The COVID Blues

It's been a while since I've created a post here. Well over three years, actually (how time flies!). Then I focused heavily on current events, commenting on the latest happenings in the world of politics, something I felt I should be deeply involved in. I've since cooled off quite a bit, not spending so much mental energy on the minutiae of daily politics (though I will continue to vehemently stand against President Trump and the divisive politics he chooses to practice). No, I've decided to focus my energy elsewhere - on bettering myself as an individual, focusing on family, and progressing toward my career in education. 

It is precisely this first tenet that I wanted to write this blog post tonight. In my field of History Education, writing is second only to reading, and lately I've done a very poor job of this. During the last semester this previous Spring, I was in the Iowa State History Department's senior research and writing seminar. The main objective of the course was for students to choose a topic and write a roughly twenty page essay on the topic, gathering the appropriate sources along the way. I was excited for this challenge at the beginning of the semester; I pondered all summer long about topics I could write about, finally settling on the topic of race in collegiate athletics, specifically college football. The first two months of the semester went great. I was eager to do research and quickly gathered many valuable sources, including Presidential papers and documents related to the University of Alabama's Afro-American Association and their efforts to integrate the Crimson Tide football team in the late-1960's and early-1970's. Then suddenly, like a ton of bricks raining down on a house of cards, the global Coronavirus pandemic shut all of society down overnight. Not only did I leave my apartment in Ames; I lost any motivation and drive I had to finish out the semester.

I'm sure I wasn't the only one this happened to. But I would argue that I had more at stake than most. The senior History writing and research seminar is perhaps the most important class that any History major takes at Iowa State, and I felt like I was blowing it. When I knew I should've been mulling over sources and taking notes, I was laying in bed sleeping in until noon. There was a lot that was great about quarantine - the fact that I moved in to my brother's house allowed our bond to become very strong, and his friends became my own - but it was detrimental to my academic and professional well-being. 

I remember a particular assignment that was due sometime in March, probably. It was a simple outline for our research essay, basically a roadmap for how we wanted to organize our paper. I couldn't get that done on time because my motivation was at an all time low. This eventually manifested itself into my inability to finish the essay in time for the end of the semester. Normally, I am a student who prides himself on my ability to do assignments on time, and do them well. So it absolutely killed me to have to keep emailing my professor to ask for extensions on assignments. To my relief, the extensions were always allowed. I am extremely thankful to have the good fortune to work with Dr. Brian Behnken here at Iowa State. He is by far the most caring and compassionate person I have worked with and may ever get the chance to work with. 

To this day, nearly four months after the due date, I have yet to complete my essay for the senior research and writing seminar. Dr. Behnken allowed me to have a further extension even after my first one ran out on August 1, the one on which I had promised to be done "well before." As I write this blog post, I am reminded how much I feel like garbage for not having completed the essay. Since returning home in the middle of March, I've done very little work. I have analyzed and took notes on few to none of my sources, and in some cases forgotten details of my project altogether. I feel like a slacker; a failure, and know that my time on this is running out. In order to student teach and graduate, I have to get this done. I've got only a few months left before I need to really be done. I'm nervous, but I am looking forward to this. I am hopeful that moving back to campus, albeit with all the restrictions and modifications, will motivate me to get back to work on this project. I am also hopeful that the promise of a future as an educator in Colorado will motivate me to complete this project. Without its completion, there is no Colorado for me. 

Perhaps in five years I'll look back at this moment in my life as a struggle, but a necessary one. A struggle that helped me become stronger and more perseverant in the long run. These months that COVID has taken from me have been one of the toughest periods of my life, third only to my mother's bout with cancer and the arson that took my father's business and shattered my family's relationship with my hometown (actually, when I typed it out just now, the COVID months seem like small potatoes compared with the others, but the feelings still remain). Now, I'm a firm believer in science and facts, and hope doesn't necessarily always align with those things, but I'm hopeful that better days are ahead. In times like these, I think a person has to be. When times are dark and scary, what else do we have? The Coronavirus has taken a lot more from many people than it has from me. I realize to those who have become extremely ill or have even lost loved ones to this virus, my struggles are very miniscule. But this virus has taken from all of us in a multitude of ways, from the loss of life to the loss of jobs and everything in between. 

The term 'watershed moment' is very cliched in History, but in a time when almost nobody can agree on anything, I think most would agree that what we've experienced the last six months has, indeed, been a watershed moment in global human history. When historians examine this moment in years to come, I hope they recognize not only the ineptitude of some of the leaders guiding us through this tough time, but also the stories of the individuals who were impacted by this - those who lost their lives by this disease, nurses fighting on the front lines to treat patients and keep our communities safe, teachers who were thrown back in the classroom against their will, small businesswomen and businessmen who saw their life's work destroyed, and students who, in some of their most formative years, were ripped from their norm and sent into a tailspin with no sense of direction. I don't believe our lives will ever be the same going forward, but we can do this period some justice if we remember those individuals.