My dearest fellow students,I hope this blog post finds you well. Is this blog post finding you well? Or is it finding you under the covers at 2 p.m.? Having your first meal at 5 p.m.? Having your third coffee at 8 p.m.? Wrapping up that discussion-board post at 11:55 p.m. that’s due at 12 a.m.?Don’t worry, I don’t expect much from any of us right now. I hope this blog finds you pandemically well, whatever that means for you.Is this blog post finding me well? Let’s see. It finds me very busy, yet somehow with a rather high daily screen-time average. (Do you track your screen time on your phone? I recommend it, if facing your own shame is productive for you.) It finds me a bit overwhelmed, but with enough time to spontaneously take evenings off to make scones and watch streams of Among Us with my sister. It finds me tired, but with enough energy to take my puppy on her daily walks. It finds me anxious – and these days, telling you what I’m not anxious about would make a shorter list than everything I am anxious about – but with enough chutzpah to write down some words...But not many. This blogging space is not about me. I’m just one student trying to speak for us all. Right now, when our lives as students are so deeply intertwined with our home lives, I doubt there’s much of a “universal student experience” for me to tap into.So I have decided to step aside a bit for this blog post and let you speak for yourselves. I asked some of you – friends, peers, Zoom rectangles – how it’s going this semester. What follows are the words that you, fellow students, have shared with me, as well as a few of my own words hidden among them.I hope that even if you’re not doing well, you will find solace in seeing yourself here.
“Being able to see my profs in class and talk to them without having to schedule a meeting, and having a perfectly good, guilt-free excuse to grab Starbucks on my way to class instead of having to drink the same old Keurig coffee every morning.”
“I miss office hours. I never thought I’d say that, but I do.”
“I miss meeting people in class. By the end of term, there’s always somebody I’m happy I got to know unintentionally – even if it’s just someone I can knowingly lock eyes with. It’s nice to have that confirmation of a shared experience.”
“I miss my dear classmates. I miss being stressed about not understanding a reading, only to chat with my classmates in the hallway while we sip our coffee and discover that in fact, none of us understood the reading. There is an overwhelming pressure in university where you feel like you always have to be so smart, so academic, but when you have in-person classes and you bond with your classmates, that pressure melts away. I can say something as small as ‘This one scene in the book was so weird it made me cringe’ to a classmate and we’ll chat about the book as regular people. Once I step foot in that classroom, though, I have to be an actual student so I might say something like ‘this one scene had an air of mystery to it and I think the author described it in this way to make their readers feel uncomfortable’ and then go on for a minute or so to back up my point. With the online learning environment, I feel like I am always a student and never just a regular person. Every one of my conversations has to sound smart and formal.”
“I miss literally everything about in-person classes. I miss being on campus and having to walk from class to class because I feel like I live on my couch now. I miss meeting new people and having discussions. I miss feeling like I have a connection with professors because I see them twice a week. I thought I would like being able to choose when to do my classes, but it’s so much worse. Having a structured schedule is much better.”
“The interaction within the classroom, hearing each other's off-the-cuff remarks, having people laugh and get engaged in conversations.”
“One thing I find is that in-person classes have more interesting and candid discussions, whereas online discussions are more structured, formal, and uninteresting. I think there's a fear of disagreement in online classes...for some reason.”
“Food. There’s this communal thing about eating together between classes. I’m very food-motivated so that’s how I’ve created friendships. You get closer when you dish over coffee. I also miss just meeting people through weird circumstances. I met someone in a writing circle and we just hung out and kicked a pop can between each other like 5-year olds. You can show people you’re weird when you’re together. You don’t have that community building when you’re by yourself in your room.”
“Nothing. I hate it when people make small talk with me.”
“For the first time since I started school, I wake up feeling more or less ready to get to work. Before, if I didn’t have class that day, I would wake up, soak up all the time in my bed, eat a big meal, and not get to work until late afternoon. I mean, sometimes I still do that. But there are more days where I wake up feeling motivated. Maybe it’s partly because I’m getting more sleep.”“I have more flexibility to work full time.”“I am able to keep up with my studies even though I am overwhelmed.”“I’m a little ahead on essays and things right now. It’s a miracle!”
“Surprisingly, I am well ahead of my work. I think this is because I am not as physically tired from walking around campus every day... I seem to have more ‘usable’ hours in a day.”
“I’ve been setting 25-minute timers to focus on a task – I heard that this was the ideal period of time to concentrate. It adds some urgency to the work when I have a lot of things due. I’m not perfect; sometimes I hear the timer going off and I’m already on my phone. But it’s a tactic.”
“Um. I have food. I have shelter.”“Getting there on time! It’s much easier when you just have to drag yourself from bed to the computer.”
“Getting to read and discuss amazing novels, and learn about really interesting topics in some of my other classes (e.g. Indigenous history and terrorism/human rights).”
“I haven’t had to talk to anyone I don’t explicitly choose to talk to in months! :D”
“No one has asked me this question yet and I’m sad to say that I don’t think anything is going well. There are some benefits to online learning, but I don’t think I’ve experienced any yet... Does not having to bus for an hour to get to campus count?”
“Self-motivation.”
“Having the self-discipline to force myself to do work when I’m at home amongst my unlimited distractions, and not having the ability to fully separate between school work and home to have downtime with separate locations.”
“I’m struggling to keep up with all of the small assignments. As you progress through the English program, essays get longer and longer. This year, the essays are still longer but there are so many more small assignments than what I’m used to. I have at least two assignments to complete every single week, making it very difficult to find time for my final essays.”
“It feels pretty lonely sometimes. I miss all the people that I used to see just about every day but am not close-enough friends with to reach out to individually now. It’s harder keeping in sustained contact with friends than I expected.”
“Keeping in touch with friends who have moved away.”
“In general, I’m struggling to figure out what to do with my life. I’m applying for my Master’s and trying to find my way and there are so many uncertainties. Will I move to Toronto? Will it be online and I won’t have to? Will I keep living here and find a job? Will I be able to travel during my MA like I planned? Some things don’t seem possible now... I’m trying to live day by day without feeling like I’m only living day by day.”
“I think late bedtimes and distractions are my #1 struggles.”
“Well, I think I’m definitely struggling with motivation. I used to really enjoy school and it was pretty much my favourite thing, but the online environment has turned school into something I dread doing. Since it’s my last year, I was looking forward to lots of in-class discussions, because that’s my favourite thing about school and my program. But with everything online, I feel like I’m missing out on the classes I should have enjoyed the most. I also find it really draining to spend so much time on my computer and feeling like the expectations for our work is the same even though the quality of the education we are receiving is significantly lower.”
“Fighting anxiety and depression. Going back to school was supposed to be a fun time and I took an extra year to reduce my stress – who knew!”
“I’m struggling with focus. Today’s a workday for me and even though I have a lot of work to do on top of my schoolwork, for some reason I feel such a gravitational pull towards my phone. I say my time is all spent on school but realistically there is a lot of procrastinating. It’s not even fun, I just need time to not be working. I know the work’s important and needs to be done, and I’m stressed, but it’s almost at a distance – meanwhile, I’m sitting dead-eyed watching compilations of One Direction on James Corden, and it’s not even bringing me joy, just something close to it. I don’t know how to take proper breaks, and the unintentional breaks take up so much unintentional time.”
“In general, taking walks outside, and more specifically to me, I’m getting married next year and planning the wedding has provided a nice distraction from everything!”
“There was a beautiful sunset the other day and I went for a walk. It was very peaceful, and I was able to enjoy creation and the beautiful warm weather. I have also been playing some family games lately which has brought a lot of laughter.”
“I’ve been enjoying fall. Being home with my sister has brought me joy in itself, but we made a list of things we wanted to do in October because it so often passes us by, and having a fun agenda has been really nice. I’ve been rewatching The Haunting of Hill House before The Haunting of Bly Manor comes out and it’s so good – it’s almost literary. It brings me so much joy knowing there’s a set time when I’m done with school and I get to watch Hill House.”
“Baking and cooking, running, walking, spending time with my dog.”
“My son and daughter-in-law presented us with a new ‘furbaby–grandbaby’ this summer – Zola. She is a collie, husky, shepherd, lab mix and an absolute delight.”
“I love being home with my doggos so much. It’ll be hard when we have to be away from them again, but I’m enjoying all the extra time while I have it.”
“Upgrading my PC, playing video games, staying home with my family and pets.”
“Planning our wedding with my fiancée for the new year 🙂”
“My partner’s grandmother recently told me I would always be loved by their family. She told me this while we were all wine drunk, and I had to try so hard not to cry on the spot.”
“Extra-curriculars are really helping me to keep feeling purposeful and connected. Also, I am looking forward to the snow! I love snow!”
“I got a milk crate the other day from someone’s trash, the kind that you put milk bags in. I’ve always wanted one, so that’s kind of nice. I’m not using it yet. But it sparked joy. I get excited over a lot of silly things; I’ll get excited over a cute, small peanut butter jar. I get excited over things that are dumb, spontaneous, and get you in a lighter energy, things that make no sense. Not setting things on fire – just climbing a tree or going on the jungle gym. Dumb, harmless things that make you think ‘that was fun.’ Those things are important at this time.”
“Busy.”
“Transitional.”
“Dreary.”
“Full.”
“Interesting.”
“Messy.”
“Long.”
“Hectic.”
“Nope!”
So there you have it. Every single one of us is struggling in our own way, and yet, there’s still joy: there are weddings to plan, dogs to pet, and walks to take. And of course, we’ll always have milk crates.
If I could just say a few words about what’s going on down south: let’s find time to celebrate, without losing sight of how much work is still ahead of us. We face our own version of the same persistent and insidious problems up here, even if we don’t like to admit to it. We can’t do the work and we can’t heal without truth-telling, and that starts within ourselves.
Before I go, let me make a toast, in the spirit of Orpheus the poet from the musical Hadestown: “To the world we dream about – and the one we live in now.”
Pandemically, your student blogger,Jaclyn
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Jaclyn Legge is a 3rd or 4th year student returning to full-time student life after completing Co-op. She spends her free time calling to the muses for inspiration in her writing, drawing, and shower dancing routines. Her poetry has been published in Bywords.ca. No, she doesn’t want to be a teacher; she considers herself a student in every aspect of life.