2020 journal

may 4, 2020

1:14 a.m.

hello! wow i can't believe it's may already! i was scrolling instagram just now and came across this washington post op-ed by ari l. goldman suggesting to people to keep a pandemic journal, and i realized huh, it's been a while since i've journaled. and for some odd reason, i immediately felt motivation to go and journal. i started this out this year because i wanted an outlet to pour my thoughts. i realized that it actually kind of keeps me sane. it's like i'm talking to someone and ranting, and it just relieves the burden of my thoughts a little. but what ari says is that journaling could help you distinguish your days, he says to get your thoughts down before you forget. it'll help us understand how we got used to this lifestyle and how we got through it.

i think an additional plus is for me to open this decades down the road and see the thoughts of the teenage version of myself. amanda, if you're reading this, i hope you got a laugh or two and have grown so so much, and i'm proud of you :)

i don't know how updated you are, but to try and catch you up, here are some things that have been happening:

i started vlogging! i realized that i've been telling myself i would do it later, or when i get a chance--just pushing it off always. but what really convinced me to do it was i love home videos, for the first several years of my life, my dad filmed everything, but he slowly stopped by the time my younger brother was born. i wanted an equivalent of that. as you probably know at this point, i'm a journalist at heart--a storyteller. and i think vlogging and journaling are simply different forms of that. it's a more casual form, and for vlogging, it's a visual form. 

as much as my generation is frowned upon for never being able to put the phone or the camera down, i can't say i don't enjoy documenting the memories. vlogging doesn't mean you have to record every single moment of your life. the trick is to be strategic with it and film a little bit of it to put together--it tells a whole better story and is more enjoyable to rewatch and reminisce than hours-long videos. i didn't want to live all these moments for it to die. now i know that sounds a bit morbid, but i mean honestly--when i die, no one will truly understand my memories anymore. this is a form of history. it will live on after me. 

anyways, that got deep. my school's executive director let us know the plan for graduation. later this week, my parents and i are driving up to school to move out of my dorm. the school has arranged a schedule for me to arrive on campus, take my cap and gown portrait, walk the stage for a video, take another picture with the iconic school sign, move out the dorm, and return any school property. i will probably be doing my hair and makeup in the car because i have to wake up hella early--gotta be on the road by 8 a.m. to make the scheduled arrival time at 12 p.m.

another thing--it's the last online edition of my school newspaper! i cannot believe it. i love my staff so much, and it's gonna be strange to let it go, but i'm so grateful for the experiences and am excited to see what new directions the new editors will take it in the future. we're working on our print edition now, but it's gonna be pretty tough because it's mostly me. the staff is creating most of the content, and I will be doing the layout with the help of my graphics editor. we're the only ones with access to adobe indesign, so this should be fun. the last time i handled the details of an edition on my own, i barely slept all week leading up to the publishing--yes, i'm talking about the april fools edition.

a coronavirus update: numbers are still rising, but states are starting to reopen, including mississippi. my mom has been making face masks all quarantine to send to healthcare workers--it started out for local hospitals, but as new york got worse, they started sending them up there--out of her fabric scraps. i'm working on a broadcast story of her, too. it was just gonna be for fun, but we ended up needing one more story for our last sno badge, so i'm turning into a story.

and now to add to the mix, murder hornets have been spotted in the u.s. they originate from japan, i believe, and were found in washington. they're like 2 inches long and can wipe out a bee colony in hours--yikes. tate reeves tweeted earlier, "you've got to be kidding me." and my initial reaction was like what the hellll this man up to now?? then i saw the hornets... experts are saying this is the window to contain them, but they're so dangerous that if we are unable to in the next couple years, we won't. talk about scary.

now you're somewhat caught up because the murder hornets was fresh news to me today/this morning. 

i've been working with my managing editors and advisor on this goodbye video for my newspaper staff, but unfortunately, one of my managing editors just lost his dad to cancer, so i'm going to assume he won't send me a video. we have a little celebration coming up on friday. 

**as soon as i wrote that, i realized i'm moving out friday. i'm going to have to reschedule it to saturday now...**

now you're probably wondering how school is going. 

it's not. it's just not.

i wake up when i have to for the mandatory zoom classes (aka only physics on mondays, wednesdays, and thursdays). other than that, i don't even bother opening canvas or quest before friday if i don't really have to. even then, that's just to plan how i'm gonna divide up my work for the next three days before it's all due sunday evening (not even midnight smh. that's the least they could do, but nooooo fundy makes quest due at 7 p.m. and z makes stats due at 9 p.m. like damn give me a break--i'm only kidding...unless???)

i watch ted talks from time to time. lots of slam poetry--i don't know about you, future amanda, but i absolutely love slam poetry. i think it's so beautiful, entertaining, and educational. if you remember, i tried my hand a spoken word for distinguished young women last year, and it was honestly a bust, but it's okay. i was really just doing it for the experience. i've pretty much stopped watching netflix although i do pull out disney to watch suite life on deck and other movies from time to time. but most of my time is spent on youtube. i've been into james charles a lot lately, shein hauls, and college videos. i'm also currently watching james's new reality show called "instant influencer." it's pretty good, and honestly i think this is the first time ever i have ever watched a show episode by episode as it premieres. i've always had that instant gratification where the whole show was there for me to binge. i gotta say this is a nice change.

my family has also been baking/cooking a lot (check out my quarantine vlog 1 for some of them this week haha). gyoza dumplings, fried banana, pizzelle wafers to name a few.

earlier, after we went on our nightly bike ride, my mom was checking out her plants and realized slugs rather than caterpillars were eating them. so, she, my brother, and i spent over an hour slug hunting. she felt bad for killing them but didn't want them to eat anything else, so we poured salt on them. yikes.

anyways, i can't believe i just wrote i think the longest journal entry yet--and in the shortest time yet. just saying, most of the time, my entries are published many hours after i start it, sometimes almost 24 hours later. but it's currently 2:14 a.m. and i'm saying goodnight for now.

ari, you really just inspired me with that op-ed. thank you for that encouragement. speaking of which--today is world press freedom day, so thank you to all of our journalists across the world. these people are pursuing the truth for us, the people. they are dedicated to a better educated world and freer countries. never take that for granted. 

sweet dreams.