Monthly Archives: May 2020

Opinion

Home learning, teaching, and appreciating

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All around the world, teachers have been learning to teach remotely, and adjusting to the “new norm.” Parents and guardians must also adjust to the way their household has to be now. This may be an easier switch for younger moms and dads, or families with teenagers to help. But most parents and younger children are having a hard time trying to figure out all the technology that’s now required to be used daily for education to continue and for teachers to ideally teach. However, nothing is ideal right now.

 In my household there are five children that normally attend public schools in Haverhill. They are ages 7, 9, 10, 12 and 15. The 15-year-old is my sister Laylani and she is in the age range where she knows what she’s doing for the most part and doesn’t need much guidance. Also, Laylani goes to a technical high school, where everyone has already been using iPads and learning more technologically so she just has to adjust to the Zoom calls. Zoom is a video conferencing app that schools are using to have some sort of face-to-face class and to give students a chance to ask questions, and teachers a chance to explain concepts better. I know of Zoom and “Google Meets” and both are ways of communicating with a full class of students now until the end of the school year.

 Since there are so many students in my house and not many rooms, when all of these class meetings happen, it gets hectic. The video calls happen around the same time, if not at the exact same time, and all of the kids in my house will sit at the kitchen table, some with headphones, and some without, and there will be four to five different classes going on at once. With these calls, comes a lot of technical difficulties and not much time for one-on-ones between the student and teacher. So, when “class” isn’t going on, my grandmother and I still like to focus on their education. I’m their spelling, art, and music teacher, and my grandmother is the science and gym teacher. This makes it interesting because although we do things differently from their teachers at school, what really matters is we’re keeping them busy and educating them at the same time.

 Although there have been many complications and adjustments when it comes to this new normal of homeschooling and cooperating with technology, this has been a great learning experience for me. During this time, I’ve grown to appreciate teachers more because of how overwhelming it can be, and I learned how hard it is to create assignments and projects for a group of kids with different ages and separated interpretations. But if we just try our best, as parents and guardians, to give our children a stress-free environment to keep learning, I think we will be well prepared for what the future holds. Education is so important, and we should all be teachers of something.

Features

Digital solace: Local IT support specialist assists with tech literacy

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Angel Garcia
Angel Garcia and family celebrate New Year’s 2020.

Angel Garcia, 34, of Lawrence is using his Associate of Science degree from Middlesex Community College with a focus in computer software and networking to help those in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“During the pandemic I’ve been helping friends and family stay or get connected online. Whether it’s getting the kids online so they can attend a class. Helping people pay their bills online. Fill out unemployment, renew drivers and professional licenses and things of that nature,” said Garcia in an email. “I’m also helping people start the offline to online transition and figure out how to monetize their passions.”

Once Garcia’s employer, IFS Core in Billerica, gave the order to work remotely in early March, he decided to set up a Discord server so that he and his co-workers could communicate in a sort of virtual office. This is when he first realized that other people could benefit from his help navigating technology during this time. He advertised his offer to help on Facebook. “I knew this would affect more people and decided to post on my timeline offering help,” he said.

Garcia has always been one willing to lend a helping hand whenever needed and this pandemic would not be the exception.

“…serving the community isn’t new for me. I served on the Greater Lawrence Technical High School Committee from 2014-2017 and I’ve been streaming on Twitch for about a year now and via this medium, I’ve been able to help 3 of my viewers get their A+ certification and improve their lives,” he said.

Garcia has helped over 30 people get acquainted with technology in various ways since COVID-19 first made local headlines. Initially he was comfortable going to homes in person but as the pandemic has progressed, he has decided it is safer to help remotely.

“Everyone is pretty appreciative of the help and happy to get connected and get things done. And I’ve helped across a wide range of ages from 20’s-60’s plus,” he said.

Garcia plans on helping people with their technology needs for as long is necessary, free of charge. “I’ve been blessed to be able to continue to work from home through all this, so I have not had the need to charge for any of my services to the community,” he said.

Garcia encourages anyone who wants to help during the pandemic to do so by finding a way to use their passion to help those in need. “…That way, it doesn’t feel like work. And if nothing else, make a monetary donation to a family in need. Show your neighbor they are not alone,” he said.

If you or anyone you know could use help with setting up or using technology during this time, Garcia would be happy to help. He can be reached by telephone at (978) 566-1707 or email at help@agmoments.com.

Opinion, Slider

A day in quarantine: A high school student shares her story

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 Have you ever watched one of those movies or films where the characters’ day keeps restarting or repeating each time they wake up? Sort of like a time loop. Well that is exactly the way my life has been lately. 
I chose the title “A Day in Quarantine” for this essay, because every day is the same. I only need to explain one day and then multiply that by the number of days I’ve been in quarantine. I feel like my life is on replay; like I am being forced to relive the same day every day. 
It wasn’t too bad at first, but I didn’t think it would last this long. So many plans and ideas destroyed by coronavirus. So many days wasted. It is like everything began unraveling. First, school is cancelled. Then work. Then businesses. Everything! Until all you have left is your house.  
But, like I said, it wasn’t bad at first, I’ll tell you why. When I first heard that school would be cancelled due to the new coronavirus, I was so excited. I saw it as a break. I was so stressed with school and assignments. I thought “Hey, finally a break to relax and catch up on assignments.” I was so relieved to be home with nothing but time.
Time to work on all those missing assignments, time to organize my life, time to relax and let go of all the stress, time to get more shifts at work. See, I was excited. A day went by. Life was good, no school! I was staying up late, sleeping all I wanted, watching all the Netflix I wanted.  
Then a week went by, feels like a school break, life is still good. All I see are funny memes on Facebook and other social media. Then two weeks went by, and three weeks. Then a whole month went by. This is when my life started getting chaotic, like the time loop. This is when life started to repeat. When the date to go back to school kept getting delayed. April…then May 4th… Now, we’re not going back to school until the next school year.  
This is when everything started to hit me. I am not a senior yet, so I won’t be missing out on important once-in-a-lifetime events like prom, or graduation, or senior activities. But I’ll be missing out on other things that I have worked so hard for. Like SAT prep so that I can pass my SATs.  I was working on my college essay with my counselors and talking about schools and requirements. I was so excited. Now all of that has been taken away from me.  
I was working so hard to make my senior year easier. Working on my resume, my college essay, and researching schools so that I can have everything done when the time came. I feel like I have more to worry about than before all of this happened.  
Now, I’ve been home a little over a month. No school, no work, no anything.  It’s been difficult, especially with no work. See, school, I can handle being without for some time, but work? I’m losing my mind. I work in a nursing home as a certified nursing assistant. I love my job, I love my residents, and I love my co-workers. I love going to work. When they cancelled school, I immediately picked up shifts at work. I was so eager to be working more often.
Sadly, a couple weeks into the lockdown because of the virus, my mom made me stop working. I was so infuriated when she told me I couldn’t go back to work. She warned me every day. As soon as I arrived home, I had to put my scrubs in a bag, take off my shoes and leave them outside, and rush to the bathroom to get clean. I was willing to do this every time I got home from work.
I was so enraged that my mom didn’t let me work because I didn’t care if residents and patients at my job were getting sick. I didn’t care if I had to wear a mask that fogged up my goggles or wear a gown and goggles as soon as I walked into work.
Nothing mattered to me because I work in the dementia unit. I care for people that don’t even know what’s going on because they don’t even know their own names. I care for individuals that don’t even realize that their families stopped visiting weeks ago because they are not allowed to anymore. What does matter to me is the fact that now there are less and less nurses there to help. Less CNAs every day who stop going into work because of the dangerous circumstances.   
So now that I am not working, or going to school, my days look the same. I wake up at the same time. Eat at the same time. Log into Google Classroom and Blackboard at the same time. Then eat again. Watch Netflix. Sleep. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I love my family, but I’m tired of seeing the same faces every day. I have never valued school so much like I do now.
Editors’s Note: Xochilth is a Lawrence High School Early College student at NECC. She wrote this for an English Comp 102 class and shared it with the NECC Observer. 
 
Opinion

Virus delivers an unfair blow to NECC students

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President Donald Trump and the United States Federal Government forgot about college students when they came up with the CARES Act.
The $2 trillion aid package made multiple earmarked billions for giant institutions and small businesses. It granted adults an instant $1200 plus $500 for each of their dependent children. Plus, those making upwards of $800 per week through unemployment claims picked up an extra $600 per week from the federal government to help in the COVID-19 crisis.   
The one group which received no relief? Any college student who remains a dependent of someone else, receives nothing, no aid, no help, nothing. The stimulus package overlooks many Northern Essex Community College students and has certainly had a ripple effect in these trying times.  
“I feel like we are being overlooked and it is not fair,” freshman Jose Baez said. “The way I look at it, we need money as much as anyone does, more than a lot of people. How could they forget us?”  (Editor’s Note: There are CARES funds available to colleges. NECC has accessed some funds and says they will work to distribute some to students.)
Coronavirus’ effects on college students has been more than just a switch from learning in the classroom to classes online. For those with a part-time jobs, it has produced quite the strain.  
Others saw their normally safe, quiet jobs in fast food or at a store suddenly become dangerous.  
“I work at Market Basket,” freshman Todd Randall said. “This has been crazy to go in and work. I’m lucky to have a job, and I know that. And Market Basket has been great trying to protect us. But it’s still a little scary. I need the job, so I just go to work and do all I can to be safe and smart, you know all the things they’ve been telling us to do.”  
Students with jobs in food service have taken on an extra strain as takeout and deliveries have become so important to some families during these times. But that comes with public interaction, even in these times of a so-called “surge” according to Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker. Precautions are taken with gloves, masks and extra care, but uncertainty remains. 
That is only one type of uncertainty that NECC students must and will have to continue to deal with. “What happens when the semester ends?” asked sophomore Xavier Rhodes of Lawrence. “I thought I had a summer job all lined up. Now that’s up in the air. If I don’t make money this summer, I’m not sure how I am going to pay for school.” 
With so many people unemployed due to the pandemic, work could be hard to find for college students. The governor has not spoken of exactly when the area would open, meaning getting back to business. Simply put, this virus may not physically have a huge impact on students. Still, the emotional, financial and mental impact has been and could continue to be vicious. 
Sports

Baseball team looks to the future

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Coronavirus changed life for college students from coast to coast this spring. At Northern Essex Community College, it silenced the national power baseball team, coached by Jeff Mejia, taking a season of opportunity away as the coach was ready to add his son, also named Jeff to the Knights baseball roster.  This season, the home fields on Lake Kenoza will remain dormant.
  
The setback has not stopped Mejia from working hard to keep the run of trips to NJCAA Nationals intact, even with the off year. He recently announced three key recruits being added to his already expected-to-be loaded roster.  
The first to commit was Manchester Central High School’s slick Kevin Rodriguez. An all-state shortstop, who hit .375 for Central a year ago and swings a left-handed bat. He has an above-average arm according to Prep Baseball Report of New England.
“Proud to announce my commitment,” said Rodriguez. “It’s a big pickup for the Knights,” said coach Mejia via Twitter. 
 The Knights again went over the border for another key recruit, Kameron Levesque. He is an outfielder from Pinkerton Academy of Derry, who hit .302 as a junior. Levesque is a multi-sport talent who also plays hockey. He expects to add depth in a crowded, talented outfield group.  “Welcome to the family,” coach Mejia told Levesque.  
The ultimate gem of the class could be Saugus pitcher Todd Tringale, who graduated high school in 2019. A 6-foot right-hander, Tringale originally attended UMass Amherst as a top recruit. He spent last summer in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League, an honor for only the premier incoming college freshmen. Pitching mainly out of the bullpen for the North Shore Navigators, who play in Lynn, Tringale was 1-0 with a 3.68 ERA. In his only playoff appearance, he went four shutout innings in a loss to the Bristol, Conn. Blues. “I’m excited to see where this journey takes me and what the final outcome will be,” said Tringale.  
Mejia and the Knights now hope to be back to work as soon as September, barring any coronavirus flareups, with the all-important fall training season. It is clearly a huge time for NECC baseball, which has won NJCAA Division III Region 21 in seven of the last eight seasons. The highlight of highlights being in 2018 when the Knights also took the District F Championship.  
  
Sports

Basketball fans, players welcome Stratton back to NECC

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Darren Stratton’s workload has picked up again, and he would have it no other way. Epic struggles to clear his good name in court and restore his reputation over the past nearly five years have landed Stratton, a Haverhill resident, where he once was and ultimately, where he wants to be.

Stratton was named head coach for the men’s basketball team at Northern Essex Community College, a position he previously held from 1999-2015.

“This is a wonderful homecoming for me and my family,” Stratton told David Dyer of The Eagle-Tribune newspaper. “I’m extremely excited and I think we can get things headed in the right direction.”

Stratton replaces Joseph Tardif, the head coach at NECC over the past three seasons. Tardif replaced Stratton after the latter was indicted on illegal gambling charges. Those charges were later dropped. After losing only two seasons out of 17 and over 200 wins amassed with the Knights in that time, Stratton was replaced.

Since then, the men’s program at NECC has struggled greatly. In the past three seasons, NECC was 19-57, including a 5-20 campaign in the 2019-2020 season.

Coach Stratton has been an assistant under coach Tardif at NECC over the past two seasons. “Coach Stratton is one of the top basketball minds in the region, but that’s not the only reason he fits so well at Northern Essex,” said Rivals Basketball AAU Director Michael Trovato. “He cares about his kids. They are like his family. He fights for them, and he will do anything he can to help them succeed, first and foremost on the court, but also in life.”

The NECC team is only part of the Stratton equation though. He also helps mentor young players and coach them in his Warrior AAU program.
“Coach Stratton is a great guy,” said Boxford, Mass., 8th grader Chris McCarthy. “I wouldn’t want to play AAU for anyone else.”

Finding players who bring excitement and energy to the NECC program is priority number one for Stratton. The recruiting period started in mid-March as athletes finished up their high school careers and some searched for places to go and continue playing while receiving an education. Stratton will assume full time duties as he takes over the program in the fall.

Stratton is a Haverhill High School graduate, who once played at Northern Essex Community College for the late legendary coach, Mike Rowinski. His teams play hard man-to-man defense and are generally fun to watch, running athletically up and down the court.

Features

The nurse becomes the patient: A personal encounter with COVID-19

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Angela Pagliuca
Angela Pagliuca

Angela Pagliuca, 33, of Revere is a registered nurse. She works on a gynecology oncology and surgical unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She also works per diem at Eastpointe in Chelsea. “I do a lot! ” she said with a laugh. 

On March 19, Pagliuca received a phone call. Someone she had been in close contact with at work on the previous Sunday had tested positive for COVID-19 and she would have to quarantine for two weeks. She hadn’t had much time to worry about getting sick as the pandemic was still relatively new in the United States.  

“I was actually still trying to plan a vacation for my birthday,” she said. Her birthday being about a month away on April 17. She expected her quarantine period to be long over by then.  

Being a nurse, Pagliuca knew there was potential for being exposed to the coronavirus. “Working in health care I knew it would be a risk. We’re exposed to so many things,” she said. She felt safe working at MGH and knew there would be enough personal protection equipment available. She admits to being “petrified” of being called to work at Eastpointe which is a nursing home and could possibly not have as much access to PPE as the formidable MGH. Either way Pagliuca wanted to be part of the solution. “I wanted to make a difference and help people through this difficult time,” she said. 

By the time she had been notified of her exposure to COVID-19, it had already been over four days. Pagliuca was feeling fine. “I didn’t think I had it because I felt so good,” she said. With the amount of time that had passed she just couldn’t imagine there would be a chance she’d develop any symptoms.  

Then came day five after exposure. It “started with a sore throat in the morning. Later in the afternoon fever, chills, headache, body aches and cough. I felt like I had typical symptoms,” she said. “Felt horrible, like I got run over by a truck… like I had no control. My body was shivering and I couldn’t stop.”  

Her fever went as high 102.9 degrees. “At one point I was checking every 10 minutes,” she said.  

She would tell her boyfriend, “Check on me to make sure I’m breathing all night.” At this point fear had set in, “I was being crazy,” she said.  

Pagliuca lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her boyfriend Standley Francois and was able to isolate successfully. She stayed in their bedroom while Francois stayed in the rest of the house and slept in the spare bedroom on an air mattress. This strict quarantine went on for two weeks once Pagliuca’s symptoms started. Francois would leave meals outside of Pagliuca’s bedroom door, which she insisted remain open, “I don’t like the door closed,” she said.  

They had to come up with a solution for sharing the single bathroom in their apartment. They followed a schedule for showering and wiped everything in the bathroom down after each use.  

Francois also had to shelter in place for the first two weeks after Pagliuca tested positive on March 21. “He had to be quarantined for two weeks but was laid off anyway,” said Pagliuca. Once his two-week period was over Francois could go to the grocery store and run errands. Fortunately, Francois never showed any signs of being infected with the coronavirus.  

There is currently no cure for COVID-19. However, Francois’s Haitian mother was ready and willing to come to the rescue with home remedies and comfort food. “Standley literally called his mom that night and she sent ginger, garlic and lemon tea and vegetable soup,” said Pagliuca.  

After a week and a half, Pagliuca was feeling better. Her fever had broken but had a lingering cough for three more weeks. She would leave her room and go into the rest of the apartment. She would still wear a mask in the common areas and Francois continued to sleep in the spare room until it was confirmed that the virus had completely left Pagliuca’s body. 

The testing process was “horrible,” said Pagliuca.  However, all her initial tests indicated she was still infected. From March 21 to April 29 she was tested 10 times. Four tests were positive, two were considered false negatives, meaning a negative test followed by a positive test, two tests were inconclusive and her last two tests were negative.  

It was a total of six weeks of quarantine and isolation for Pagliuca, except for those days when she would go the testing site hoping that her results would come back negative.  

The physical part of this disease had come and was making its way out. Mentally and emotionally Pagliuca was still in a battle. Being away from her family, friends, and co-workers was taking a toll on her. “My best friend Sarah and I are always together so that was hard to be apart. Also, I watch my nephew once a week and that was heartbreaking because I would FaceTime him every day and he would read me stories. He’d carry me around everywhere on the phone. He’d forget me in the tent and my sister would call out ‘Where’s the phone?’,” she said through a chuckle. 

 “I felt depressed for a little while, week three was my worst. Felt better but realized that I still had be at home and confined, realized could still infect and hurt someone else,” said Pagliuca. Francois was a vital part in helping her get through the long six-week ordeal. “He’s a good motivational talker. He explained the big picture. I’m not admitted. I have him. I have my phone.” she said. 

Surviving a disease that has taken so many lives could easily leave a mark on someone’s perspective on life. “I feel like it did teach me that I had to take a step back. I’m usually someone on the go even when not feeling well, this forced me not to move,” she said. 

The coronavirus remains an enigma as far as who and how it attacks. The potential side effects once a person has recuperated are also still uncertain. “…my cough wasn’t going away. At week five I felt like my respiratory was normal. I was afraid for a while. ‘Could there be scarring on the lungs?’ We don’t know the long-term effects yet,” said Pagliuca. 

Now that Pagliuca is on the other side of this COVID-19 disease, there is still the lingering concern that immunity is not guaranteed. Part of her feels like perhaps she can’t catch it again, but she is choosing to “act like I can for the safety of other people. I would like to be a case study,” she said. 

Pagliuca said she felt “Amazing!” when she finally tested negative. “I screamed out for joy, texted everyone on my phone, emailed Adele and Molly [her bosses] before calling occupational health. Results came in at 7:30 a.m. I woke up at 6 a.m., you get a letter in your Gateway account with result if negative.” Pagliuca wanted to make sure she was up and ready to see that letter should up on her patient portal.  

Pagliuca’s friends and family were also excited to find out she had finally beat the coronavirus. They were “relieved because I stopped complaining, ‘Oh good, you can go back to work now,’” she mimicked. “My nephew was excited to see me,” she added.  

Pagliuca’s return to work was long awaited by her as well as her co-workers who missed her dearly.  

“So happy to have her back! She is a sweetheart!” exclaimed nurse case manager Ann McKenney-Fruth. 

She was excited to get back to helping people, patients and fellow nurses alike. “I get to be myself again, catch up on gossip and eat all the food,” she paused. “and get to make a difference.” 

“We are delighted to have her back! We missed her energy for the last six weeks,” said patient care associate Kalsang Nangpa. “She is the life of the party. She was back on a Thursday and by Sunday had organized and thrown a baby shower for Em J [a fellow nurse who is expecting a baby in June]. 

Pagliuca can attest to how easy it can be getting worked up over being sick with the coronavirus. Anxiety can set in and be just as damaging as the virus itself. “Try your best to stay as positive as you can, move around, [practice] deep breathing exercises, drink warm liquids– I was drinking hot water with lemon,” she said. 

Pagliuca says that having a “very good support system” helped her get through the illness. “My sister and nephew FaceTime would make me smile. My lovely coworkers checking in frequently, and mother in law made sure I was fed,” she

said.  

Opinion

My life in quarantine

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Every morning I wake up and my mind is empty. This is a feeling I am not used to. When I had to go to school, the morning was a time when my mind would be busy with thoughts about things that the teachers would show us in class, who would go to school, and what might happen after school.

I no longer have to think about school and every morning my mind is like a desert with tumbleweeds. As a result of this, life feels much more disorganized and chaotic. It is weird to wake up and not know what you’re going to do for the day, or who you’re going to talk to.

I remember one afternoon I took a break from doing my homework. I sat in my dimly lit room on my computer chair, the computer screen light filled up the room with the light that was missing. I sat with my back slouched against the chair looking at the space between the window and the beige colored curtain. I began to wonder, is this what my life would look like after college?

Furthermore, throughout this time I have also realized that I have taken a lot of things for granted. After the second week of not going to school I realized that I took for granted my ability to physically see my friends and talk to them face to face instead of through pixels on a screen.

The first week of not going to school I thought it would be enough to just hear their voices or text them, but that wasn’t the case. I never thought that it would be a necessity for me to see my friends physically in order to feel close to them.
As a result of this, I wondered why I felt the need to see my friends. I came to the conclusion that maybe I need to physically see them because I can see their facial expressions when we have conversations, and maybe I feel less lonely when someone is physically there to have a conversation with me.

Additionally, in this quarantine I have also realized that the people in our society have become placid. We have become so used to hearing bad news and seeing tragic things happen that we no longer get surprised by what we are being told on the news and internet. For example, my oldest sister studied to be a journalist so it is in her nature to look at the news and report back to my mom anything new that has happened.

One afternoon my mom and I were sitting in the living room watching a show about wedding dresses. I got distracted from the television as soon as I heard my oldest sisters heavy footsteps from the other side of the house. By that sound I already knew that she was scurrying to get to my mom and tell her the news. My sister quickly opened the heavy glass door with her phone in her hand and sat next to my mom and told her the news.

That afternoon my sister told my mom that three hundred and fifty six people had already died from the virus in Massachusetts. My mom turned her head to my sister and said that it wasn’t a lot of people. As soon as she said that I gave her a weird look because I was confused as to why she was so calm about it. I understand that once a person hears the high amounts of deaths that there have been everyday, they eventually find it normal and get used to it, I am also guilty of that.

But there is another side of me that thinks, “wow that’s a lot of people. They had families, they had coworkers and friends, they may not have had the chance to do something that they wanted to do. They had lives.”. As soon as I think about that I get worried for the other bigger amounts of people that have yet to die from the virus. I think about how they may be feeling. Sometimes I wonder if they had any regrets or wishes.

Lastly, this whole experience has taught me that life is short. Life is very, very short. I am not trying to sound pessimistic, but we do have to realize that we can die at any moment and time. We are not immortal.

I know that life gets in the way of us accomplishing our wishes. I know that we have been taught since we were smaller that we have to work and our number one wish should be to get a good job that pays a reasonable amount of money to live comfortably. We work and keep on working in order to keep that wish that was granted or to achieve that wish.

But that all gets in the way of us figuring out what our real wishes are. I understand that we all want to be successful or to keep being successful when it comes to job and career achievements. But we also have to do things that make us happy so that when the time comes for us to die we don’t regret only accomplishing getting a good job and making money.

Editor’s Note: Priscilla is a Lawrence High School Early College student. She wrote this for an English Comp 102 class and shared it with the NECC Observer.

Sports

Corona season

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March Madness is what they call it but this 2020 basketball season can be summed up as March Sadness. In all my life of watching and playing basketball I have never seen the basketball season cancelled, an esp. right in the middle of games. Yes some have seen the season be locked out from the start, but this is different.

Not just the sport of basketball but schools, businesses, gyms, and markets all experience unprecedented times as the coronavirus takes center stage. 

As I am writing this story, we are being told no one is to be outside at night unless your essential worker. This a time where the term social distancing dominates everyday speech whilst the social media platform has now taken the form of our new town halls. Being a journalist and an essential worker now has shown that the virus is very media related as most people are just taking safety measures such as wearing mask in public and using hand sanitizer.

The athletes of the world are coping the best way they know possible as the quarantine seems to linger on till the upcoming summer months. Many of the NBA players have turned to the video game world in means of connecting with the fans and just feeling like the game of basketball is still in their lives.

But for the local people living inside the Merrimack valley finding an outlet can be exceedingly difficult and finding a person can be harder as most people are stuck in the house. But lo and behold I found someone who isn’t afraid of this pandemic and living life to the fullest.

Meet Christa Hayes a local photographer takin advantage of the situation and not letting the moment go to waste. Hayes is a photographer and college student for the Beverly Arts School at Monserrat. This virus is like nothing that no one has ever seen before, says Christa, “So I’m thinking why not cease the moment and capture this art in time. People and business alike are all effected, and pictures can help tell a story inspires others or warn others”.

As a freelancer worker Christa spends time going to different places taking shots of newsworthy or memorable moments and finding a way to make that a piece that then turns into art of some kind. When asking Christa what keeps her motivated during these times, she says that “the virus may be bad outside, but the weather and sunlight exposer of the spring is great for taking pictures. This is a moment in history and the ones who take advantage won’t be forgotten.”

Those words rang true for me as well, as I finish up my last semester of Community College this year. Going outside and taking walks in nature with my basketball seems to make me feel as normal as possible. The biggest question left on everyone’s mind is what is normal life going to be like after all this passes? 

 

News

Life after coronavirus

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Times ae changing and our lifestyle as we know it will never be the same as it was because of the Covid-19.

Until a short time ago we could hug our friends or family without fear, the students attended their respective schools or universities, people worked without any problem, masks and disinfectants were not essential items and at this time of the year people could go out to enjoy the outdoors, sunbathe and go on vacation.

As the Covid-19 pandemic progressed, countries and international organizations were developing guides on the measures to be taken like how to detect and isolate cases, social distancing, among other things more. But what they have not yet announced is how to confront the Covid-19 pandemic when the confinement is over.

We all want to get back to normal as soon as possible. But it seems that most of us are still not aware that nothing will return to normal or many things will not be normal again as it was before the epidemic. Rafael Oviedo, 19 -year-old journalism student says, “At least for the next 12 months it will be a fact that we will have to give up social gatherings, it will be stricter in the number of people per space.” he also adds “We will have to get used to digital interpersonal relationships for a long time.”

Many people talk about what our life will be like after quarantine, but very few talks about how this epidemic will affect education in the next semesters. Clearly before the epidemic, classes were normal, as they have been for a lifetime. But with everything that is happening with the covid-19 around the world, the classes worldwide will surely change, but we don’t know how.

“As a student, I feel that very little is being said about education.” Rafael said, “Almost all the debate goes through how they were approved in this course, but very few people wonder how it will begin next year, under what conditions and modality.” He concludes by saying “There are many people who will start studying in the next academic cycle and there are no clear answers. I have not heard anything from the media or politicians about this.”

We are already experiencing the consequences of the virus.

Beyond the isolation in our homes, many businesses that depend on social contact, such as restaurants, cinemas, museums, etc. will see reduced these large numbers of people and directly the amount of their income.

The Covid-19 it will also affect parents, who will have to educate their children at home and combine it with their jobs. Because another point in this change is the large number of jobs that will be affected. Alix Tavarez, 19, Criminology student says, “A lot of people were out of work, many businesses have fallen. People are going to be traumatized for a long time.”

The impact of the coronavirus in the United States also hits economically. There are about 3.3 million jobless claims around the country. And every time these numbers go up.

Some people fear that the worst is yet to come, and that the unemployment rate could increase

Densy De La Rosa, 19, Home Health Aid says, “We are experiencing many changes in our day to day, now staying at home means having to work or study. And all this seems to be that it will be for a long time” Densy said, “Most of us don’t know when we can go back to work.”

The truth, many of us are not prepared for how to face life.

Many people will be afraid of being in a place with many people around them, many will start to prefer to stay home. But of course, not everyone will be like this, because many people at the end of the quarantine will not give it any importance, they will continue to make their lives as before the epidemic. They will not protect themselves.

 The human being is not yet prepared on how to live together after this pandemic. We will have to learn, as if we were children again. Only time will tell if we will learn fast enough.