20 April 2020
Monday · Day 25 of lockdown
KwaZulu-Natal tightened regulations in the province as the number of cases in Durban rose to 380. China refused to answer a number of questions from leaders around the world, including Donald Trump, regarding its handling of Covid-19. In a hostel in Lisbon, 138 asylum seekers contracted the virus. In light of a dramatic decrease in infections, South Koreans started returning to work, although many companies still followed flexible hours or work-from-home policies to limit travel and physical contact. Details emerged of a mass shooting that took place in Nova Scotia, Canada, which claimed the lives of 22 people.
I feel very anxious about the term ahead. I shouldn’t though, because this is generally how I approach my academics: self-study and barely any contact classes. I think it’ll require more effort to do well.
I completed a short workout for the first time since January and it felt good. I might do that again tomorrow. I thought a bit about well-being (physical and emotional) and how students will need to prioritise it now more than ever if we are to complete the 2020 academic year successfully. I thought, more specifically, about coping mechanisms like exercise, food (if you have it) and memes. I bet it would be fascinating to analyse national trends in BMI changes pre- and post-lockdown. What will the lockdown do to diabetes and malnutrition statistics?
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I am really grateful for today. I finally felt as if I had achieved something at the end of the day, I would even go so far as to say that time flew by …
I know that being able to continue my studies despite the Covid-19 outbreak is a privilege. I am able to sit in various areas of my house and move around if I feel frustrated or bored or the sunny spot that was in the dining room but now is in the study. I am able to do this without losing connection to my uncapped fibre that I have at home. If I feel hungry I can simply open the fridge or go into the pantry and grab something to eat. I don’t have to worry about walking very far and through unsanitary areas to go to the bathroom. In addition to this, I know that I will have more reliable access to water and electricity (due to unpredictable loadshedding schedules and possible waterpipe maintenance that needs to be done which is the case today I can’t claim to have permanent access to these things), but for the most part life is pretty simple.
This isn’t the case for some of my fellow students … the life they are having to live during this time is very different to mine. For these reasons I find myself filled with gratitude for my day, despite the ‘inconveniences’ of the lockdown.
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Classes started today, but within hours the servers and website were overloaded and crashed. They were soon restored, but this is a shaky start. I really miss my friends and my environment I had at campus. I miss being able to get a coffee or a smoothie when walking through the Neelsie [cafeteria].
My parents are donating money to friends and community members that have no income now due to the virus. They also told us to cut down on expenses, as they don’t know what is to come.
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I am so relieved that classes finally started today. SunLearn kept crashing since the entire university was using it at the same time. I wonder if it is going to carry on like this for the rest of the semester. Despite circumstances being less than ideal, I am so grateful that I can carry on with my education and that I have the resources that is necessary to work from home. The university is struggling with helping students who do not have access to computers or the internet to carry on with their studies. My aunt is a lecturer at the University of Cape Town [UCT], and she told me that the university bought an additional 5 000 laptops that they will distribute to students who do not have one. They will have to return the laptops once they return to campus. I am not exactly sure, but I believe Stellenbosch University [SU] is doing something similar. Despite this, I believe that there will still be many students left behind as a result of these interruptions. Financially, I do not know how some families will be able to pay university fees after not receiving an income (or a reduced income) for months. Perhaps this will force the government to rethink the education system (its costs and how it functions) in order not to fall behind on the universal operational shift that is currently happening.
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Day 1 of online classes. Today was the first day since lockdown that I woke up early. I showered, made myself breakfast and then walked around our house that it felt like I was walking to my first class. After I got my ‘mombrew’ [a hybridised version of MyBrew, a local student coffee bar], and then headed to the ‘Van der Sterr’ [building on campus] to start my first class. I opened my laptop and went straight to Sunlearn, but it had crashed. The University’s IT team sent an email that they are trying to fix the problem. So, I waited and after a few minutes the website started to work again. My first class went really well. I enjoyed studying at my own pace. After my first three classes I took a break by walking in our garden. I texted my friends: “Lunch in the Neelsie?” [cafeteria]. They all laughed and sent pictures of their lunch so that we could pretend that we were eating together.
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Today was the first day of term 2 online. As expected, SunLearn crashed multiple times because of all the online traffic. Nonetheless, it was manageable and just as quickly paced as a normal day on campus would be – right back into the full swing of things. Its impressive to see how the lecturers have quickly adapted their teaching styles to suit the online platforms, but is also scary to see how all of this can be done from home and that we don’t actually need to be on campus to learn efficiently. What I did learn ( just from one day) is that I miss the social interactions I didn’t have today – they are definitely necessary for the ‘full university experience’ – which is why I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be able to commit to anything that doesn’t involve social interaction.
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Classes have started and I feel overwhelmed. I am ahead in most of my courses that have textbooks, but I am a little stressed about those that don’t have textbooks. People in my area have been walking around. It seems like people are starting to hate this lockdown. My sister thinks that people are starting to not care. Virus or not, we shall have to go back to daily life at some point. I have been having nightmares, most of them to do with me failing some test. It is scary. I always thought that I was a person who took well to change. I guess that this is not true.
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I have realised that this online learning will be more difficult for us students than I could have imagined. Our lecturers have been posting notes and audio on PowerPoint, but I can’t open some of the files with my tablet. This is making me very worried. We haven’t heard anything regarding the laptops that we have been promised. Maybe things would be easier if I had a laptop.
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I realise I haven’t talked much about the social impacts of Covid-19 in this diary saga, so today I’m writing about something I read and thought about over the past day and a bit: the potential for the youth to become increasingly radicalised in the wake of the virus. People in their 30s have now experienced two ‘once in a generation’ economic shocks. People in their 20s trying to find a job in this market will find it nearly impossible. What the frequency of these downturns could lead to growing antipathy toward the current economic system, even more than we’re experiencing already. This will most likely add to the populist fire and encourage economics focused more on redistribution than growth.