Finding The Silver Lining

Hey guys, 🙂

So as the entire world knows and feels, COVID has had an … effect to put it lightly. But I’m trying to find every silver lining there is soooooooo, here are a few of mine so far! Get ready!

The campus itself has made a major upgrade. If you haven’t been to campus, there are some big red lawn chairs, like dozens of them, all around the quad. Now many of you might say, “it’s a chair, what’s the big deal?” Well, I said that once too, but if you were on campus pre-big red chair, there was nothing but a few benches out on the quad. Now, we have all this sitting, hang out, studying, chilling little chairs that maximize the quad potential! One day there was a movie showing, and it was perfect having those chairs out for people to sit on. Also, it’s nice to be able to hang out with friends outside and not be stuck in a building like we are 99% of the time. My friends and I invested in a few games like Cards Against Humanity, Caveman, and a few others that we could play outside. It was so much fun, and although it was different than sitting at a table somewhere, we played at like 11 pm under the outside lamps sitting on the big red chairs. It’s at least one great positive memory from COVID.

I would consider myself an old soul, I know how to knit, crochet, hand and machine sew, enjoy just slowing down and taking time to smell the roses. One thing that this all has produced was walking culture. I don’t know if this is everywhere, but we plan our lives around taking a walk with friends, and sometimes, it’s multiple walks a day and at any hour. I have found that I love it! I get to catch up with friends, maybe even rant a little about how hard life is, and get my steps in. At least for me, I struggle big time with getting all my steps in each day. So all in all, another Covid silver lining!

I’m currently taking Bio 231, which is our Anatomy and Physiology Lab, or as we call it, Cat Lab. For any lab normally you are in the actual lab room with actual physical people in the class, but due to COVID, we are a virtual lab that is all through Bongo sessions. Bongo is a system just like Zoom. We meet twice a week, and especially in anatomy and physiology, we do things like cat dissection (hence “cat lab”) and dissecting a pig heart. Instead of just doing away with the dissection, the faculty decided it would be a better idea to give every student in the class a pig heart. Oh, but it gets better, they handed out the pig hearts at the beginning of the semester, and I dissected this heart last Tuesday (9/29)! To make things even better, I live in my sorority house this year. So I got on my Bongo session for Tuesday with my pig heart that has been sitting in my closet for a month, and I performed the dissection in the conference room of my sorority house with another girl who is also in the class. Needless to say, it was the best event that has ever happened in that conference room and will be something I will never forget. How many people can say they took home and dissected a pig heart via Bongo in their sorority house? Probably more than a couple, but still! That is pretty dang awesome in my book!

I hope you guys try to find your own COVID silver linings!

-Carolyn 🙂