The day-to-day right now grounds feels kind of hollow. It's quiet time. Oh, is it
quiet. Everybody's just hanging in there biting their fingernails wondering how
this is gonna end. I miss walking to class. I miss having a schedule. I miss
the lawn change from kind of a muddy ugly brown in the winter to green.
Everything on the lawn in the spring is like my favorite part about UVA. The
times in the library where you're studying and a few friends come in and you
greet all of the. Just the atmosphere and the community and being in such a
lively place. Like we always knew that was gonna end at one point right? But
when it does and you weren't really ready for it to end that's when it kind
of kind of sucks. Comparing it to where we were a year ago which is you know
celebrating the national championship. I don't know how many people in the streets the
total opposite of social distancing and now here we are you know kind of holed
up in our homes. This pandemic is not something right that we can change. It's here
it's happening right it's gonna affect all of us but the one thing we can
change is how do we deal with it. A lot of students have gone out of their way
to make sure other students are okay. I know some friends who couldn't stay in
dorms or couldn't stay in their current housing and they've moved into friends
houses and apartments that were just like here take my place I'm not here I
don't need it it's all yours. So many students that have been involved with
advocating for the local Charlottesville community, many people within the
university community as well have been laid off. A lot of those petitions have
created change within the university. Thousands of people donating to the
contracted workers and all the furloughed employees. For a lot of fourth- years
this is so tragic and disappointing and about as bummed as you
can be you know missing out the last eight weeks of your fourth-year and
graduation getting pushed back, but we're not equating this loss to anything
compared to the public health pandemic going on. We can still be upset while
acknowledging the sacrifices of others. They are kind of allowing humanity to
still kind of function like nurses and doctors and you know the people who make
all the gears turn and it's like the grocery store clerks and the people who
clean the hospitals or people who staff the waiting rooms. They're really taking
a personal sacrifice maybe to their health or potentially to their health. It's like
a weird sense of loss because you also know that you potentially could be
losing so much more. I've been trying to like replace like the sense of loss sort
of with a sense of gratitude. I'm honestly so grateful to
have like met so many incredible people at UVA amazing friendships and memories.
I'm very proud of how much I've grown and I'm proud of who I've become
It's sad we don't get all the goodbyes that we wanted to but for me it's a good
reminder that not everything has been taken. I look back and the ultimate
feeling is like overwhelming happiness and just like I know that I made the
best of my experience. I hang on to that. Charlottesville's always here and
when things clear you can always come back
take a moment with the people that you love in a place that you really
care about.