Rylee:

Hello. So this week for my studio package I interviewed my boyfriend Julio Corzo, who’s a Mercer University senior studying computer science and economics. Um, about a week and a half ago, we went up to Mercer and packed up my entire dorm and packed up his entire dorm and brought him back here, and he has been living in my childhood bedroom for close to two weeks now. So I interviewed him about what it’s like to be an international student that can’t go home and living with your in laws. Home for me is Guatemala City. Guatemala, closed its borders before the States did, and I haven’t finished college so I thought that it was best if I stayed here. I’m most worried about the elderly people in my family and not being able to be there for them and do groceries for them so they don’t have to go out. But there’s a lot of people in my family so they can help. And besides from that I miss them, of course. But my in-laws have been super nice to me. And I think I couldn’t really imagine any other scenario where things would be better. Of course, it’s weird. Like I’m used to having my own place and my independence and going out whenever I wanted and going to bed whenever I wanted and, eating whenever I wanted. But I think that I’ve gone into it with a positive mentality and I try to appreciate what I have not what I’ve lost. I personally just want to graduate, I really don’t care about ceremonies. I’m not really bothered by it. I’m a little bit older, so I think from for me, my most important goal in school is to graduate and as long as I get the diploma even if it’s through the mail, I’m fine with it, but I understand why people are upset about it because they’ve been there for four years and this was promised to them, you know?

Kenneth:

When a lot of people think of making soup, they think about heating it over the stovetop. However, not a lot of people know you can actually make soup in a microwave. It’s pretty easy.
First, you need to get a bowl. A glass bowl works best for microwaving. Then, you gotta open the soup can, obviously. If you are not trying to record yourself doing so it shouldn’t take long at all. Pop the can open, peel up the top, and pour the soup in the bowl.
Now at first, it will not look much like soup, but rather more like sauce like what you might find on pasta. So, you would need to put water in to make it less like sauce and more like soup. About a cup should work. Just get it nice and full. You can also use milk if you want a more creamy soup.
Once you got your water or milk, stir the sucker around. You want to make it so the soup and the water look even so it’s not water poured in sauce. I then like to add pepper and salt to my soup so I give it some flavor and mix them in. I do this before putting it in the microwave so the flavor sinks into the soup.
Then, into the microwave it goes. You want to cover it so it doesn’t go flying everywhere. A large glass plate or a bigger bowl should work. Then, you set the timer for about three minutes, and it starts cooking. While you wait, you can ponder your life’s decisions and think about who you are as a human being.
And finally, the soup is ready. Doesn’t that look like a good soup. You would want to pair it with another food for substance, maybe a grilled cheese sandwich. And viola, your soup meal is ready to eat. Bon Appetit!

Emily:

Hello. I’m still in my house in North Carolina and not much has changed on that part. North Carolina is now under a stay at home order, so most of my days are spent inside. But I do get out, try to walk, um, do things to break up the monotony. Things haven’t really changed too much I think for anyone, but especially here in my situation, except for school is underway now a lot more than it was the last time I did an update. So I’ve tried to get into a routine there. I’ve talked to a lot of my classmates and I definitely agree with them that it feels like things are a lot harder to manage in this situation than it would be if it was school. And that’s all very understandable, but it’s been hard for me to sorta figure out a routine that works. So I’ve been doing a lot of schoolwork, a lot of zoom calls, things like that, and trying to get my calendar back on track to finish everything up by May. But I’ve also come to see how important it is to sort of take time to break things up and let my brain relax from schoolwork a bit. So I’ve been going outside, I’m really fortunate that I live near the beach, so I’ve been able to go to the beach and uh, uh, take my dog on walks. That’s been really great. And then also even get to do some fun things. Like I had a zoom birthday party for one of my friends who had to celebrate under quarantine.
Surprise!
One of the other projects I’ve been working on to keep my mind busy is uh, working on a video that I started over the summer when I was studying in China. It’s taken me a long time because I took a lot of videos, but hopefully that’ll be something I can finish and be a good distraction from all my schoolwork. And so trying to balance getting all my schoolwork done, we’ll also try not to go crazy. Uh, but so far I think it’s been going well. I haven’t actually been able to return to making yet. I still have to move out. So I’m trying to figure out when the best time to do that is because Georgia’s under a stay at home order. North Carolina is too, so, there’s a lot of things for everyone that’s kind of up in the air right now, but feeling pretty good kind of more in a routine and hopefully everything gets better soon.

Richard:

Hello, it’s Richard here. It’s my second quarantine video, and this week has been a lot better than last week. So far, I’m still working in the same amount of time that I have been last week. But this week, I found a way to move things around. So, I’m able to do all the things that I need to in a timely manner. Aside from just school and work, I’ve been able to catch up friends playing games online and things like that, to keep my mind busy and you know, just keep the positivity all around. This time has also given me an opportunity to read things that I haven’t been able to until recently. I’m currently in a long 600 chapters deep into a series I’ve been meaning to read for probably like seven years, so I’m almost there. 300 chapters left with no end in sight, because it’s not over yet. But I’m enjoying the journey. I’m not really sure how things will turn out once all this is over. I’m sure certain companies feel like they’ll no longer need a central location for people to come and do work. They realize that a lot of people could do their work remotely, and they’ll still be just as good. I don’t know, just take one day at a time. That is what I’ve been doing.

Meg:

Hi! So, this week I’m in a different location, so I’m in my phone. I left my camera at home. Um, but, I… One of our focuses, our focuses being my sister, my parents, one of our focuses this week has been sort of relearning what self care means to us in this time. A lot of times self care is sort of stepping back and taking a relaxing moment away from the craziness of work, but right now it’s actually kind of the opposite for us. We’re trying to do like one creative thing a day to keep our minds flowing. We’re trying to work out almost every night to be active. It’s sort of the opposite. Instead of relaxing, all we’re doing all day is sitting, just kind of, either laying in bed or sitting on the couch and doing homework or things like that, so it’s getting up, being moving, finding ways to be social. I know for me, I’m someone that really can end up just kind of staying in my room. A lot of people don’t believe that I’m an introvert, but I absolutely am, and if I don’t have plans or reasons to leave my room then I won’t. So I’ve been kind of making myself either schedule FaceTime dates with my friends, or finding reasons to go outside, things like that. Calling my friends, texting my friends constantly, just to kind of keep the social aspect going because I think thats really good for me. I know in one of my other classes we’ve been talking about, sort of the need to tune out some of the news. Obviously as journalists we want to stay updated, but theres that balance of kind of using the news literacy that we’ve learned about so much in all of our classes where, you know, we read what’s necessary. We read what’s true. And we’re able to kind of tune out the things that aren’t true as well as tune out when it becomes too much, because I think that’s when we start to feel a little crazy, get a little, you know, busy up in the head, and really make all of this even worse. That’s kind of been our focus for the week. I hope everyone else has had a good week.

Clare:

It is week 3 of quarantine diaries, and, you know, you know, not a whole lot is going on in my life right now except for the fact that I cut my own bangs! Really going crazy here. There are my coronavirus quarantine bangs, I did them myself, in my dorm room.
Clare: “The first chop is happening, we cutting.”
Grace: “You what, Clare?”
Jessica: “Here it goes!
Clare: *gasps*
Clare: “Okay, that’s it, I’m done.”
Jessica: “Look at you!”
Clare: “Just kidding.”
Um, I zoomed my friends, so they could be there for me while I cut my hair off. And, of course, I had to get their opinion. Did it look straight?
Clare: “Jessica, look at it. Does it look longer?”
Like was the length right? Did everything look okay? And honestly, I’m very happy with how it turned out. I think I look pretty cute, love the bangs. I will say, this is not the first time I have cut my own bangs. Freshman year I went into my friends dorm and just started chopping them off. It was actually a very similar look to this, I call this my Lord Farquaad look. So, really going crazy in quarantine!

Yasmeen:

Hey, everyone, It’s Yasmeen! I’m back with my 3rd video diary update on my life in quarantine.
Today’s Thursday, April 9th. I’ve been doing the updates for a couple of weeks and not a lot is
going on in my life. I’ve been trying to keep up with my classes. Taking walks when I can.
Zooming with my family. I even started recording audio diaries. Because not a lot of new things
are happening and things are feeling pretty static, I wanted to check-in with some other people
to see how our quarantine experiences compared.
MICHAEL MIDDLEBROOKS: Hi, my name is Michael Middlebrooks I’m a junior here at Mercer
University. I’m currently at the Delta Epsilon Psi greek house here on Mercer’s campus. I’m
from Athens, Clarke County, there’s more cases of Corona there than there are here so I just
felt safer staying here on campus. I usually wake up, work on whatever school work I need to try
to get done for the day, and then just try to fill in the time between when I’m not asleep. It’s
weird not having to meet for class and it also just makes the work less satisfying. It just feels like
I’m just doing things to do them and I don’t really feel that same satisfaction from getting work
done as I did when we were having regular classes.
That’s all I have for this week, with the WMUB newsroom I’m Yasmeen Hill.

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