REORIENT

CHLOE NOTT, a senior from Tamworth, Australia, shares how she had to reorient when she returned home during the stay-at-home order.

It was a quick turn of events for me. I found out on March 19 that Australia would cease regular travel at the end of the month. I had to decide if I was going to stay alone in the U.S. indefinitely, or travel home and earlier than expected. My parents booked me a flight on March 20, I left on the 24th and arrived in Australia on the 26th. Once I arrived home, I went into quarantine. For two weeks I didn’t leave my bedroom, except to sit outside in the sun or go to the bathroom. My parents left meals at my door, and I wore a mask whenever I left my room. After not seeing my family for months, it was a weird situation to come back to. Thankfully, Australia put strict lockdown laws in place early, and the regulations have made a big difference. Everything is slowly starting to open back up again, and hopefully, I will be able to visit some friends and family soon. Completing the semester online at home had a few challenges, from unstable WIFI to midnight classes. One of the hardest things was not getting the same level of teaching and access to facilities as I would be in the classroom.

Most of my courses continued to meet at least once a week for a video conference lecture, Q&A type session. The only problem with this was that because of time differences, I was up anywhere between 12 and 4 a.m. a few nights a week to get online and attend these meetings. One professor recorded the meetings so I could watch them later, but it was easier to learn and ask questions if I was at the meeting. One other problem was I did not have the hardware or software to be able to best complete some of my work. Being a multimedia journalism major, I am often producing and editing content. With limited resources at home, it was quite difficult to be able to create what I needed to. The isolation has been difficult and very lonely at times, especially being away from my team and friends and not knowing when I’ll get to fly back. In my spare time, I usually message friends and help out around the house. Most of my friends are in the U.S., so there are a few hours in the morning we can chat before it’s late at night there. There are no jobs, so I have just been trying to learn new skills and make things. I am trying to learn a language, master riding a unicycle, making some jewelry, playing music, and will hopefully get into some house renovating soon. I think the pandemic has made me more thoughtful about what is important and has encouraged me to think of different ways I can help others.