For my anatomy class, we have a virtual dissection software that we use to understand and see all of the structures we need to look at. I was hesitant about an online anatomy course at first but I actually love the professor that does our lectures and the software we use for virtual dissection is actually pretty cool. That was basically all I had Tuesday, so I had a chance to do some reading for my econ class and was done with my work around 2 pm.

    Wednesday, I had my cell bio, anatomy, business, and econ classes. It was a pretty mild day but wowza four classes in one day is a lot of work. I can handle it, but it’s just a lot of information to take in within a few hours. By Wednesday, I discovered that I really liked my business class. It has been very different from any other class I’ve taken so far and I really like how my professors are treating the course as a way of obtaining life skills as opposed to an actual academic course. Yes, I still get graded for the work I do, and there are still assignments and quizzes, but the emphasis is more on building the skills needed to run a business.

    Thursday, the only true class I was the first-year honors seminar recitation that I teach. It was exciting to meet my students in person. It was just a very strange environment though. The tables were all so spread apart and it was odd communicating with people and trying to be enthusiastic and share my excitement for the honors program with a mask on. It was just a bit strange.

    And then the last day of the school week, Friday!! Friday was another big day of many classes, those classes being cell bio, anatomy, my business class, and econ recitation. My econ recitation was an in-person class and that was interesting. For a class that was supposed to have thirty students in it, we were put in a decently sized lecture hall. All of the rows had tape blocking off all seats except one to enforce social distancing. Obviously we were required to wear masks. My TA basically just talked about how the semester is going to run but I found it most interesting that my TA found it strange for us to be meeting in-person. Our lectures for that course are asynchronous so it seems a bit weird for us to have in-person recitations, but I’m just going to go with the flow and see what happens.

    It was a strange first week of classes but it was also good in many ways. It was filled with a lot of mask wearing and hand washing but it was also filled with fun and I was especially happy to see a bunch of my friends again. Hopefully people make good and smart decisions and allow us to stay on campus until Thanksgiving break. Stay healthy, stay safe, and I’ll see you next Sunday!

  • COVID-19 in Colorado: Our Current Situation

    COVID-19 in Colorado
    Credits to the artist. 🙂

    Maybe you’re all sick of hearing about it by now, but we’ve got a global pandemic on our hands. I think it’s important to stay informed and educated during a time like this and more than anything, I think it’s important to stay positive and driven. Here’s how my story on COVID-19 in Colorado.

    As I write this, Colorado is way over 200 cases of COVID-19 and the United States has declared a national emergency. New York, Washington, and New York have been the hardest hit as of right now and I send prayers to all of you reading from those states right now. This whole situation has been unreal.

    Colorado is currently in a place where a lot of businesses and services have shut down until late March or April, but I honestly have a feeling that a lot of things are going to be closed for longer. I come from a place of observation, not pessimism when I see this. Seeing how fast the virus has spread in the United States, I just have a feeling that we’re just seeing the beginning of things in the U.S. From what I know, most, if not all schools have switched to holding some form of online classes or provided families with homeschooling content and it’ll be interesting to see what comes from this as far as education opportunities go, once this clears up.

    There’s a lot of talk about a stay at home order or shelter in place order. I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that, but if it does, we need to do what we can to flatten that curve. As a biology major, I have been very interested in this entire situation. Of course I’m saddened by the effects this is having on so many people and honestly scared in some ways by the power something that’s not even as large as skin cell can have on the world. I’ve also been so interested in how this virus can survive on surfaces and how it affects our bodies. I’m also really proud to say that my university, Colorado State, has a research center that is currently conducting research to find a vaccine for this little monster that has sent our world into the state it’s currently in.

    COVID-19 in Colorado has turned grocery stores into an absolute nightmare now. My family has been trying to find rice and flour for the past week now, and we’ve had zero luck because of all of these people stockpiling their food and additional household supplies. I can understand that there’s a lot of uncertainty regarding our current situation but you do not need the large amounts of toilet paper stashed in your bathroom or all of the frozen foods you can fit in your cart. Trust me. There are some people who haven’t even had a CHANCE to grab any of that and the only food they have is what was in their fridge before this whole mess started, and these stockpilers have left those people with zero options. My mom and sister went to the grocery store this past week and there was this dad there with his son. They were throwing a birthday party and couldn’t find chicken ANYWHERE because so many other people had run in, taken as much as they could, and left. As mentioned before, I understand that this situation is scary to many and new to all of us, but we need to be rational with our decisions and consider others, especially when it comes to what’s available for purchase.

    And still on the topic of grocery stores, my mom and I got back from Costco earlier today and dealt with some extremely nasty people. COVID-19 in Colorado has turned some people into monsters, oh my goodness. I understand that this is a tough time and again, it’s scary and new, but no one deserves to be yelled at over barely bumping into someone with a cart. My mom barely caught the heel of this lady when we were getting into Costco and this lady turned around and screamed at my mom, yelling, “WOULD YOU STOP RUNNING INTO ME WITH YOUR CART?!” First of all, that lady rudely asked me before we even entered the store and asked why there was a line. Costco created a 30 person in, 30 person out policy to comply with CDC guidelines. She then proceeded to cut us in the line after we were asked to sanitize the cart and when my mom just barely ran into her, this lady blew up on us. I don’t know what her situation was or what she has been dealing with, but I believe that regardless of whether or not you’re having a good day, you should put your feelings and thoughts aside and be kind to others. No one deserves to be treated with that sort of unkindness EVER and especially in a time like this. Some people were even fighting over the food and stuff available in Costco, which I found ridiculous too. Good Lord, it’s a rotisserie chicken. The sign said that each shopping party could only grab one chicken, so accept it. Those are the rules. And the way that some people treated the employees was absolutely disgusting. The employees are more at risk than anyone because of the amount of people they interact with and you have the audacity to scream at them for there not being any cleaning supplies in stock? That’s just unacceptable.

    From this post, my goal is not to scare you or worry you. It is simply to educate you on what we’ve been dealing with in my state. I hope that you all are staying healthy and smart out there. Please take care of each other and listen to what your local and national governments are saying. Stay informed and most importantly, take care of yourselves and stay positive. And in addition to that, we need to be kind. My life quote is “Have courage and be kind.” In a time like this, that is SO SO SO important. We do not have time to be blaming some poor employee at Costco for not knowing where the Naked Juice is. We don’t have the resources to be hoarding toilet paper and napkins and other supplies. We SHOULD be treating each other with respect and lifting each other in this uncertain time so that we can get through this.

    So have courage and be kind. Stay healthy too. 🙂 See you next week.