Life in Lockdown

Obviously, the past 7 weeks haven’t been fun for the majority of people. Some have been solely housebound, whereas others, like me, were allowed out for their daily walks and weekly food shops.

For me, the lockdown has been both a blessing and a curse.

I’ve spent it at home, with the rest of my family in Oxford, slowly abandoning hope of finishing my time at Leeds University together with my friends.

My dad jokingly said to me about 6 weeks into the lockdown that I wouldn't have noticed that there's a pandemic going on. That's because I've kept my head down, working, compared to my siblings who are treating this time as another holiday (if only).

The summer term for any third year is an important one; filled with deadlines, social events, and saying goodbyes. At first, I was optimistic that I would get back to Leeds to finish my degree, so much so that my flat is still filled with all my junk waiting to be moved out. However, as the weeks went on, and we learnt of the severity of this deadly virus, the celebrations looked less and less likely. 

Thankfully, COVID hasn't had any major impacts on my assessments, in fact as a result of the COVID restrictions, I have plenty of time to do them. This time would have normally been taken up with everyday life. Instead, I can spend it cooking lavish meals, weeding the garden, and doing my final university assignments. 

Lucky I filmed my documentary (which makes up our dissertation) before lockdown in February and early March which meant I was able to crack on and edit my footage (which I had a lot of) into ten-minutes. That took up the first 3 weeks of lockdown. Then the supplementary digital work and essay to go with our documentary, completing our dissertation, kept me busy for weeks 4 and 5. 

At the moment I am preparing for our Law exam, but by the end of next week that should be me done, fingers crossed. And if all goes to plan will mean that I'll graduate as fully qualified journalists come July. 

I do feel it is a great shame that we won’t be graduating with a proper ceremony in the summer, and that our final university semester has been so disrupted. However, these restrictions have been, and still are vital in controlling the virus' rate of reproduction.

But it's not like we haven't been socialising 'virtually'. We've had zoom parties, which often involve virtual Uno and Pictionary, and on LSR we've been hosting a virtual club night. But let's face it, these are definitely no replacements to the real thing.

Another thing, I've been watching a lot of TV recently, I'll do a blog post on my favourites soon, but is anyone else getting really bored with the phrase 'unprecedented times'? I know I am! Regardless though, journalists are doing a fantastic job covering the crisis; holding the people in charge to account, and showing just how drastically some peoples lives have changed as a result of these "unprecedented times"... 

The next time I write to you will likely be as a graduand, as I've only got a week or so worth of work left... maybe then lockdown will finally sink in, who knows?