The past few weeks have been like no other that we’ve experienced during our lifetimes. I recall writing our last post and naming it “Almost Unprecedented”. However, life as it is right is completely unprecedented. The things that are happening around the world are truly mind-blowing and I hope that once this is over with, we won’t have to see something like this again for a long time. 

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working at Chipotle and even though there’s a stay-at-home order in place, there’s still been a decent amount of activity in the store. I see all kinds of people walk in and out of the building, but one thing that almost all of them have in common is the fact that they all wore gloves and masks. The crazy thing to me is how normalized that’s become now. None of us workers even bat an eye at this anymore and that’s where it kinda hits that this is real. Everything about this is real.

During the first week of “spring break”, I felt myself coming down with a bit of an illness. I felt headaches and my body was a bit sore as well, but eventually I realized that it was all in my head. The hysteria had gotten to me mainly because I was still working. I was genuinely scared that I had contracted the disease somehow while working up on campus that I began to have phantom symptoms. I’ve since transferred to the store in Middletown where there’s less people traffic.

My fears have been qualmed a bit since transferring, but I’ve still been anxious about this whole situation. It’s been a little hard to focus on school as a result, but so far I’ve still been pulling through. Not as well as I know I can be, but my hope is that things will get better. On top of school and work, I’ve also been taking time to dive into new hobbies such as reading, drawing, and cooking. They’ve proven to be a decent distraction from everything going on in the world, but the white noise of chaos still lingers around… I hope everyone is staying safe during these unprecedented times.

Nathan Bampo