My First Month In Quarantine
Item
Title
My First Month In Quarantine
Description
Mackenzie Schweim
Latin American History
5/5/20
Documenting My Experiences
I chose to represent my experience during the pandemic with a lookbook presentation of what my first 30 days were like right after corona hit the United States. Since my situation was a little unique and my family member was at risk so we truly did not have any outside contact for at least the first month which was life changing. I think this sort of time line of pictures brings the experiences of me and family to life so if someone went through this at a later point they would be able to better understand what it was actually like when the pandemic first hit. Some people took the guidelines less strictly and/or were frontline workers so they were still out in the community and interacting with people therefore this could also show another perspective of what it was like for high risk people who had absolutely no contact with anyone for over a month. I also think having actual pictures and little descriptions creates a good visual for people to imagine and helps show time passing rather than a single project or picture that might struggle to capture someone’s entire experience during this.
This way of expressing my experiences pretty literally points out exactly what I did, how I coped with so much extra time, and how I even grew through this experience for example new cooking skills, becoming more creative with art, getting closer with my family, and having mandatory time for my own self care. This shows the type of person I am and …
Technically this is a primary because it came first hand from me when I was experiencing this moment that will forever be remembered in history. Since I lived this, and am here during something that future generations will learn about, I now have the qualifications to be a source for information about how people lived and thought in this moment. The dictionary definition of a primary source is “an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under study. It serves as an original source of information about the topic” The time under study is the covid 19 pandemic therefore my source serves as a piece of information for people studying this period, I am the original source of info, and I’m choosing to do it through an online lookbook.
There’s a few things that make my experience during the beginning of the pandemic unique which I think could be interesting to point out for future researchers that can really be understood at a personal level with my primary source. My mom was about 8 months pregnant when covid first started spreading through the United States like wildfire. It would eventually be released that this meant she was now high risk since we didn’t know much about how it would affect her and the unborn baby and we still don’t know much. Since the sickness was still raging when she went into birth she was only allowed to have my dad by her side through it and no one else got to meet our new baby brother for the next two days after he was born! This was now my 4th younger sibling born and the first time I’ve not been waiting outside the door to meet my brand new sibling. It was definitely an eye opener to realizing how much this has changed our lives and continues to. A second factor that I think would resonate with future readers is that it happened during my senior year of highschool therefore I didn’t get to have the same experiences as many other graduating classes got to have together.
How does it relate to the historical work we've done in this class analyzing both written and visual primary sources to understand the past, Note one primary source from the class that you think in some way relates to your source
Using the background of having read and seen all those previous primary sources laid the groundwork for us to know how to make our own. Before this class I had a little idea of what a primary source was and now I can easily see how I can be a part of history by making my own and how it can affect future people’s views on what happened to us
Latin American History
5/5/20
Documenting My Experiences
I chose to represent my experience during the pandemic with a lookbook presentation of what my first 30 days were like right after corona hit the United States. Since my situation was a little unique and my family member was at risk so we truly did not have any outside contact for at least the first month which was life changing. I think this sort of time line of pictures brings the experiences of me and family to life so if someone went through this at a later point they would be able to better understand what it was actually like when the pandemic first hit. Some people took the guidelines less strictly and/or were frontline workers so they were still out in the community and interacting with people therefore this could also show another perspective of what it was like for high risk people who had absolutely no contact with anyone for over a month. I also think having actual pictures and little descriptions creates a good visual for people to imagine and helps show time passing rather than a single project or picture that might struggle to capture someone’s entire experience during this.
This way of expressing my experiences pretty literally points out exactly what I did, how I coped with so much extra time, and how I even grew through this experience for example new cooking skills, becoming more creative with art, getting closer with my family, and having mandatory time for my own self care. This shows the type of person I am and …
Technically this is a primary because it came first hand from me when I was experiencing this moment that will forever be remembered in history. Since I lived this, and am here during something that future generations will learn about, I now have the qualifications to be a source for information about how people lived and thought in this moment. The dictionary definition of a primary source is “an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under study. It serves as an original source of information about the topic” The time under study is the covid 19 pandemic therefore my source serves as a piece of information for people studying this period, I am the original source of info, and I’m choosing to do it through an online lookbook.
There’s a few things that make my experience during the beginning of the pandemic unique which I think could be interesting to point out for future researchers that can really be understood at a personal level with my primary source. My mom was about 8 months pregnant when covid first started spreading through the United States like wildfire. It would eventually be released that this meant she was now high risk since we didn’t know much about how it would affect her and the unborn baby and we still don’t know much. Since the sickness was still raging when she went into birth she was only allowed to have my dad by her side through it and no one else got to meet our new baby brother for the next two days after he was born! This was now my 4th younger sibling born and the first time I’ve not been waiting outside the door to meet my brand new sibling. It was definitely an eye opener to realizing how much this has changed our lives and continues to. A second factor that I think would resonate with future readers is that it happened during my senior year of highschool therefore I didn’t get to have the same experiences as many other graduating classes got to have together.
How does it relate to the historical work we've done in this class analyzing both written and visual primary sources to understand the past, Note one primary source from the class that you think in some way relates to your source
Using the background of having read and seen all those previous primary sources laid the groundwork for us to know how to make our own. Before this class I had a little idea of what a primary source was and now I can easily see how I can be a part of history by making my own and how it can affect future people’s views on what happened to us
Date
April 27, 2021
Coverage
Eau Claire, Wis.
Creator
Mackenzie Schweim
Contributor
Mackenzie Schweim
Subject
Education
This item was submitted on May 6, 2021 by [anonymous user] using the form “Contribute an object” on the site “Western Wisconsin COVID-19 Archive Project”: https://lib02.uwec.edu/Omeka/s/C19
Click here to view the collected data.