Honestly, things aren’t going too great here. It’s been so difficult to compartmentalize my feelings since there are so many different emotions I have to process at once. I’m currently living at my sisters house where she has a window that over looks a park which is usually packed with people, just a week ago there were still volleyball games happening. Now the park is completely empty, except for the occasional jogger or pedestrian wearing a mask, yesterday I had to take a biology test while also watching a police car circle this park telling people through a microphone to stay six feet apart outside the window. It’s really hard to compartmentalize all these feelings while still trying to keep school a priority, so I’m going to use this entry as a way of laying out all the different emotions I’m dealing with.

It’s very scary right now in New York, being at the epicenter of the virus is a lot of added stress that my professors have no way of taking into account, all they see is my dropping grades. It’s stressful not knowing if you have enough masks and having to sanitize every grocery item that comes into the house, but as the only science major in my household I do feel a certain sense of responsibility to limit contamination, especially having older parents. I have to stress about keeping everyone in my family safe while also having to stress about keeping up with my grades and the mass amounts of extra work Professors have assigned. It feels really weird having to prioritize my work over my family during times like this.

I also feel very useless right now, ever since 7th grade I wanted to go into virology, I am fascinated by viruses but between the 8 hour a day workload and me trying to keep myself sane by not thinking about COVID, I really haven’t been able to find the time to do any research. I look at the news and see videos of doctors and nurses working so hard to take care of people and every part of me wants to be there too, helping people, but I don’t know how I can contribute while still keeping up with my studies. My last emotion I’m dealing with right now is feeling stupid, I want to go into virology, but when I first read about this virus I wasn’t worried because coronaviruses are so common, but I didn’t take into account that the CDC had no funding and couldn’t do any screening to prevent this. I feel angry because this virus shouldn’t have been a big deal but it is, and stupid because I couldn’t see the potential of this virus and wasn’t able to help inform my friends and family sooner.

So right now, based on this entry, I feel; scared, stressed, weird, angry, useless, stupid, and overwhelmed.