Positive Spins
Lucas focuses on the positives.
Lucas focuses on the positives.
COVID-19 is Bad. Quarantine is Bad. Most things are Bad right now.
And it’s easy to focus on that. Even easier to let it overwhelm you. Which is why being mindful of perspective is important, now more than ever.
With that in mind, I’ve been trying really hard to make things feel okay recently. Of course, as I’ve already explained, they objectively are for me. But that still doesn’t change the fact that quarantining is hard, being away from my friends and family is hard, remote learning is hard. Losing a term at Carleton is hard. There’s just no way I can convince myself otherwise. But I can try to find some silver linings. Think of it as another mental exercise, a challenge to be creative in a way that can make me feel better and function more easily.
So that’s what I’m doing. Acknowledging the bad stuff, but taking the time to point out the good stuff to myself, too. If I could undo all this or opt into a parallel universe where everything is still normal, I’d do so in a heartbeat. But I can’t. I am, however, lucky enough to be in a position where the weird reality I’m stuck in does offer a few unique opportunities. That’s what I’ll be writing about today: the positive spins I’m training myself to fight back with every time I feel bogged down by how terrible this all is.
I’m away from my friends and family. It’s really hard. I miss them so much. On the other hand, at least I’m spending a lot of time with one of my best friends out there, Larry. (I’m living with his family at the moment.) I try to think of it as a sort of super extended sleepover. We watch Always Sunny together, play Minecraft together, and most of all over the past few weeks, we spend the majority of our waking hours (mild exaggeration) trying to make sense of this whole “physics” thing together. It’s a wonderful bonding opportunity. And it means the world to me to wait out such a scary time with someone with whom I feel safe and happy.
I’ve lost a term at Carleton. Next time I spend a term there, it’ll be the second half of my remaining time as an undergraduate. It’s a weird thing to focus on, but it really bugs me. Time has flown by quickly, and now it feels like I’m jumping forward an extra chapter before I was ready. Well, what can I do about that? Nothing much except try react to the time crunch productively: I have less time left at Carleton than I even thought, and I will make every bit of it count. I’m a sentimental person. I get attached and I miss things. I know I’ll regret it for the rest of my life if I don’t make the most of the time I have left at my beloved school. I think, whenever I do get to come back, I’ll approach life on campus with a newfound zeal.
I’m stuck doing this whole remote learning thing. It’s new, it’s hard, it’s frustrating, and it’s indisputably less than ideal. As I’ve already covered, though, my professors really are doing everything they can to make up for the necessary sacrifices, and they’ve made the term wholly worthwhile. What’s more, this relative lack of structure, while challenging, is a fantastic opportunity for me to work on my time management skills.
To be fair, every intense, quickly-paced term at Carleton requires me to work on my time management skills, but this mostly self-paced term brings that to an entirely new level. It’s difficult, of course, but it really is a uniquely effective way of encouraging me to learn how to budget my own time and manage my own schedules.
On a similar note, classes are all pass/fail now. That can have some weird side effects. It can feel harder to assess how you’re doing in class, whether you’re keeping up with what you’re supposed to be keeping up with or not. But that’s not really the case. Professors are still providing as much, if not more, feedback this term. And what’s more, removing grades from the equation is pretty cool in some ways.
I’ve pitched it to myself like this: now I can get a taste of what Reed College‘s (kind of) no grades policy is like! For some background, Reed College was another amazing college I had a crush on back in high school. While that’s (obviously) not where I ended up, I’ve always wondered what it would have been like to study with their unique evaluation system. Now I feel like I’m getting the best of both worlds: I’m studying at the college I ultimately decided was best for me, but I’m sampling a way of doing things that was truly unique to Reed, and one of its biggest selling points for me at the time. This term, it’ll be easier than ever to just learn for learning’s sake. I’ll be studying because I love to, not because I’m trying to maintain a pretty set of letter grades.
I hope this gives people a sense of what I’m trying to do here. I think it’s important to acknowledge and accept that things are rough right now. They are. My intention with this blog is not to pretend that everything is awesome when it isn’t. But that doesn’t mean things are hopeless, or that I am helpless. I can wish things were normal while being a little excited about the few positives these unique circumstances yield. It really, really helps me “deal”. Maybe writing this will help others deal, too.
Lucas is sheltering in place for the rest of his sophomore year. He’s fighting his pandemic anxiety with a passion for all things nerdy and a talent for overthinking and awkwardness (and self-deprecation). He hails from Pasadena, California, and he hopes everyone is okay back there. He currently sees himself majoring in Physics, although he hopes to explore Cinema and Media Studies, Chemistry, Economics, and Computer Science (among many other subjects) as well. He misses everyone and sends his love. Meet the other bloggers!