Charge your batteries

Emmy Jansen
MSMU Class of 2023

(5/2020) There is something big happening right before our eyes, bigger than we even know. Day to day life is coming to take a different meaning. We are finding new things to fill our waking moments. Every day is a miracle, a new adventure. In some ways, this time is an opportunity we will not get again. It is easy to wonder what we did to get this, both the horrors and hopes in it. It is not an easy question to answer.

Almost every college student across the nation has had to pack up their dorm room and head back home to complete the rest of their semester online. For many pre-collegiate students, this is the same reality. My sister and I find ourselves writing essays, taking tests, and watching lectures in our bedrooms. There have been some benefits, like not having to walk across campus in the cold to get to class on time. But the negatives greatly outnumber the positives. There is much less learning happening now that the classroom has become virtual. In some cases, the professors are more upset than the students and miss the learning they used to see happening before their eyes. Motivation levels decrease as the days go by and when the final grades come out, no one will be surprised if they are not as high as they would be expected to be.

It isn’t that students are lazy or that people are letting their anger prevent them from doing their work; learning, itself, has become a chore. When we are inundated by negative news reports and confined into a single space, our thoughts are on things other than test material. As a friend described to me recently, it’s hard to have the energy to want to learn. In college, most of our classes are on topics we enjoy enough to turn into careers. Unlike high school, we are usually learning what we’re interested in, so it’s hard to lose motivation. This hasn’t been the case in quarantine. With uncertainty being the only thing on the horizon, no one has the energy to spare on what’s happening in the present. All anyone can talk about is when this will end and when we will find "normal" again, while we should be present in the here and now. But it’s easier said than done.

For me, I’ve had an easier time than most of my peers. I stick to a schedule that mimics my life before quarantine and stay dedicated to my work, even if the quality isn’t what it used to be. I’m soaking up time with family that I lose by going to college out of state. I’ve been taking the extra time to learn hobbies I’ve always been interested in and cross things off my to-do list. However, it hasn’t always been easy, and I spend time missing friends and worrying about the future. Mostly, I worry about my professors; I’ve seen them change and the effect the quarantine has had on them, even through the online forms we’ve been reduced to. Even if we don’t contract the virus, all of us are impacted by it in some way. There lies no point in arguing who was more effected and suffered more during this time. The truth is life as we know it is changing and no one knows better than anyone else what will happen next.

While this frightens us, and rightly so, it should also instill in us a sense of solidarity. No matter what unfolds over the next few months, no one is in it alone. The beauty of historic events that touch the lives of everyone is that everyone’s life now has a common thread. Where were you when COVID-19 happened? What were you doing? How did you feel? These will become the stories we share around dinner tables and tell our future descendants, when we’re allowed to be less than six feet apart. So, while we struggle with motivation and constant worry, we should relish in what comes after and all the possibilities that lie there, the good and the bad.

I can say for sure that learning online has taught me a greater appreciation for everything offline. I’ve taken online classes before and I know that nothing can replace the in-class instruction a teacher gives you and the atmosphere the other students help to cultivate. Learning was never meant to be a solo exercise. This is why people have always written their ideas, shared stories, and discussed theories with each other, never alone. However, we seem to be doing the opposite. Our social circles have gotten smaller as we retreat into our houses and connections with companions hardly suffice on video chat. Alone is sometimes all we feel. With loneliness comes sadness, with sadness comes less energy and motivation, which some of us were already lacking. The longer this drags on, the harder it gets.

We all find ourselves using technology more, to keep up with friends, schoolwork, and the global state of things. We remember to put our phones and laptops on the charger before bed, but do we remember to do that with ourselves? These months have been full of new emotions and experiences for all of us. Never before have we been asked to question our lives, morals, and existences like we are now. These are trying times. Some of us may be pushing ourselves too hard, battling the anxiety by keeping ourselves busy and our minds occupied so we don’t think about what’s happening outside the door. Others have the opposite problem, filling their moments with boredom and nothingness. There has to be a balance reached. I like to think of this time as more of an opportunity. We can ask, what did we do to deserve this? But really, what did we get? Forgetting the fear and mayhem, I’ve been given more time with family and the ability to think about things other than school and the future. My sights have been set outward and I’m learning more and more each day about what life should really mean. This is a crisis and a pandemic, yes. But it’s also an opportunity I don’t want to waste.

Read other articles by Emmy Jansen