Hello, World

On Friday March 27th, 2020, Western Michigan University sent out an e-mail and updated their COVID-19 page to report that three students had confirmed cases of COVID-19 that were part of our campus community. In this update the first student they informed us of was last on campus March 10th, the University found out about their condition through a family member and informed us that the student had tested positive after their return to the east side of the state. Today, on Sunday March 29th, 2020, at 12:45pm we started seeing reports that a WMU student had died of COVID-19. That student was Bassey Offiong, a senior chemical engineering student in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. As another student in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences I got an e-mail from our dean, he expressed his condolences, and shared with us the statements both from our university president Dr. Montgomery and the Kalamazoo County Health Department. To quote directly from the health de...

My quarantine routine: wake up, take my morning meds, tell myself everything will be okay, make lunch, keep myself busy, get back in bed, take my night meds, sleep (or lay in bed for 8 hours with anxiety and insomnia), do it again. As a 20 year old college student with bipolar disorder, ADD, and anxiety being stuck inside is killing me. I'm no social butterfly anymore, I spend a lot of time in my apartment. I'm aware of this. Yet this quarantine, the fact that I can't leave right now is teaching me a lot about myself. Sure I love being here with my cat on most days, but I also have that to look forward to. When I go to class I know I get to come home and play my Nintendo Switch while hanging out with my cat, but now knowing that being home is all I have to do the idea fills me with dread. Getting out, even if it's once a day to just do something small, was more important to my mental health than I could have realized.  I'm worried to visit my parents right now, ...