Hello, friends.

It’s strange to be blogging at a time like this, when the world is shut inside, 6 feet is the bare minimum for personal space, and it feels dangerous to breathe inside a grocery store.

I never expected to live through a global pandemic. When I was younger, I studied the diaries of historical figures in school and decided to start a diary on the off-chance something exciting happened. As it became more clear how mundane my life was, my journaling fell apart. Now keeping a record seems like the least I can do, both to document the impact of a historical event on the life of an average person, but also to preserve some sense of normalcy.

So for posterity and for sanity, I will continue my blog along its intended path.

to create

The good news is I started working on draft 2 of my novel. If you’re unfamiliar with, Entrenched, my historical fiction novel set during WWI that I wrote for my Honors capstone, first of all, welcome, because you must be new. But you can catch up on the process via my YouTube playlist here!

This past month, I’ve begun delving into the world of my story once again and preparing to write the second draft. I intend on posting an update video once a month to document this new phase in the project, and I will go into more detail there. Currently, I’m prepping to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo this April, since it seems like the perfect opportunity to begin a new draft.

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t post any new videos this month. At first, I kept deferring because I was busy. And then the world turned on its head. It seemed appropriate to take a break. I’m hoping to resume in April, now that I’ve had time to adjust.

Catch up on my most recent blog posts:

to work

The first half of the month was business as usual. My work was a little slow, but I knew it would pick up after spring break, when there would be plenty of events for me to write about and new projects to start for the website.

I was in Universal Studios when the shift began to happen. Colleges were switching online for a couple weeks. Flagler was one of them. Then they switched to online for the rest of the semester. All of the events I was planning to write about suddenly evaporated. The Marketing and Communications department suddenly had their hands full with crisis management, and I knew giving trivial projects to a little freelancer would fall to the bottom of the priority list.

I began to panic. I felt up in the air, unsure if I would have any more work coming in. I offered to help as much as I could, but I simply wasn’t in the loop enough to do any crisis-related work. Eventually, as the shock of the situation died down, I received new stories and projects to fit the adjustment. For now, I’m meant to keep some hope alive by working on some more positive stories during the chaos.

I’m very fortunate that my work is remaining on track. I know that is not the case for many. My thoughts are with you. And I encourage everyone to remember who makes the decisions on how to handle national crises and vote accordingly if you can. It is a situation of life or death for many people.

to live

March 5: I got bangs!

Needing a change from the same haircut I’ve had for about 6 years, I agonized over whether or not to get bangs. After some serious debate and encouraging Instagram polls, I did it! And I’m so glad I did. Bangs work surprisingly well on me and honestly cover up how long my forehead apparently is.

March 10: Voted early

It’s always a pleasure to perform my civic duty. Maybe it’s the generalized anxiety disorder, but I recommend voting early because you never know when something might go wrong on voting day. For instance, you might realize your registration is incorrect (which you can check here), you could go to the wrong polling place, or a pandemic could break out, inhibiting your voting safety.

March 11-15: Mini Spring Break

Since my partner Ray works in a public school, she gets a spring break. After a couple days of work training, we headed down to stay with her mom in Sanford on Wednesday. Then we spent a couple days at Universal Studios, until the world slowly dissolved around us.

The Lost Days

My plans for rest of the month fell through. Many things didn’t work out due to social distancing and health concerns. It was disappointing to lose so many memories, but a global health crisis tends to take priority.

March 20: Joywave

Of the things that were canceled in the wake of coronavirus, one was the Joywave Florida Tour, including their show in Jacksonville, which Ray and I had planned to go to with a few friends. It sucked that the show was canceled, especially after the drop of their newest album, but it’s been postponed to September, so we may be able to see them yet.

March 21: Lindsey’s wedding

This one hurts the most. If you’ll recall from my last reflection post or my Austin travel vlog, you’ll know I had been highly anticipating my cousin Lindsey’s wedding for a while now. As CDC gathering guidelines changed and public spaces began to close, the wedding venue limited the wedding to 10-15 people and canceled the reception. Because I had been traveling before all this happened and since symptoms can take up 14 days to show, I wasn’t sure if I was carrying the virus (fortunately, I wasn’t) and didn’t want to risk infecting any of my elder or immunocompromised relatives. Not to mention my own asthma has me concerned about traveling in general.

For the good of myself and my family, I decided not to go to Lindsey’s wedding. She was completely understanding, especially since the event was pretty condensed now anyway, but it still stung. Instead, I got to watch a livestream of the wedding, and of course, I cried from the beauty and sadness of it all.

Lindsey and her husband David deserved the wedding they planned. My hope is we will be able to celebrate to the max with them in the future, when all this is over.

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March came to an unexpected halt. Now April will follow in its path. It’s up to us to stop this virus from taking a stronger hold on our lives. It’s up to us to socially distance, to avoid public places and gatherings with anyone outside of our immediate household, to leave necessities available to others in the grocery stores, and to get through this together (but apart). We have to do our part to prevent further spread and endangering the lives of those who are vulnerable and those who are essential and cannot stay home.

Let me know how you’re coping with this situation. The comments are open to vent or connect with each other.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.