By Marcus Fernandes
It all started with an extended spring break. Who would not like that? In a normal situation, every student in the world would be happy. That was not the case for March 2020. At that point, an extended spring break was showing me that the Coronavirus was a simple flu coming from Asia. I already had an idea of how serious it was, but remote learning gave me an exact idea of how unprecedented this is. It is very hard to know what to do during a lockdown. As informed as one can be, no one was expecting to be quarantined this year. At first, I did not even know where to go. My first reaction was to look for tickets to Brazil, my home country. As the U.S. started to implement travel bans and the number of flights was reduced, the idea of going back home became a remote idea. Staying in McPherson turned out to be the best decision, as the situation in my country is still getting worse every day. Where I lived, the lockdown is extremely necessary, as every place can easily have agglomerations. Staying here gives me the privilege of going on walks during the day since the lockdown in town is not super strict. Being able to see the sunlight and being in touch with the world even for a little are the two things that help me keep my sanity during this pandemic. After a month of online learning, it is still weird not being able to meet with professors and attend face to face classes. With no actual classes, it is even harder to be on top of everything and to meet the correct deadlines. The only thing students can do right now is to finish the semester strong and pray for a normal semester in the fall.
