At risk of dating myself to the paleolithic era, the time has come for a Covid-Cov memoir to air. As a member of the last class to be present for quarantines and mask rules at the school, it is my decrepit duty to share some glimpses of that fated past.
As my knees explode with age and I tumble into a scenic highway ditch, flashes of the past loom in my vision …
Fall 2020 - Social Isolation
When I came to the school as a freshman, I remember feeling lucky to be at college at all. Most of my high school classmates attended college virtually, so getting to live on campus and attend class was fortunate. But there were a LOT of rules.
Church attendance was (kind of?) discouraged—most people I knew did not attend church regularly. Masks were mandatory anywhere but outside or in your hall, and contact tracing with days of quarantine if even exposed to the illness made an unspoken rule of not hanging out with anyone more than necessary. Fear of quarantine was strong: it meant days and days alone in an empty undecorated hall or back home away from friends.
Sometimes in classrooms I still see the little tape outlines that kept professors in lecture jail and our seats a wide six feet apart. I never saw most of my professors' faces nor those of my peers. Last spring, TWO of my hallmates and I discovered we lived on the SAME FLOOR of Founders our freshman year but never knew it.
No dances, no indoor chapel, no open hall hours and no mandatory class attendance. While Covenant needed these rules to remain open with students on campus, life was at times bizarre and often lonely.
Fall 2021 - Quarantine Crazy
I actually don’t remember many students getting sick freshman year: the rules seemed to work. It was after many of these rules dropped that quarantines and contact tracing truly escalated.
Anyone who tested positive at Priesthill was given a sheet of paper and told to write the names of anyone you had been with for longer than 15 minutes. Regardless of if you were sick, being on the list meant you had to either go home or quarantine for about 10 days.
I remember unwillingly going to Priesthill after battling cold symptoms for days, testing positive, and feeling the weight of what was about to happen. With great guilt in the number of people I sent home, I chose to stay in a quarantine hall. It was looking into a 10-day stretch of empty, lonely enclosure. Being on empty Ekklesia (which had been closed for “environmental growth”!!) for days of quarantine felt like falling behind in a way I would never come back from. Also I got PINK EYE there (THANKS EKKLESIA).
This only happened to me once: some people I knew were quarantined multiple times.
The Present
So why did I tell you all this? Maybe I was over-dramatic about my quarantine experience, but it does give me such gratitude for the way things are now. It is so good to see Covenant be the place I visited before Covid. Going to other halls, sitting in Chapel, having dances/events and meeting new people is a wonderful experience that is harder to take for granted now.
With my geriatric ranting over, I leave you with the (not so) fond memories of Covenant past. If you want more information, grab a senior and ask them how many times they were quarantined.