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The day-to-day right now grounds feels
kind of hollow. It's quiet time. Oh, is it

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quiet. Everybody's just hanging in there
biting their fingernails wondering how

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this is gonna end. I miss walking to
class. I miss having a schedule. I miss

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the lawn change from kind of a muddy
ugly brown in the winter to green.

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Everything on the lawn in the spring is
like my favorite part about UVA. The

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times in the library where you're
studying and a few friends come in and you

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greet all of the. Just the atmosphere
and the community and being in such a

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lively place. Like we always knew that
was gonna end at one point right? But

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when it does and you weren't really
ready for it to end that's when it kind

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of kind of sucks. Comparing it to where
we were a year ago which is you know

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celebrating the national championship. I don't
know how many people in the streets the

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total opposite of social distancing and
now here we are you know kind of holed

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up in our homes. This pandemic is not
something right that we can change. It's here

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it's happening right it's gonna affect
all of us but the one thing we can

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change is how do we deal with it. A lot
of students have gone out of their way

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to make sure other students are okay. I
know some friends who couldn't stay in

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dorms or couldn't stay in their current
housing and they've moved into friends

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houses and apartments that were just
like here take my place I'm not here I

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don't need it it's all yours. So many
students that have been involved with

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advocating for the local Charlottesville
community, many people within the

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university community as well have been
laid off. A lot of those petitions have

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created change within the university.
Thousands of people donating to the

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contracted workers and all the
furloughed employees. For a lot of fourth- years

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this is so tragic and
disappointing and about as bummed as you

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can be you know missing out the last
eight weeks of your fourth-year and

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graduation getting pushed back, but we're
not equating this loss to anything

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compared to the public health pandemic
going on. We can still be upset while

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acknowledging the sacrifices of others.
They are kind of allowing humanity to

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still kind of function like nurses and
doctors and you know the people who make

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all the gears turn and it's like the
grocery store clerks and the people who

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clean the hospitals or people who staff
the waiting rooms. They're really taking

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a personal sacrifice maybe to their
health or potentially to their health. It's like

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a weird sense of loss because you also
know that you potentially could be

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losing so much more. I've been trying to
like replace like the sense of loss sort

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of with a sense of
gratitude. I'm honestly so grateful to

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have like met so many incredible people
at UVA amazing friendships and memories.

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I'm very proud of how much I've
grown and I'm proud of who I've become

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It's sad we don't get all the goodbyes
that we wanted to but for me it's a good

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reminder that not everything has been
taken. I look back and the ultimate

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feeling is like overwhelming happiness
and just like I know that I made the

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best of my experience. I hang on
to that. Charlottesville's always here and

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when things clear you can always come
back

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take a moment with the people
that you love in a place that you really

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care about.