“Personally, each day has been a meshed together, and only by checking the date I can see that it’s a… Thursday?? I thought it was a Tuesday… wow I’m more out of the cycle than I realised. On the other hand, I plan on doing more things to keep me engaged other than watching TV and playing videogames, which – don’t get me wrong – are great, however, I’m only human, I have my limits.”
“I still remember the afternoon of March 13, 2020, when I started following the official site of the New Jersey Coronavirus Dashboard and the number of cases started to climb up like mercury on a hot thermometer. I was anxious due to the fact that my nine-year-old was in the school playing and socializing with his peers with no fear and awareness about the pandemic. I requested the school for a day off […] my fears were realized when the mayor ordered a state lockdown the very next Monday.
“…I spread wide my arms,
stretch heart skyward
breathe deeply under
overarching boughs
and open my eyes
to a small universe
of grey-brown spheres
gently swaying
midst the frenzied
feeding,
each one so like a
tiny spiky
Death Star—
a perfect
wooden replica
of a COVID-19 cell…”
“Another thing I didn’t realize was how the pandemic would affect Ramadan and Eid. I know for a fact that it would have been much harder to do if I were still in school because I didn’t have my own kitchen. It would also have bothered my neighbors a lot if they heard a microwave going at 3 AM!”
“每一天差不多醒着的时间都想跟妈妈开着视频，担心他们出门，担心他们感染，担心他们出现症状。[…] 1，2月份，我担心家人却只能靠视频确认他们是否安好。3，4月份，家人担心我也只能靠视频消减担忧。除了互通电话报个平安，我们能为彼此做的事情几乎没有。[…] 打发独处时间变成了一门艺术。 但似乎更多的是庆幸，还好我还活着，身边的人还活着。一切都还有变好的可能性。”
“…Lahat maayos na naka pag board sa Barko hanggang may isang family na symptomatic. […] Sineserved lahat mula sa tubig hanggang pagkaen namin sa mga rooms namin. Ngayon naka 12 days on isolation na kame at makaka uwe na sa mga pamilya namin…”
“Na familia de minha esposa, ocorreram casos da doença, irmão, cunhada e minha enteada, todos com sintomas brandos sem necessidade de internação…”
Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.
Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA),
Stanford University
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