Pondering a Pandemic

Alexandra Wang

These animations arc based on the

physical paintings in FCC that we see everyday. I intend to create more diversity and vibrancy in our learning community.

Faculties, students, and visitors could also view these augmented reality designs in front of the original paintings through an app called Artivive.

See the animations here

Eva Bartholomew This photo was taken from my sister's apartment at Temple. At first

glance, you see the city skyline and an empty parking lot. As you look closer, you can see two people walking across the parking lot, who happen to be in a spot when the picture was taken. You can also see that there are no other people or cars on the surrounding streets, which is very unusual in the city, but is the new normal for now.

I took this picture because this is at a park near my house, which usually has a ton of people there at this time of the year. However, the township nailed the two wooden boards together to make sure people follow social distancing guidelines. It's also interesting that the caution tape says "peligro", which means danger; I never would've thought playing basketball would really be considered dangerous, but it is in these circumstances.

Roxy Calder and Savannah Lopez Roxy Calder and Savannah Lopez made a podcast (Not Your Average Podcast) in which they discuss the connections between the two books they read in their seminar and the situation we're living through at the time of their reading. The novels are A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki and The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel.

Watch the podcast here

Evan Sweitzer Hi, anonymous reader who is also a listener. Thank you for reading and listening to these ramblings and creations. I wanted to share with you two piano pieces I wrote for my senior

project. Because I have to do things oddly, I sometimes compose music by sitting down and recording myself making things up on the spot. There are a lot more eye-rolls, bad chords, and ''what the heck are you even trying to do?"s (coming from my own brain) than there are "successful" creations. But I'm stubborn, occasionally enjoy doing frenzied, tedious work, and sometimes have a lot of time. Last month, the three of those converged in five weeks full of getting mad at my computer, recording, deleting, and lots of listening. I ended up producing six compositions: two pieces in a suite for piano and violin (composed in a more conventional way), as well as four of these improvised piano pieces. Here are two of the four. Each of the recordings represents exactly what I played in the moment--it was important to me to stay true to myself.

I also decided to transcribe each of the improvisations by ear, doing my best to represent the audio recordings through the written scores I was creating. Even if you don't read music, feel free to take a look at the transcriptions too.

I.

Departure

I have to be careful not to let my improvisation sessions go on too long. There have been sessions where I clumsily try to wrench coherent sounds out of my brain. Sometimes I pull and pull for a couple of hours, and all I end up with to show for it is a hundred and fifty aborted recordings, cut off prematurely before even reaching their first minute.

Sometimes I think about playing from the heart, which is every bit as questionable as it sounds.

In these times I'm usually too "absorbed" to kill off the recording. It stretches to twenty minutes of unintelligible, formless mush but stays on my phone. It's easier to delete twenty one-minute recordings and plow onward than to axe a twenty-minute blob of wasted storage. The latter involves a sheepish and unpleasant reckoning. One is forced to realize the stupidity of these last twenty minutes, the stupidity of deleting the record, the stupidity of not deleting it.

But there are rare times when it's not happening in my heart, not the delicate illusion of pure and utter absorption in what "I" am supposedly creating. There are rare times when it's not in the brain, the quick-tempered judge of what's "good" and what's not. There are rare times...when it

might not even be the fingers; the fingers play the keys, but also touch the red button that controls which month-old memories I'll hear a month from now. In these rare times, it almost

seems like a collective departure, a respectful watching of sound and air that also happens to make me happy.

Thus, ..Departure." One of those times. After the first measure hit the air I knew I had been dealt pocket aces. I was going to wring every last drop out of that theme before I gave it up. But that's the thing: it felt almost like luck. There was a giddy surprise. There were "wrong" notes played, to the extent that wrong notes existed, but somehow they managed to wind their way back to that theme. It was almost magical.

The slow, sometimes boring process of notating actually wasn't too bad--the story of transcribing the next piece is more worth telling. But there is this: while I played the last chord of "Departure," my hands started shaking. I was afraid that I hadn't pressed the little red button before I started. That feels like the most heartbreaking thing ever, especially when you think that you got a little bit lucky. But the recording was made.

I realize that there are more relatable departures happening right now than the one you've read about here. There's our departure from school, of me from you, you from me, you and me from us, the list goes on. I try to acknowledge them but not dwell on them. It's important to me that you know this: I included this piece because for those six minutes, it felt like everyone was still here.

Sheet Music:

Click here

Performance: Click here

II.

Thanks for the Ride

This one really combines a bunch of different musical elements, and even has my dad talking to me during the recording (he didn't know I was in the middle of an improvisation). Anyway, you'll hear him mention that he's about to go on a bike ride and will be back "mid-aftemoonish."

"Have a good ride," I say. I thought the unexpected interaction fit really well into the improvisation, and my dad's bike ride is one of the inspirations for this piece's title.

Here's an entry from my log:

"Thanks for the Ride" was frankly quite hellish to transcribe--while there aren't a huge number of notes played at any point, that almost makes it harder. Much of the piece is not exactly rhythmically on-time, not easily subdivided and notated. That makes my transcription more of a guide than anything. But thats kind of what I wanted to show in the first place, right? That theres so much more conveyed in an audio recording of a composition--nuances and emotions and experiences--that go unrecorded in the written musical score.

Thanks to everyone who's been kind enough to read this far, and to listen to these pieces. You're one of the last steps in this ride I'm so, so thankful for.

Sheet Music: Click here Performance: Click here

Chloe Haines Painting has always been a form of self-expression for me, but I have found that this has become especially true while in quarantine.

Although this piece is abstract, to me it represents my time in quarantine.

Because I was working on it almost daily, I was able to channel whatever it was I was feeling that day into my work. I had a lot of fun with this project, and I am excited to get to share it with you!

Mary Rose Gilliland I interviewed 13 of my peers on their thoughts and opinions regarding life during the COVID-19 pandemic. I asked them all these same 5 questions: 1. During quarantine, one thing that I have realized is I've taken a lot of the little things for granted. Moving forward and after quarantine do you think you'll pay more attention to the small things in life?

2. What is something good or positive that has come out of your quarantine experience?

3. This year's FCS quaker testimony was community. During quarantine, how has the meaning/importance/how you look at community changed?

4. If you could go back to FCS for a day what would you do?

5. What is something you would like to say to the FCS class of 2020?

This video is a compilation of all their answers. Thank you to everyone who took the time to help out. I hope you enjoy!

Watch the video here

Environmental Action Seminar The five students of the Senior seminar about COVID 19 and its implications on the environment worked on different topics: air pollution, environmental regulations, water analysis, wildlife. The final goal of our group was to either educate other students on this topic or to lobby politicians for the environmental cause. We are very proud of what the group achieved so far: Anna Volpp and Rebecca Wusinich met with Rep. Tim Briggs last week to present the group's research and he encouraged them to write an Op-ed for the Inquirer! They are also continuing to reach out to other legislators. Other advocacy is moving ahead from Victoria Rosa to encourage our own community to partner with green initiatives. Brynne Menen investigated the various regulation roll-backs happening at the EPA and Hannah Rossio worked specifically at shifts in the wildlife Habitat to educate our own community and beyond about what we can learn from this moment and do better in the future.

In this presentation, you will find a sum-up of their research.