19 April 2020
Sunday · Day 24 of lockdown
Americans took to the streets to protest lockdowns a day after Donald Trump encouraged people to protest against strict public health measures. For the first time in two months, South Korea reported single digit cases, with only eight new cases. A humanitarian group found 34 migrants near Malta who were then forced to quarantine on a ship off the coast of Palermo. To deal with bed shortages, Turkey built hospitals on runways at an unused airport. As the UK reached the milestone of one month of being in lockdown, an 11-year-old boy from Lincoln climbed the equivalent of 3 408m, using the staircase in his family’s home, in just over 17 hours.
Today I woke up excited for some reason. It felt like I was back in primary school and it was the day just before the new school term starts. When you iron your clothes and pack your schoolbag and make sure your pencil case has all of its stationery. Only today I won’t be doing any ironing or packing any bag. Stationery is always essential so at least I’ll get to do that. Online learning starts tomorrow and I’m feeling both nervous and excited. I’ve never done an online course or anything similar so I think it will be quite interesting to see how this plays out. It will definitely be an adjustment as most of my modules are quite interactive. Nevertheless, it is a challenge I’m willing to accept if I can do it in my pyjamas. I spent my afternoon studying and started preparing for this week’s classes this evening. I thought it would be a good idea to make a separate folder for all the online learning and then create folders for my respective modules within that folder. I spent my evening downloading all the necessary notes, lectures and videos for the upcoming week. I don’t want to wait until tomorrow as SunLearn is not always reliable.
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My family and I made a terrific Sunday lunch. Each member was responsible for one dish of his or her choosing. We had two proteins, two sides and a delicious pudding. My brothers and I learned a lot. I realised that cooking was easier than I thought, but also that it takes a lot more manual labour.
Throughout this lockdown, I have been given a glimpse of what it must be like to be a parent. It is one thing being an adult, providing for yourself and cleaning up after one person. It is another thing entirely to help with dinner, wash the dishes and clean the house. In my flat, I used to just postpone cleaning my room and could just make a sandwich for lunch if I was tired. Now I have people counting on me to do certain things no matter how tired I am. This is what life is all about. Some days are easy and you can wash an entire sink full of dishes with a smile on your face. Other days you want to hit the person who asked you to wash one cup. Both days you have to do what you promised.
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My mom still makes a big Sunday lunch (even though all the days feel the same) which is nice. We’re lucky that she started a vegetable garden some months ago because we’re starting to see a rise in prices of fresh produce which makes sense going into winter, but it raises concerns about food security at a time like this. A few of the veggies we have include green beans, spinach, pumpkin, tomatoes, carrots and some herbs. I found gardening to be therapeutic for like the first two days, but there’s only so much to do before you’re forced to watch the plants grow.
My sleep cycle isn’t usually regular or normal, but this is getting ridiculous. I finally fell asleep at around 7:00 am today. I’m challenging myself to take a photo a day for the foreseeable self-isolating future. I want to master taking artistic photos in boring locations (such as one’s house). Day one’s photograph was disappointing but that was not unexpected.
My aunt, who works for Doctors on Call, suggested to me that I make masks to sell. I was under the impression that effective masks need to be made from special materials, but the World Health Organisation says you just need 2 ply cotton.
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Our night in the tent was an enjoyable disaster! To the surprise of the entire family there was a massive gust of wind that bent one pole which resulted in the entire tent collapsing right on us. Being the best at situations like these I had to wake everyone up and evacuate the tent in order for me to fix it. After fixing it, I realised just how cold it was outside even within the tent. I struggled to fall asleep again and was woken up by a ray of sun entering the tent and landing perfectly on my face.
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During the Spanish Flu of 1918, my great grandfather, his brothers and their father had the grim job of picking up the bodies of people who had died the previous night. Miraculously none of them caught the flu. My grandmother, when telling the story, always adds that she thinks they all survived unharmed because they were doing such a good thing.
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Today is the last time that I will write in this diary. However I will not stop keeping a journal as I was keeping one long before this project started. That said, I do hope (whatever may come of the coronavirus situation) that the lockdown and restrictions on our behaviour will end soon so that I will have something to actually write in my journal.
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One day to go before online classes start. My parents are building a house in the seaside town of Paternoster that they wish to run as a guesthouse. They have been saving up and planning the construction of this house for 20 years – they bought the last piece of seafront property in the town the year I was born. Obviously this project means the world to them. With recent developments, they have been under an immense amount of pressure financially and are struggling to see how they will be able to finish building by the end of this year. Even if they manage to finish construction, the tourist industry will likely be one of the last industries to recover from this ordeal and it will take much longer for them to break even than they anticipated when they started construction at the end of last year. They are very concerned that they will not be able to carry on with something that they have been dreaming about for years. On top of that, both my parents will soon have to retire and they were hoping that income generated from the guesthouse would assist them when they are not earning salaries anymore. I do not know how we are going to recover from the virus’s long-term economic effects.
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Today marks the end of the penultimate weekend in lockdown. Recently, weekends have lost all meaning. However, that is about to change – I begin lectures tomorrow! I am interested to see how the university and the learners will adapt to this new challenge. Personally, I am relishing this challenge. I believe that I work better out of the lecture environment and this is a time to test that theory. I have prepared myself with the stationery I need and organised my files on my laptop. I have also created a schedule to try and stay motivated. However, I’m sure the process will not be smooth in the beginning and I am expecting some hiccups.
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It feels as though this university holiday has flown by and yet just the other day, I could’ve sworn I had four more weeks. Guess time flies whether you’re having fun or not! Today has been filled with preparations for the weeks ahead.
From tomorrow, the university returns via an online platform - and it’s worth mentioning that this will be a first in Stellenbosch University’s [SU] rich history. The whole reason for me attending SU over studying through UNISA is because I wanted the full experience of the student environment, and not just the process of studying. Guess that’s out the window for 2020.
That said, change is not always bad and all one needs is a positive perspective. While I am incredibly nervous to begin my online studies as I really do not know what to expect, I am also excited to test my own capabilities in facing these drastic differences.
One of the main weaknesses I have identified for myself is time-management and self-discipline. While I have always been punctual and pleased with my hand-ins, I do still believe that I can better my ability. I am thus going to set myself a challenge in these coming weeks to strive and see just how much I can achieve in ‘x’ amount of time. Wish me luck!
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Today was a typical Sunday at our home. We made our family’s favourite meal. We had rice, lamb and vegetables. I baked a cheesecake for dessert. While eating we had an argument about the origin of the coronavirus. My father and brother believe that the corona virus originated in America. I told them they cannot believe this because it has been verified but they wouldn’t listen. […] I realised that there is one thing that spreads faster than the coronavirus … fake news.