GOING VIRAL

Well, it’s been a year — not a good one or a bad one, just a plain ol’ year.

 

This year, we’ve been a part of history. We’ve signed into Zoom meetings and begrudgingly turned on cameras, careful not to have our pajamas in frame. We’ve played drinking games to public health orders (don’t take a shot everytime they say “unprecedented times” if you want to survive) and ironically — eh, and maybe unironically — tried our hand at TikTok fame. We’ve posted about our quarantine quirks and, like a salacious secret told at a slumber party, we’ve whispered about our plans for when “everything goes back to normal.”

 

We’ve come back to campus, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, only to be shunned into another quarantine. We’ve been welcomed back — this time wearier, careful to savour every awkwardly-masked smile, every monotonous lecture and every caffeine-fueled study session with friends.

 

When we began our academic journey, we aimed to step into our futures. Instead, sometimes it feels like we can only look back at the moments we lost to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

But we’ve done none of it alone.

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has intermingled in our communities for the past two years — like an awkward third wheel on our dates with destiny. Not only have we adjusted to a new normal but we’ve cultivated one right here on campus. Our communities are each unique — these special, sacred things — and they aren’t going anywhere, no matter how unprecedented the future may seem.

 

This year we’ve gone viral with endless COVID-19 tests, Zoom calls and TikTok scrolls. From student to professor to TA to friend, we’ve all faced these unprecedented times together. Though this new normal may be a part of our lives for some time, the connections that we have forged and strengthened in going viral will stay with us forever.

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- Paloma Green, Tianne Jensen-DesJardins & Sophia Russo