Category: Virtual Coffeehouse (Page 7 of 8)

At the start of this year I have made a lot of resolutions. One of them being to focus on school more and just be more productive in all aspects of my life. Covid-19 has taken most those things away. Virtual learning has made things more difficult for me because I’m the type of person who procrastinates a lot. I have never taken an online class before, so in the beginning I was excited to try it out, but now I can see how it could possibly bring my grades down. I try to push myself to work harder each and everyday and for now it has been working out. Not being able to leave my house has put a strain on me mentally as well as the fear for anyone in my family to get the virus. This virus has effected me in more ways then one. I have lost my job as well as the ability to support myself. Before this outbreak I was a very social person and i loved to go out with my friends. Now everyone has to do their part for the community and stay home and maintain social distancing.
With everything that is going on I have to focus on the positives. Since the quarantine began I have been getting closer with my family and have a much stronger relationship with my sister. I’m grateful that I have a home to stay in, food to eat, and the ability to study online. This whole situation has changed my prospective of the world. Material things don’t matter as much as health and family values. It’s beautiful to see our community come together and I’m especially thankful to the first responders, nurses, doctors, firefighters, and police officers.

I think the crisis has become a public health crisis. The crisis led to panic and chaos across the country and around the world. So far, we’ve spent almost a month in the midst of the epidemic (the first case ever detected in the United States was on March ). The crisis has brought a lot of inconvenience to people’s lives, and even brought about a negative impact. First, schools, restaurants and other places have been closed to reduce the spread of the virus. The outbreak of the crisis means these sectors are particularly vulnerable to commercial losses. Second, many people have lost their jobs because of the crisis. Many restaurants and other service areas have been declared closed. This means that these people have no financial resources during this period. And there is no guarantee that the owner will reopen after the outbreak. Thirdly, it has brought a negative influence on people’s education. Although we have distance learning, it is a difficult thing. Finally, there is the consumption issue, some families will buy masks or other medical supplies to protect themselves (my family does). The price of these things are very expensive during this period, for example: before a box of masks was a few dollars ($7 or 8), but now a box of masks can sell for more than 60 dollar. That’s another extra cost. At the end, I hope we will soon be able to meet other people soon (face to face) and continue our daily lives.

Yinghe Zhao

I am going on a different trajectory to this question. It is December 2019, and everyone is enjoying the festive season. Nobody was thinking about March 2020 as they are now. Some people were making their new year resolutions. Others, making vacation plans. Fast Forward a month to January 2020, and half the world is in panic of a virus outbreak. Countries start shutting down, and businesses start dropping in sales. All the while the United States never thought it would be hit even harder. 

Then March 2020 comes, and the whole country is shut down, with more confirmed cases than where the outbreak started. Leaders not taking effective measures, and not soon enough. My point is we are never prepared enough. Nobody thought the virus could travel this far, and spread at this rate. All you can do is not panic, and cause anxiety. Just live life as you always would, and stay indoors. Take all the precautions, and safety measures given, and you will be fine. 

It is like a lesson that the unexpected can happen at any given time. Always have the mindset to be prepared, and plan ahead. This has indeed affected everyone. This being my last semester has got me thinking about my future at City Tech. All in all, it is one of those moments in life when you have sit down and appreciate every single thing you have. 

Hi Class. This is a test!

I made a short video about how to post to our Virtual Coffeehouse…it is in the new VIDEOS menu tab.

Enjoy,

Sean

Erica Kremer

This epidemic of COVID-19 has changed our lives somewhat drastically at the moment. To go from taking the train to go to school everyday and then go to work to having almost everything closed down and being switched to online learning is what you can say kind of overwhelming. At this moment being quarantined is effecting my mental health tremendously. I was so used to going out with my friends and working on a everyday basis to now being stuck at home and trying not to go insane due to boredom. Challenges I face school wise are trying to keep up with assignments and figuring out directions for them. Since I take 4 classes for this semester my current professors use different platform to send us work and where to submit assignments. For me my biology lab class is going to be difficult for me because the lab assignments before quarantine would be hands on and group work, and now me and my classmates have to go on zoom and look at slides as the lab is being explained by the professor which at this day I still don’t understand whats happening in that class. One good thing about this online learning is not having to wake up early in the morning and take the train to school.

With the Corona virus it has been very difficult in school and in life. I’m the first child in my family to go to college is my first year in college currently in my second semester. At the begging of the semester I was supper excited as I liked my classes and my professor. The day they announced schools was going to be closed I really didn’t know how to react towards the news. But, it was necessary to keep all of us safe from the virus roaming around us. All I knew was that I had two tests the next day and I wasn’t going to be able to take them. Later on, I’ve learned that we were going to take online classes and I really did not like the idea as I had a routine to follow every single day in order for me to get to the college. My routine consisted as to waking up early in the morning from 3:50am to study and prepare my self for the classes I had in a few hours all the way to 5:40am. Then, make breakfast and prepare my bag so I can leave and catch the train at 6:57am to meet my friend at the next stop and get to the college at 7:45am. As the days go on I don’t follow my routine I’m disorganized and don’t know what to do at this point. I have no motivation to do anything I feel depressed and feel like I’m sick every single day. With the online classes I feel like I don’t take them as serious as I should as they still are part of my grade. I miss the College, I miss the train, I miss my professors, and I miss my friends. Although, I see them behind a screen is not the same feeling as when you see them in person. I miss my routines and I wish I can be the person I was before all of this happened.

During the time of pandemic the challenges which I am facing in “doing school”，also is a challenges that I am facing in my real life. It is not an physical object，but my mental bottle neck. When the first day I came to City Tech, I was exciting and nervous, because I know this is a new star point in my life，and I did not pass the CATW English test. I understood if I fail the CATW several times，I will be expulsion from City Tech. I was so anxiety and helpless in this new place，no friend，no help，only unknow. The way I dealt the problem was to pay more effort to everything, to class, to listen, to understand. I ask the same question for many times just to confirm, I am on a right page and doing the right things. The effort I paid cause I always ahead of my classmate, they look at me like Mr. Who Know Everything, in most of my class? Until now I still have 3.6 GPA. Is it a lot? I don’t know, but my friend said that is a lot. I know, I did not act like a student have 3.6 GPA.wheel I proud of myself, the danger is closer, things changing in my mind.

My last semester was a totally disaster. I had class in everyday, Monday to Sunday no break and 4-5 lab report per week, and project, exam. I was extremely tired. I decided, I had to make an easy schedule for this semester. Everything should be easy; I gave myself a break to my brain and body you can have your time to rest since the end of the 2019 fall semester.

In the beginning of 2020 spring semester, I really the change, I am not willing to pay any extra effort and expect things solve by themselves. I am like a battery running out of power or an old man. I am losing my passion, my energy. The problem is the change in my mental, my attitude did not change as the end of break, caused the laziness. I spent 3-4 week to adjust my attitude, it works but, too late something I have already missing, hard to caught up.

With the Coronavirus still spreading, affecting everyone’s personal lives with the majority of people staying home from work and school. The COVID-19 shifted the whole education system, from in-person conferences to online lectures. The first week with the online lectures was quite hectic for parents who have younger kids and as for me too. Without physically going to school, it was harder to concentrate and a bit overwhelming. These days, I tend to oversleep and have no motivation to study or work.
After the outbreak, many people started to prepare for this crisis making many stocks such as water bottles, tissue boxes, and toilet paper limited in stores. Hand sanitizer prices went up insanely high. Due to racism that was radiating from the fear of the virus, Asian Americans were accused of starting and spreading the virus and many were abusively attack, with and without their mask on. Before public schools were announced to be closed until April 20th, my parents had told me countless times to stop working at the afterschool program, warning me about what they have been seeing on the news. Instead of blaming others, we should work together to overcome this stage. While being quarantined from the outside world for a while, I hope this will reduce the number of infections. Hope everyone is safe and sound.

Unfortunately with this Coronavrius spreading so quickly and killing thousands of people within a short amount of time is scary. This is the very first pandemic I’ve ever experienced that escalated to racism faster than I could ever imagine. Don’t get me wrong that the world was always full of racist people to begin with, but I think because of this virus it showed me the stupidity of ignorant people. A few days ago on one of my social media platforms, someone commented under my picture “your people are disgusting” and I felt aggravated that people had the audacity to spread racist comments rather than to educate themselves. Also seeing videos of people attacking Asian people violently makes me feel sick to my stomach. I can’t and don’t even want to feel what those people have been through because they’re probably traumatized and won’t leave their house even when this is over. I feel that as a whole community we are all responsible in the way we react to things and help build one another. I hope everyone is aware that anyone can get it, so play it safe and stay indoor as much as you can. I currently am doing okay in life mentally and physically as the fear and anxiety has been reduced. However, the challenges I am facing in “doing school” is confusing and hard for certain classes because the online process doesn’t really work for me. Without physically going to school, I feel unproductive and unmotivated to do work because I wake up later than 6am now. A lot has changed over this past week to adjust how each and every professor likes to do their online sessions. I am able to use some spare time to do activities and learn how to relax because I couldn’t do it when most of my time was occupied with school and work. I like to use this time to be able to focus on myself and better my mentality from this crisis. 

My challenges in “doing school” right now is keeping up with all my classes. I don’t think I would considered it being lazy or procrastination because that was how I was before this whole virus crisis. You would think, school being online would be easier but it’s really not unless you’re a person who’s use to online education and have access to everything you need with no difficulties. We all have issues of our own that is challenging us with school as well as it was before all this happened. “Doing school” right now is impacting my life in a stressful matter just due to the fact this was so unexpected and just all the anxiety levels rising up with trying to get everything done with all my classes while maintaining my sanity with the world feeling like it’s coming to an end.

My challenges with “doing life” right now is the fact I’m not doing anything in life. Self-quarantining and social distancing by all means. Staying at home is something that could be peaceful at times but as we discussed earlier in class about home being something else to us like a person or place or anything other than the roof over our head as our home. I miss going out and being with my friends. My actual home wasn’t my only home. As you’ve seen, many posts on social media on how they’re going insane with being home and some people don’t understand how that could be. I feel like some don’t understand that people go and deal with certain things and being isolated at home for a long time can affect them in a little or big way. Whatever the case may be, staying home is what is best for us. I truly hope this ends soon. Hopefully everyone stays safe and healthy.