Day 71: I Do Miss Our Regular Semesters
Day 71: June 5, 2020
Global Cases: 6,839,417 Deaths: 397,446
Egypt Cases: 31,115 Deaths: 1,166
Nada Morsy
Petroleum Engineering Sophomore
These days I think about my life day by day. More than 70 days ago, when I began quarantining, I would have never thought that I would still be stuck in my aunt’s house one week into my summer vacation.
The past seventy days have been eventful and not just with things related to COVID-19. First came the storm in early March, which I was so happy about because I had a physics quiz on that day. I decided I’d leave dorms that weekend and go stay at my cousin’s for a change. I would have never thought that the night before the storm would be the last time I’d be able to sleep on the bed that I’d slept on for three semesters.
Thankfully, it was a good idea to leave the dorms at that time because our rooms flooded from the amount of rainwater that came pouring in. My aunt told me that it’s very likely that I wouldn’t go back to school for a while because she heard from her fellow doctors that a lockdown was going to happen soon.
Obviously, she was right.
We were given a week by the residential office to pack our rooms. My parents and sisters all live in Kuwait where all the flights, either to or from, had stopped, so I had no choice but to go to my aunt’s house, whom thankfully, I’ve been close to all my life.
After this transition, came the harder change, online education. I didn’t hate my online classes as much as I thought I would. I believe this is because I’m probably one of those who take the longest to get out of bed. The online system definitely helped in that area such that if I had a class at 10am, it was rare that I would wake up any time before 9:55 to prepare for it.
Another reason I might not have hated the online semester as much as all my other peers did, is that I did not have to use Respondus in any of my courses. This program, in my opinion, is the main reason why many of the students found this semester to be their worst yet.
Even though this semester wasn’t the worst ever for me (Spring 2019 still holds that title), I do miss our regular semesters. I miss my friends more than ever. I miss my daily coffee from Cilantro. I even miss seeing my professors.
For The Caravan‘s previous diary entries in Arabic and English go to our COVID-19 Special Coverage page.
If COVID-19 wasn’t enough, something that brings me great sadness is the situation in the United States. They were already the epicenter of the corona crisis, and now they have to live through the consequences of thousands of cases of police brutality and racial discrimination.
In my opinion, this storm has been brewing for a long time, and I’m glad that we are finally starting to protest, whether it be peacefully or violently. While the video of George Floyd was terrible to watch, the clip that I would classify as the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery is something that I will never forget.
If I were in the United States, I would be in the streets protesting.
However, all I can do right now is to educate myself and understand that white privilege is real. The protests that are happening worldwide are long overdue and I hope, like everyone else around me, that these protests end with a successful result and not just another disappointment.
As I said, I live my life day by day, so I don’t think about things such as when will this end or when will I finally see my parents (we see each other online every day). I think about what I’m going to do tomorrow, on my 71st day of quarantine. I’ll probably just start a new TV show as everyone else does, and pray that I don’t get to celebrate my 100th day of quarantine.
