What did I learn this semester? Many things. I learned that a college English class could be interesting and fun. I learned how to write a balance sheet. The list goes on and on. 

However, these are not the most important. What I learned this semester that I deem most important is about humanity and how screwed we are. 

Now I do not intend to offend anyone, you all seem like wonderful human beings, but what I have seen out of humanity this semester confirmed some fears I’ve had for a long time. The Corona-Virus should have been a small blip on the radar. Instead, it has turned into a world-changing event. From the beginning when it started in China, they were never truthful about what was going on. Data, the virus itself, and other crucial information were withheld from the rest of the world. I don’t even want to touch the topic really but it seems like there has been a lot of reports about this virus being made in a lab. We can debate the legitimacy of this forever and probably will never know the truth but if there is even an ounce of truth to this, why the heck was China making a virus?!?! Now we can fast forward to the United States. I don’t want to rehash my last post, but the government, especially the top, didn’t take it seriously until it was too late and spreading like wildfire. So now, like many other countries, we rushed into a half-hearted and poorly planned “quarantine,” which in some parts of the country was not even executed. 

Our lovely home, UD, trying to make the best of the situation, tried to come up with a plan, but after what felt like 20 million emails and different plans it was not very effective. Students and professors were told information that usually conflicted and changed after a few minutes. Now, I consider myself a very understanding person, but it is obvious the university had no immediate plans to close, and when prompted to act they ran around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Now to us lovely citizens. First, we panic-bought toilet paper… I still don’t understand that one. After that, I witnessed people buying enough chicken breast and ground beef to feed an army. Then I watched people buy flat-screen TVs with their “trump-bucks” instead of paying off their mortgage or credit card debt. Once I thought it couldn’t get any dumber, people began protesting about being quarantined, claiming that it was illegal and took away their rights. They didn’t even wear masks either. What is wrong with you, like c’mon. 

A little break in the negativity. I would like to say it has been wonderful to watch the nurses and doctors step-up with some committing the ultimate sacrifice to save others. Bravo to these men and women. I don’t know what we would do without them. *Insert Clapping*

No one is perfect. I certainly know I am not, but after these events, we are closer to a hot mess than perfection. In my eyes, corona-virus could have been easily mitigated. It still would have been an issue, but lives could have been saved. People wouldn’t have to say goodbye to their loved ones through the phone. If we can’t figure out how to stop a virus from putting our lives on a complete pause, how are we going to figure out climate change? Or all this debt the country is putting themselves in? We’re talking trillions.

I hope humans come out better from this. Hopefully, we will become smarter and realize that we took our “normal” lives for granted. I hope our generation and the generation younger than us realize how big of a fuck-up this was. We must have better solutions to our problems, but this is not a fairy tale so we probably won’t live happily ever after.

-Conner Polizzi-Gullo

The picture is a throwback to the simpler times