Reality For Some College Students During Covid

College is a massive change from high school, pandemic or not, but as a college student during a pandemic I can whole heartedly share that it has certainly been a roller coaster. Growing up I always thought college was going to be this magical place where I’m going to know how to do everything and I’m going to meet super amazing people that I’ll be friends with forever. It was just one of those things that I glorified because I needed something to keep me sane.

My shift into college life from high school was, and still is, incredibly rough. At first it was rough because I had to adjust to being three hours ahead of my time zone at home. Then it was rough trying to figure out where everything was and how long it took to get from point a to point b. Then it got rough when my family left and school actually started. Most of my classes are online and the classes I have that are in person I’m not able to talk to them so the only friends I had here were my family but now they’re gone too. 

As time went by I noticed that a lot had changed and I was a much different person compared to who I was when I had just moved. From my eating and sleeping habits to my appearance to my mental state, it had all changed, some for better and others for worse. I was slowing slipping back into my old habits that I had spent years breaking. 

I’m not the most social person and I prefer a couple people or being alone to a large group but I’m reaching a point of I wish I could be with a large group of people. Thankfully though I’m still a little hopeful that this won’t last for too much longer and I’ll be able to make friends with people in my classes and I’ll get to spend more time doing things and making memories. Even though its been a thunderstorm in a convertible with a broken top I can’t say that I haven’t been grateful for all of this time and space to figure myself out without everyone else's input. Through the course of the pandemic, March to October currently, I’ve learned a lot about myself and been able to grow as a person as well. 

Clearly it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows for me but not everyone has had a rough pandemic and that’s totally okay! The pandemic has altered at least one aspect of everyones life and for some people it was the best thing that could have happened which is super cool. So yeah, sure, not everyone had the same pandemic experience but at the end of the day we all did experience the pandemic and that alone is enough to make things just a bit easier. 

One of my friends that lives in South Carolina, her name is Brianna, she has had some of the most amazing times of her life because of the opportunities this pandemic presented her. She has been able to get a full time job, move into her own apartment, and get her dog back from the animal shelter because before the pandemic she wasn’t financially stable enough to keep him. She was also able to find a group of people that she truly connects with and is able to be open and honest with. She had the chance to have hard conversations with some people who wronged her and vice versa which opened her eyes up to a number of things. Overall her pandemic memories are good and full of growth in many ways which makes me glad that the pandemic did bring light into some lives.

This is me now, in October, month 7 of the pandemic:

This is me on the last Friday before the lockdown began: 

It may seem cheesy, even a little silly or stupid, but even though I look happier before I know that I wasn’t. Even though I don’t look as smiley as I did before I’m now content with myself and slowly working towards wearing the things I want to wear confidently. There has been a lot of hardship and struggle during Covid but there have certainly been some beautiful things that came from it as well. 

If it was possible I would wish for another pandemic, just without the virus and death part. I suppose a 7 month vacation would be one way of putting it.

Living In A Dorm Alone Because of Covid

I got lucky and unlucky with this situation for sure. When I was choosing what dorm to live in I chose a 2 person dorm meaning I would share a room with one other person which is perfect because I’m not very social but I’ll have a friend. For roommate selection I chose to be put with a random person and I was given a roommate. Her and I talked briefly a couple times about random things and until I moved in I believed I was going to have a roommate. Surprise unfortunately, I don’t have a roommate.. or a neighbor. 

Move in week came about so I moved all my stuff in and kept everything tucked towards one side because obviously my roomie was going to want her space. Move in week ends, no one shows up. First week of school goes by and still no one. Eventually I ran into my RA and she told me that it was just me in my room and the girl that was supposed to be my neighbor never showed up. I was pretty shocked but also not shocked at all since so much time had passed and nothing had changed.

At first I was a little upset about not having a roommate because I wouldn’t have any friends or anyone to talk to. After a little while I didn’t care too much and was more happy about it than anything. I realized that without a roommate I could put my stuff wherever I wanted it without having to worry about someone moving it or it being in someones space etc. I also realized I wouldn’t have to stress about keeping her up at night since I don’t fall asleep until 4-5 in the morning. 

I was talking to Rachel one day about not having a roommate anymore and I came up with the genius idea to push the two beds together and give myself one big bed. I did it and it has been a spectacular experience so far I will admit. The only downside is that my bed sheets are only big enough for one mattress so I improvised and used an extra sheet and blanket to cover the second mattress, I can’t even tell the difference.

Realistically though, other than the bed, all my stuff stays on one side as if I do share my room and space with another person. Partly because I don’t have very much stuff since I moved across the country via airplane with one suitcase and one carry on but mainly because I shared a room with Rachel back home so I’m used to separated spaces (makes it feel cleaner too if I’m being completely honest).

This is my bed: 

A Mix of Information and Popular Culture During Pandemic

In this generation the use of social media is huge, especially now with Covid. Gen Z uses memes as one way to express our thoughts or emotions in a simple but funny way. With internet humor though “funny” equates to when you’re scrolling through posts and you see one and it makes you exhale harder than normal, not actual verbal laughter (funny can still mean actually laughing it just usually doesn’t). The use of these simple pictures (or videos) keeps everyone connected to one another even during trying times and they help provide each other with support as well when it’s needed. I provided explanations to make them easier to understand but usually if you explain them they stop being funny. 

A few examples of these from the United States would be:

A short explanation of this one would be that colleges and universities should be explaining thoroughly what’s going on with classes and on campus in general. Instead though they haven’t been extremely helpful in providing any information with students when it comes to classes being online or in person or if we should be moving back home for those of us living in dorms, etc. The correlation with the picture is the guy (colleges) is holding hands with his girlfriend (useful information) making it appear like they’re in a good relationship. However he’s checking out another girl (bad information) proving that he isn’t truly doing what his relationship image is saying. Simply put: says he’s doing one thing but is doing another.

This one’s real simple. Schools canceled all the events for students and we’re not allowed to spend time with each other because all of the restrictions but schools are still giving us work to do.

This one is also simple. When the restrictions were put in place by the government a large portion of the U.S. population made it very clear to the government that they would not do that and continued going about their everyday activities as normal (there were also huge protests nation wide against restrictions).

Also simple. People that already spend most of their time chillin by themselves at home think the lockdown will be the same for them as life has always been, just chill in the house. Out going people think it’s going to be going out by themselves, lonely. Social media cracks the lockdown up to be some apocalyptic world. In reality though it was simply weeks of people hoarding and fist fighting over toilet paper because they were scared stores were going to run out of it. 

This one is also simple. When Covid was first a thing everyone was laughing about how it was only going to be a week before things opened back up and then it was two weeks and people laughed about how maybe it was going to be a month. Many jokingly said they hope it lasted all year and unfortunately that’s how it’s gone so far. Now we have all reached a point where Covid memes aren’t very funny anymore and we all just want things to go back to normal.

A few examples from another countrywould be:

These two go hand in hand and are pretty easy to grasp. These are two memes from the United Kingdom about how Queen Elizabeth has been the Queen for what feels like hundreds of years and she’s still healthy and running the country well. The memes joke about how her son and her prime minister both tested positive for Covid but, since she’s been around so long that she has to be immortal, she is in no danger of getting sick or dying. The bottom right portion is joking about how thousands of years from now when no one is alive anymore the Queen will be.

Death in the Family

 On July 21, 2020 I was at Laguna Beach, the Montage, with Mom and Bri. Bri and I were about 50 yards out swimming around and talking, enjoying the water and the perfect weather that day. Mom was sitting on the sand like she always was, her metal knee made cold ocean water pretty painful to be in. Bri and I were flinging our arms about wildly, shouting at her trying to get her attention so we could say hi to her but she wasn’t looking at us. My vision is a -5/20 (basically terrible) and even with contacts in my vision still isn’t very good so I was having a really hard time trying to figure out what was occupying her. After a few minutes I gave up trying to see so I swam closer to shore so I could see what she was doing and she was on the phone. I, feeling the strongest urge to be nosy and bug her, get out of the water and walk up to where she is and stand there looking at her to try and figure out who she was talking to. After a minute goes by she says, “If you guys ever need anything please let us know but I’m also glad the kids were able to see him one last time, I know he was hanging on just so he could see them.” My heart sank and I suddenly wished I would have just minded my own freaking business. I kept a neutral face, waiting for the call to end but looking back I think it was because it hadn’t truly registered with me that he was gone yet. 

Mom hangs up the phone and I ask, “Grandpa died, didn’t he?” She only nodded at me before telling me not to tell my siblings yet and that she would when we got back home. A couple weeks went by and I still hadn’t cried, I didn’t think about it either. I was waiting for the funeral, I knew the reality would sink in there. Unknowingly to me at the time though I wasn’t going to be attending his funeral, I was going to be boarding a plane and moving across the country for college. I didn’t feel any which way about that news, just accepted it as fact and moved on. 

The day to move came and went, so did the following month and a half before I truly thought about it. I didn’t intend to think about it at that point in time though I just had the unfortunate luck of seeing a TikTok about the passing of a loved one watching over you and wanting you to know that they love you. It may sound silly that a strangers video about that made me react so strongly but it did and there’s nothing I can do about it now. 

I watched that video around 3 a.m., I was exhausted and overall I was not in a good mental state. I broke down almost immediately. I missed my Grandpa but I knew he was better off now. He was now free from all of the pain he had endured for so long. He was now able to be with his mom and sister who were killed by a train when he was a child, he could see his father who passed when he was a young teen, he could see his cousin and best friend (my grandma) who died just before I was born, he could see his daughter who passed from cancer two years earlier, he could see all his friends he lost fighting in WWII, and so much more. 

Knowing he was free didn’t make it easier once the realization struck. I wanted to show him how good of a shot I was and get some advice. I wasn’t and I’m still not a perfect shot by any stretch of the imagination but I am a decent one with an average of about 19/25. Since he was basically a perfect shot, shooting 24/25 on a bad day, I felt that was a perfect way to spend time with him and get to do something we both enjoyed. I wanted to hear more stories from him about silly things. I miss just sitting in silence with him. I miss him joking with me and telling me that my parents better buy me a Porshe for my first car because I deserved one even though we both knew I didn’t want one. What I miss the most though is sitting on the garage floor wrapped in a blanket, looking up at him in his chair and watching him smoke his cigars, a smile appearing every once in a while as I tell him all my life events. As strange as it may sound, I miss the smell of his cigars. The scent reminds me exclusively of him and not a thing or person else. 

These photos are the last two pictures I have of him. I took these the last time we saw each other before he passed. I knew he wasn’t going to hold out much longer after this day. He was sick and he had lived a long life and overall he was simply ready, he was just too tired to keep fighting. 

It is crazy though how things change. This is a photo of Grandpa from two years ago and even though that sounds like a long time it truly isn’t. In two years I basically watched him lose all sense of himself before passing away. 

When we went to see him I was pretty nervous. Covid is still around and I was coming in contact with loads of new people everyday because of work. I knew he was already sick at the time but I was afraid I could potentially make him more sick. I hadn’t tested positive before or showed any symptoms but I’m much younger and healthier. When we got there I stayed decently far away from him for a while, just wanting to ensure I wasn’t a threat to his already shaky body. After a little while though I moved closer to him, realizing nothing I did once I got there could prevent him from getting Covid if I had it and truth be told he wasn’t going to live long enough for Covid to do any real damage if he got it. It hurt to think about I’ll admit but at the same time I’m glad I knew that and got the chance to sit next to him and hold his hand. We didn’t stay long, maybe half an hour. He had reached the point where he was sleeping most of the day so he wasn’t in so much pain and even just talking to the family for a few minutes drained him more than he cared to admit.

UK Core Issue: How Do We Distribute Covid Vaccines?

Assuming I had enough of the vaccine to distribute it to all the residents of Fayette County, Kentucky I would have various pharmacies like Walgreens, CVS, etc., give the vaccine to customers there. I would also have distribution tents throughout, especially in areas where access to things is limited. However if there was only enough of the vaccine for a third of the population I would distribute it to health care and essential workers first, then anyone with an illness that puts them at higher risk, all residents in lower income areas, followed by elderly people and then the remaining population. 

To make sure that vaccines get to who needs it most I would compile a list of areas and people who were at the highest risk of getting Covid and then send groups of people out to those locations so they can locate and vaccinate said people. However there are quite a few contextual things that have to be taken into consideration. Some may be: are any of them against vaccines? is anyone at risk of being allergic to the vaccine? has anyone already been infected? is there any condition they may have that prevents them from being vaccinated? are they involved in something that could make them feel hostile towards any employees? will the employees be safe? And many, many more.

While it may be or close to being impossible to check all the right boxes given the situation, with enough of the correct resources and right amount of help, getting a vaccine to everyone is possible. 

Equal Opportunity Learning In Pandemic

    Before Covid I would agree that online education provides equal learning opportunities for students that chose to do their classes online. However during this pandemic where online school is the only option I don’t believe that learning opportunities are equal. While many students may be able to switch to online school with ease that isn’t the case for everyone. Some families may not have the resources or access to the proper resources for the children to participate in virtual learning, hence the in person education thus far. There are also situations where perhaps the families have the resources but the children can’t participate or perform as well as they would be able to in a classroom for whatever the reason may be, it could also be a mix of the two or something completely unrelated. There are a variety of reasons that people may not be able to do virtual classes and now that we have no other option than to do class online puts those children at an immediate disadvantage and sets them behind their peers.

    I firmly believe that there should be a hardship clause for any students impacted by Covid to the extent that they could fail their classes. I don’t think that students and the futures they’ve worked hard for until Covid should have to suffer over things that are entirely out of their control. Students cannot control: a pandemic, how much money their families have, where they live, various mental disorders, etc., they shouldn’t be expected to perform miracles to maybe complete their classwork while other students just have to wake up and do it. 

    While I’m not too sure about how to go about implementing such a policy fairly I do think that it’s possible. During this pandemic students have experienced so much change between school, the protests, the virus itself, etc. and should all be shown some leniency right now. No two people have experienced this pandemic the same and you will never know what responsibilities they are juggling to make ends meet. Personally I think that having a break year from school would have been the best, and the fairest, option during Covid. Things are continuously changing and there is a lot going on especially in politics and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, that I think it would be the safer option to keep kids from falling behind and also to keep them safe.

    During Covid I haven’t had the most exciting experiences with online learning. My teachers give three times the amount of work they normally would and it’s all just busywork, it’s like they fail to realize I do have work for other classes to do. I also suck at actually doing my work because I don’t have any motivation to get it done. I struggle to pay attention during the zoom lectures too because I get bored of staring at my screen all day, I also have ADHD and even if I take my medication there are simply too many things to fiddle with no matter where I go. Online classes are also making me a lot more with drawn from others, I spend 95% of my time in my dorm, the other 5% is basically to get food or the few hours I spend with my church group on Friday nights.

    Many countries in Europe and Asia are having face-to-face classes already while the U.S. is still mostly online or completely online for some, and teetering on the verge of being completely online again for everyone. I feel like a lot of students including myself are going to be less competitive in the job market because of Covid. We’ve so far spent 7 months in lockdown with no end in sight and most of us spend our time at home not with other people, making us less social and less competitive which is definitely going to shift our mental state. 

How Covid Affected Eating Habits

When the coronavirus was initially announced I was working at Albertsons, a grocery store in California, and there was never a moment of rest on my shifts unless I was on lunch. As I would go through my shifts there were hundreds of people inside the store trying to stock up on everything they could get their hands on for fear they wouldn’t be able to get food later on. On many occasions I witnessed customers steal things out of another customer’s shopping cart, mostly younger adults stealing from elderly people who were practically defenseless in the situation. More times than I can count on one hand there were physical fights between customers over food items or toilet paper. With multiple of those fights, I had to get between them and end the conflict before removing them from the store where they sometimes had to speak to law enforcement after. 

While working you’re not allowed to shop for groceries because you’re being paid to work, not shop. On the multiple occasions I was the opening courtesy clerk there would be people lined up outside the doors waiting for us to open so they could get the things they needed before it got even busier. Generally within the first hour or so most of the shelves were cleared and all the toiletries were gone. The store had people restocking for basically their entire shift but at the pace, customers were grabbing things at they couldn’t keep up and eventually we reached a point where we set the boxes of items out and let people get their things like that. 

By the time my shift was over the shelves were cleared of every type of sustainable food and toiletries weren’t even an option at that point, regardless of if I had an opening, closing, or afternoon shift. As the days passed my parents would go to multiple stores (Costco, Ralphs, Albertsons, Walmart, Target, etc.) just trying to find food for us to eat at home because we were running out of “supplies” as my dad would say, but we never had any luck. Due to their age it eventually just became too dangerous for them to be in stores. Between fear of them contracting the coronavirus and being physically assaulted by other customers in stores if they had something another person wanted, we decided it would be better for them to stay home and I would do the shopping. 

After weeks of work being a complete madhouse, it slowly began to settle a bit as people realized they were hoarding for practically no reason because stores were remaining open. My store, thankfully, had begun giving employees a set time to shop for things they needed and to get toiletries for their families before customers came in and cleared it out. By this point limits had already been placed on almost every single item in the stores so that customers were unable to buy, for example, 15 cans of soup, now they could max out at 3 or 5, something low enough that they had enough to get by for a few days with their other items and other people had a chance to also buy soup. 

In my family, my Dad, Slenderman, and Goliath all have NASCAR fast metabolisms meaning they eat a lot more than most people and a lot more often. My mom’s metabolism isn’t as fast as theirs is but she still eats often throughout the course of the day, her proportions just aren’t as big. My metabolism is pretty down the middle. I eat as often as my Dad and siblings do, I don’t eat as much but I do eat more than what my Mom would. Because all of us eat so much so consistently we were constantly going to the store for food pre-Covid and once Covid hit we struggled a lot. We didn’t really have enough food for us to eat the way we normally would and that took a toll on all of us the longer it went on. We all had less energy and were all incredibly cranky and miserable. 

Before corona, our diets were extremely balanced and my Mom made sure that we hit all our food groups at dinnertime, breakfast, and lunch was generally up to us. After corona started we didn’t have the resources to eat meals like that and our diets became pretty unhealthy. Occasionally we would skip breakfast or lunch so we would have something to eat for dinner and partly to ensure that if things didn’t calm down soon we would have some food for a couple of extra days. Shockingly we didn’t reach the point of needing to aggressively stretch our time between meals although we came disturbingly close.

The result of not eating properly definitely put massive strains on my family's relationship with one another. Everyone had a temper and there were times where one of us would get mad at another person for simply existing even though that wouldn’t be the case on any other day. My parents were frustrated because they were practically stuck at home 24/7 to make sure they stayed safe and we didn’t have enough food or toiletries and there was nothing they could do about it. My Mom felt sick often because she wasn’t getting enough nutrients, my Dad and Clayton were set off by the smallest things because he wasn’t getting enough food to keep up with his metabolism, Rachel was crankier than normal and took it out on everyone else, and I was working constantly and when I’d come home from work I would be exhausted but the mixture of exhaustion, hunger and everyone else being a ticking time bomb didn’t lead to anything pretty.

This is what Albertsons looks like: Before Covid my store was open from 7 am through 12 am but once Covid started we opened at 6 am and closed at 11 pm. We set hours for the elderly to shop between 6 am and 8 am, which I always thought was insanely early but the rules are the rules. In real life the store is certainly not this bright, that would be intense.

This is me during one of my closing shifts: Mildly embarrassing picture but nothing I can do about it now so it’s alright. With Covid employees and customers were required to wear their masks 100% of the time while inside the building by law. There were many instances where people were told to leave because they refused to wear a mask and those conversations were never very exciting to have. Most of the time when a customer was told to put a mask on or leave they had a tendency to start yelling and cussing at the employee who was simply trying not to get in trouble with the managers. On the off chance it was a manager who told a customer to leave and they reacted poorly, which only happened once, they were physically removed by security from the store.

Where I find my Covid Information

When the coronavirus was first announced and schools closed I got my information generally from my parents and my friends. I‘ve never paid much attention to any broad public concerns, just did what I was told I had to do and went about my business. Overtime as the pandemic became a larger and more pressing issue I began to only rely on the information I found on my own. My parents began to believe that the whole pandemic was a government scheme and wasn’t real. A large majority of my friends felt it was real but never cared much about it beyond that and had a tendency to fight the safety regulations that got put into place. 

My belief that the coronavirus is a real issue and my parents lack of belief in it caused minor issues in our relationship. When the coronavirus was announced I was working in a grocery store and we required all customers to wear their masks inside the building, by law we had to do so, and my parents would give me loads of grief over this saying it was a violation of their rights to be required to wear one. In the end they always put one on before going in and kept it on while shopping seeing as it was that or they would be kicked out. The longer these rules were in place the less they argued and complained about doing it but the more annoyed they got about doing anything which made it increasingly harder to do anything near them. It also sparked a variety of arguments during dinnertime on all the “stupid” rules that we were all required to follow. I personally enjoyed the social distancing rules, I liked having my own space. I also like the masks because I tend to talk to myself and with a mask on you can’t tell. 

My parents rely heavily on political leaders for their information while I have always more relied on medical professionals and those licensed in dealing with things like this. I don’t see, or understand, why political leaders have a say in what to do during this situation seeing as their field of expertise is in politics and not in public health or safety. 

Over the months that Covid has been around it has become heavily politicized when that should have never been the case. The coronavirus is a very real virus and it has made thousands of people extremely sick and also resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. However, once the coronavirus was pulled into politics the numbers of people sick/dying of it sky rocketed because people started reporting any illness/death that occurred as related to Covid and due to that people began to aggressively doubt the legitimacy of the disease. 

I think in the long run that the way the pandemic has become politicized and the pandemic itself are going to be nearly equally dangerous. The virus itself has caused the deaths of thousands but at the same time the way it’s been so heavily involved in politics has also resulted in a number of those deaths that maybe wouldn’t have happened if it had remained out of it. 

For college students in particular the CDC has some tips that are pretty basic but it’s definitely better to be safe than sorry in times like these. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/College-Poster-COVID-Tips-for-Students.pdf

I also try to regularly check on the amount of cases there are, how active the spread is in the areas around me, see how testing is going and a few other things. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_totalcases

College Campus Life

I’ve been living in the campus dorms in Baldwin Hall for the past couple weeks and I’ve noticed that everyone is extremely respectful of the Covid rules in place. All the residents wear their masks outside their dorms, social distance from others wherever they have space to, they all wash their hands often, and when they don’t feel good they stay in their dorms to be safe. When it comes to other students on campus I see many who walk around without their masks on, they walk around with their mask tucked underneath their chin, or they have their masks tucked under their noses. 

Wearing a mask, especially when it’s hot and humid, sucks but the reasoning behind wearing them should be enough to keep it on for a few minutes while you’re walking around or in class when you’re just sitting there. What many people seem to forget is even though they may not be at high risk for getting covid but someone near them or someone in one of their classes could have an underlying health issue that puts them at a higher risk or they could live with someone who’s at a higher risk.

I’m down the middle of if we’ll be online before the end of this semester or continue with on-campus classes. The number of Covid cases seems to continue to rise but a lot of people are becoming less strict with the way they go about their daily lives with Covid still being a major issue. I feel that it’s raising our chances of having to go completely online. I think that if people would continue to make sure they wore their masks everywhere, social distanced in public and class, washed their hands regularly, and stayed in when they didn’t feel well, we will be able to remain on campus and maybe even have more classes switch to in person.

In this picture, I was at a gathering with a number of people from my church group. We all met up off-campus at the guys’ house for dinner and to play frisbee, spike ball, and corn hole. Even though we were all social distanced for the most part we all had our masks on just to protect one another and ourselves. Things like that, seeing people be responsible for themselves, gives me hope that maybe we will get to have in-person classes this year. 

I also continually wonder how Greek and Sorority life will continue with Covid. I understand the importance of these groups but I also feel like with everything going on that all of the events they hold and the amount of people living in such a confined space is a huge risk for not only those students but any other students they come in contact with. I’m not well educated on fraternities or sororities but I do feel that they pose a major threat to the likelihood that we’re able to remain on campus instead of going completely online.

Something that I noticed during rush for Greek and Sorority life is how close everyone is to one another without wearing masks or social distancing. There are hundreds of students participating in rush and if just one of those students is sick it could snowball and result in hundreds of cases of the coronavirus on campus and it would be forced to close. I feel that with how dangerous this pandemic truly is that now just simply isn’t the time to be holding these events especially without enforcing social distancing or the usage of masks.

A Little About my Schooling, Sports, and Injuries

*If you read my first post you may already know a few of these things*

Hihi! My name is Elaine Morisset, I am 18 years old and I’m from Mission Viejo, California. Currently, I’m living in Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky, attending the University of Kentucky as a freshman. I lived in the same house in Mission Viejo (MV) for my entire life until I moved to college.

I’ve been going to some form of school since I was 6 months old because both of my parents worked full time. I went to a countless number of preschools but I remained at one called Marina View Preschool and Kindergarten for two years. After Kindergarten I went to three different elementary schools. For first grade I attended O’Neill Elementary, which closed down permanently after my first year. For second and third grade I went to Melinda Heights Elementary but I left due to abusive teachers. I then transferred to De Portola Elementary where I remained for fourth through sixth grade even though the teachers weren’t much better than previous ones we ran out of schools to go to. For middle school, I went to Rancho Santa Margarita Intermediate (RSM Intermediate) where I met my best friend Bri. After middle school, I went to Trabuco Hills High School for all four years.

In high school, I did multiple sports: track, wrestling, water polo, and martial arts. I’ve been doing martial arts for a large portion of my life but the others I picked up my freshman year when I was 14 years old. Unfortunately for me, my track coach wasn’t ideal in certain aspects. If you didn’t know, in track you have to weight lift to help build muscles. My coach, however, was not well informed when it came to an athlete’s bodily limits and pushed those of us he favored far beyond our limits. For example one of the lift exercises we were required to do was deadlift and once every other week we would be required to max out which is basically where you add more and more weight on until you can no longer complete a single rep. On max out days he would push me past my breaking point at an unhealthy level (I know coaches are meant to push you to an extent but not to the point you get injured). At the age of 14, with a body that is still early in its developmental stage, I was deadlifting 250lbs when I only weighed around 110lbs. The result of my coach constantly pushing me to lift more and more with all the exercises led to me needing two shoulder surgeries. From lifting so much at such a young age with no real guidance I stretched out and tore all of the ligaments in both of my shoulders to the point they could dislocate randomly throughout the day and if I wanted to I could dislocate them and pop them back in. 

With my shoulder injuries, I had to stop doing track, water polo, and wrestling but I stayed with martial arts because, in the beginning, we had no idea how severe the injury was. I have a high pain tolerance so I felt more of an ache than anything even though I should’ve been in a lot of pain. Before jumping right into surgery I tried doing physical therapy for almost two years before Doctors had me have an x-ray and MRI done which is what made us realize how useless P.T. was at this point. After the MRI I stopped martial arts as well and a few months later I had my first surgery on my right shoulder on July 12, 2018. Typically when you’re young or need multiple surgeries on certain parts of your body surgeons prefer to wait around a year before performing the next one just to make sure there are no complications. I ended up having my second surgery roughly 6 months later because I was healing well and my arm was functional enough that I could afford to do it. I had surgery on my left shoulder on December 20, 2018, needless to say, Christmas was interesting.

As of now, my shoulders are as healed as they will get. There are a few things that my shoulders won’t do that most other people can do but nothing that prevents me from living my everyday life. An example would be like when most people lay flat on their backs and stretch their arms over their heads their arms will rest flat on the floor, mine however can’t do that. I can only get my hands to touch the floor and even that brings discomfort. I’m also not allowed to lift heavy like I was before without putting myself at risk of needing another surgery but I can still lift. 

Deadlift example: https://youtu.be/-4qRntuXBSc

This is me now (I’m a natural blonde but I recently dyed my hair black):  

This is me just after getting home from my first surgery (7/12/2018): My surgery was initially scheduled for around 11 am but I ended up being able to go in at around 7:30 am. I was exhausted when I got there and it was a 2.5-hour procedure then after I woke up I had to wait an hour before I could go home. When I got home I was pretty cranky because my body hurt, I was tired, I was extremely uncomfortable because I had this bandage on my shoulder that was bigger than shoulder pads for football players and the sling I had to keep on (even to sleep) was the type with the pillow so that wasn’t pleasant. I was also extremely hungry because I wasn’t allowed to eat anything past 10 am the day before. 

This is what I looked like after my second surgery (12/20/18): This surgery was the one that hurt more even though the damage to the ligaments in my left shoulder was less severe. About a week and a half before I went in for this surgery I got my wisdom teeth pulled and they gave me anesthetics to make me sleep during the procedure so I feel like my body just wasn’t cooperating with being put under again so soon. After they gave me the anesthetics for my shoulder I stayed awake for a pretty long time except I couldn’t move much because my body felt heavy but I was awake enough to feel pain and know what was going on around me. If you’ve never had surgery before when you have surgery on certain parts of the body they give you nerve blocks to help prevent or manage pain. For my shoulder surgeries the nerve blocks, that get inserted with a thick 5-inch needle, go into the junction where your neck and shoulder meet. I was awake when they gave it to me for this surgery, I wasn’t awake for my first one, and I felt it and it hurt, bad. When the needle went in my entire body tensed and my nails ripped open the skin on my palms. I’ve always done my best to avoid showing when something hurts because generally it isn’t too bad but I reacted enough that the male nurse that was taking care of me noticed. He grabbed my hands and said, “squeeze my hands, you won’t hurt me,” and so I did, I squeezed and in that same moment he gasps and goes, “holy shit you’re gonna break my hand,” (sorry about the language) but he didn’t make me let go. After the woman doing the nerve block was done I let go of his hand and was wheeled to the operating room where I was still awake and unbelievably afraid that I wasn’t going to fall asleep. The surgeon asked me to scoot myself onto the table but my body was too heavy so I couldn’t but they moved me and I was awake on that table for only a few minutes before I passed out. When I woke up the nurse that let me hold his hand was chatting with my Mom and he had an ice pack. Before they noticed I was awake I was apologizing for hurting his hand which only made him laugh before showing me how bruised it was from me grabbing it.

This is what my shoulders looked like after I removed the bandages (top-right shoulder, bottom-left shoulder). I had to keep the bandages on for about 3 days after the surgeries and taking them off hurt, it felt like I was ripping my skin off. I actually managed to tear open the sutures on my left shoulder a couple days after taking off the bandages but it wasn’t my fault, Bug stepped on my shoulder on accident and her paw ripped then open. It didn’t hurt but it did look funky.

And this is what my surgery scars look like roughly two years later: The left scars were smaller and healed pretty well but the right ones were a little more intense but they’re also healing nicely. Both surgeries had two incisions on the front side of my shoulder and one on the back but the back ones are practically invisible now.  

Me and a Short Intro to my Covid-19 Life

Hi! My name is Elaine Morisset, I’m currently 18 and a freshman at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky. I’m a Biology major with a focus on Pre-Med and I hope to one day become a psychiatrist with a focus on children and adolescents. I was born and raised in Mission Viejo, California. I’m from your average white picket fence, middle-class family. I’m the oldest of three kids; my two younger siblings, Rachel and Clayton, are 16 years old (twins) and juniors in high school. I have two dogs, both Pomeranians, a teacup named Dixie and a standard size named Bella. I also have a cat, she’s a calico white and her name is Maggie.

For me life at home didn’t really change much once Covid started and other than when school closed the middle of my senior year, my situation hasn’t been anything special. My friend Bri and I spent a lot of time, before and during the pandemic, driving around because we didn’t have anything better to do. We frequented Pacific Coast Highway, Los Angeles, the Ortega Highway, San Diego, and a variety of other places. With corona being present, and for other various safety reasons, we never really got out of the car, just looked out the window and enjoyed the sights. I always drove because I like to drive and it helps my anxiety which was perfect because she loves being in the passenger seat and just enjoying the ride.

My Mom is 63 and my Dad is 64 and they both worked when corona basically exploded. My Mom, who retired years earlier but went back to work a couple days a week for fun, was an audiologist at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, California. For the first 5 months of Covid my Mom kept working but it eventually became too much of a health hazard for her to stay so she “retired” again. My Dad, who has yet to retire, is a mechanical engineer for the SoCal Gas Company and nothing about his job has changed in any dramatic way. The only thing that was different for him was that he’s now required to work from home to ensure that he stays healthy. Most of the younger people he worked with were still able to go to the base and work from there which drove him mad because he enjoyed the company of the people he worked with. He did understand why he was required to be home which was partly due to his age and the fact that only half of his heart works as a result of a massive heart attack from years ago.

The closest Covid has ever come to me was through my Mom’s job where, at one point, they had over 100 confirmed cases of the virus. Before each shift all workers had to get tested for the virus before walking into the building and then, once confirmed negative, had to put on specific medical gowns, gloves and two layers of face masks. Thankfully my Mom never got the coronavirus but she did come in contact with some of her patients who ended up having the virus on multiple different occasions. After the fourth scare with her patients she decided that she couldn’t go to work anymore with everything going on because it only put her and my Dad at unnecessary risk. 

Here are a few pictures of me, my family and my pets with a little information about each!(:

This is a picture of me and Bri after “graduating.” Because of corona we didn’t get to have an actual graduation but we didn’t mind because we got to decorate our caps together and go take pictures together by the beach (even though it was super hot and we were exhausted and miserable).

This is my cat, Maggie. When we rescued her her name was Lainie, which is my nickname, so we had to change it and since she’s technically my brothers cat he decided Maggie would be perfect for her. When we first got her I was honestly slightly afraid of her because she looks like a cat we had when I was a child who scratched all the skin off my knee and shin when I was 6. Now, though, her and I have a mutual respect for one another in the sense that we pet/bump into each other for a couple seconds when we want a little love and other than that we just leave each other alone. She’s 8 years old and she swings wildly between never shutting up while doing everything she can to get in your way and completely ignoring your existence or napping all day.

This is my sweet girl, Bella. She’s basically my Mom’s entire world because after my Mom had her total knee replacement it was this angel who kept her company when everyone was at school or work. She’s considered a standard size Pomeranian and she looks like it too. Bella is 13 years old but she’s always been very calm and she’s always more than ready to take a nap or chill next to you while you work. She does, however, have a nasty habit of booty bumping your head off your pillow while you sleep so she can have it.

This is my beautiful girl Dixie, but most of the time everyone calls her Bug (I tend to call her my little pumpkin seed). She’s technically a teacup Pomeranian, she’s just a very cute, very plump teacup. This little one is 4 years old and she’s absolutely crazy. She’s always got a ridiculous amount of energy and all but demands attention 100% of the time and will, without fail, smack you in the face repeatedly if you don’t pet her.

And lastly here’s a picture of the whole family (Bri’s been adopted by the fam in every way except legally). In this picture we were celebrating my Mom’s 63rd birthday and also kind of celebrating my Dad’s 64th which was the following week (Halloween).

The tall goblin looking one in the green shirt is my brother Clayton. In the back with the purple shirt looking not excited to have his picture taken is my dad Kevin. Next to my Dad in the pink tank top looking super stoked about her birthday is my mom Denise. In the white shirt, in the midst of laughing, is me. The little head in the front there, the one forcing us all to take a million and two pictures is my sister Rachel. Then, last but certainly not least, the one in the jacket is Bri, my best friend of roughly 7 years.

I feel that as you follow with me through my Covid journey you should know the nicknames of them all in case I use those instead of their names when talking about them.

Claytons nickname is Slender-man. I gave him that nickname because he’s 6’2” and extremely skinny because his metabolism moves at the speed of light. He doesn’t take offense to it but if he did that’s fine because he may be taller than me but I’m still the older sister and my job is to bully him a bit.

Rachels nickname is Goliath. She got that one because, like her twin brother, she’s tall, 5’10” (she’ll say 5’9” but the Doctors said no). Mostly though she got it because I’m jealous of her height and she hates it so as the big sister it is my duty to make fun of her. She knows I’m just messing with her because at the end of the day she’s my built in best friend (don’t worry we hated each other up until two years ago).

Moms nickname is just Mama (or ma’am) because she would smack me upside the head with a broom or wooden spoon if I called her anything else. 

Dads nickname 90% of the time is Pops and sometimes, when he’s being his usual chaotic/funny self, it’s psychopath or weirdo.

Bris nickname is Bee or Bee Marie for the family, and occasionally I call her that as well. I tend to call her Princess or Babe for the sole reason we like to mess with people. Back home her and I spent literally every single day together and people were convinced we were a couple, even though nothing we did was even remotely “couple-y.”