By Meghan Powers

Contributing writers

I was in Alliot eating lunch on a cold day in the middle of January when I had a realization, “Crap!” I thought to myself. I had completely forgotten to find a news story to discuss in Reporting for Media in just half an hour. So, I did what any good Journalism major would do and I pulled up The New York Times app on my phone, and scrolled through to find an article about a new virus that was spreading rapidly around China. I didn’t know much about it, and to be completely honest I just read the headline and skimmed quickly to have enough to discuss in class before I got up, carefree and happy walking to class that afternoon.

 Little did I know, two months later there would be people in Vermont with that exact same virus, and that I’d be taking that walk from Alliot to class for the last time, and leaving Saint Mike’s two months earlier than expected. 

I had a pretty rough start at Saint Mike’s, dealing with homesickness and adapting to the workload, but I came back second semester ready to succeed, to push myself to do my best in all my classes, as well as making more awesome memories with my friends. I had gotten through finals and I knew what I needed to do to prepare and study for the next set, and I was excited to see what the second semester would be like. Yet here I am spending the end of the year at home and online. All of the things I was looking forward to–spending more time with my friends, witnessing fun end-of-the year activities that everyone seemed so excited about, were whisked away. 

Now, I’m not going to be too dramatic and over the top because while I am really upset that all of this was taken from me, and I am having a difficult time adapting to online classes, I try to keep in mind the seniors- both in high school and college- who are losing so much more than I am. I have a chance to experience all of these things later on in my college career. In my town, whenever I go on Facebook or Snapchat, there are always copious posts from seniors and their parents, devastated about the loss of the rest of their senior year. Governor Phil Scott made the decision to close schools for the remainder of the academic year, and everything has just been a huge mess ever since. Some people understand that these extreme steps need to be taken, while others are lashing out and just making things so much worse. 

I get it, 100%, I totally get it, and I have so much sympathy for everyone losing out on these huge milestones. But, seeing all of these parents lash out makes me really upset. I’m also upset about losing the rest of my semester, having to stay home all the time, and everything else that comes with this virus but I just don’t understand how getting angry is supposed to help. 

Getting mad at people isn’t going to bring everything back to normal, hoarding toilet paper isn’t going to bring everything back to normal, but if we can all work together, drop some extra supplies off to the elderly lady next door, stay six feet plus away from those that are not in your immediate family and only go to the grocery store/pharmacy when needed, we can help slow down this virus, protect those who are at high risk, and as a result go back to our normal everyday lives, much faster.