By Maria Sosso, English Major / Gumberg Library Intern
It seems that we’ve reached the one year anniversary of this pandemic. Yay! I am ready to break out the balloons and streamers, aren’t you? I’m not looking back very fondly on the early days of lockdown, maybe because I went stir crazy a little earlier than most. I was sent home from the Duquesne in Rome program at the very beginning of March. I had to observe a two week quarantine, which was all well and good. However, when I finished up my quarantine, the whole world was shutting down. I’m a homebody by nature, so being confined to my house was not quite the nightmare that it was for my extroverted little sister. Still, there was just something discouraging about the way the days seemed to blend into each other with no reprieve in sight. Weeks where I would change out of pajamas to put on sweatpants and only interact with my immediate family were a little insane. As much as I speak disparagingly about zoom and all of its glitches, it has been refreshing to be able to see the faces of my classmates every day. I think that something that I didn’t expect to happen amidst all of the chaos was the amount of personal growth I’ve gone through since this time last year. I’m definitely not the same person that I was before this pandemic started. After undergoing tremendous amounts of grief and stress and family health scares, I’ve changed for the better. I really like the person that I am today, (not that I’m giving the pandemic credit for that). I’m very proud of myself and my friends/fellow interns for rolling with the punches as best we can during this period of instability. Although the future is one big question mark at this point, I’m confident that we have what it takes to handle whatever comes our way.
Building Bridges 