Farewell column: Here's to the unexpected
The most important lesson I’ve learned from four years at The Daily Tar Heel is that life often doesn’t turn out how you expect, and that’s OK.
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The most important lesson I’ve learned from four years at The Daily Tar Heel is that life often doesn’t turn out how you expect, and that’s OK.
My journey at The Daily Tar Heel has not been all perfect moments, and seeing it end is the very definition of bittersweet. In one of the most internally and externally wild years the paper has seen in decades, there were moments when I wanted to give up. There were moments when everything felt like too much, when the newsroom was too loud and I would go sit on the cold fire escape or walk to CVS so I could hear myself think. There were moments when I went home and shed tears out of pure physical and mental exhaustion. There were plenty of moments where I laid in bed and considered quitting.
Editor's note: This column references instances of sexual assault, which may be triggering to some readers.
In light of the coronavirus pandemic, UNC announced last month it would offer emergency grading accommodations to its undergraduate students. These accommodations allow students to pass-fail courses and still count those credits towards major and minor continuation and graduation requirements. In addition, the University has also designated a 'CV' grade — similar to an incomplete grade — allowing students in difficult situations additional time to complete coursework.
The term Nacirema is American spelled backward. It was first introduced by Horace Miner in, "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema." Today, it is mainly used by anthropologists to distance themselves, and avoid personal bias, when writing about American culture, its rituals and its customs.
To say April 1865 wasn’t a great month for the Confederate States of America would be putting it mildly. Over just four short weeks, the Confederacy lost its capital, its two largest armies, its last hopes for legitimacy and President Abraham Lincoln, who was arguably the only Republican in Washington who didn’t want to wreak complete hellfire upon them. As a member of this morally bankrupt and dying confederacy, North Carolina saw its fair share of action during those 30 days.
Nobody is 'making' the coronavirus about race. In this chicken-or-the-egg scenario, COVID-19 is exposing racial inequities that already existed, not creating them. In short, the fact that African-Americans are contracting and dying from the novel coronavirus at higher rates is not due to a genetic predisposition, biological difference or individual behaviors.
Yep, you read that right. Working as a student journalist at The Daily Tar Heel absolutely, undeniably and unquestionably sucks. And there are so many reasons why.
Science has always played a role in politics. It drives decision-making around climate change, health care funding and, as of late, how to handle a pandemic. The current administration has repeatedly argued that "nobody" could have predicted the virus, claiming COVID-19 was basically unprecedented — but it simply isn’t true.
Last week, my sister, an incoming first-year student at UNC, wrote an op-ed about how COVID-19 is affecting the class of 2024. As an undergraduate myself, I know how important your first year is. From the moment you step on campus for the first time, to the feeling of relief after you turn in your last final exam, the experience from start to finish informs your entire UNC experience.
For a few years during my childhood, I grappled with an existential fear of dying. I loathed getting into cars, going on planes or just falling asleep — losing my consciousness and drifting into the unknown resembled death a little too closely. I remember being 12 and staring helplessly at my bedroom ceiling the night after watching the "Planet of the Apes" reboot movie. Not because superhuman apes ruled society, but because a pandemic was able to kill 99 percent of humans, and that seemed both possible and entirely out of my control.
The coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-19, has dramatically transformed the lives of people around the globe. It has decimated economies, overwhelmed health care systems and affected families in unimaginable ways. However, in spite of the havoc that it has caused, COVID-19 has furthered our understanding of pandemic control beyond anything that we've known before. Most importantly, it has proven the resilience of the scientific and healthcare communities.
By January 1961, the United States was well into the Cold War. Citizens had spent the last decade digging bomb shelters in their backyards and filling them with supplies to survive the nuclear apocalypse, and the government produced cute films about how to avoid getting your face melted by a nuclear blast. People feared that, one day, some deranged leader in Moscow would send the missiles and bombs into their cities and end their livelihoods in the blink of an eye.
The news cycle of stories concerning the coronavirus is endlessly depressing: Projections of 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the U.S., widespread lack of necessary medical supplies, and reports of refrigerated trucks for the dead fill our feeds and screens every minute of the day.
When my father sent a photo of himself in full personal protective equipment to my family group chat, the coronavirus pandemic suddenly seemed even more real. What existed in the abstract became something that directly affects me and my family. Like so many others, the COVID-19 pandemic has become a part of my family's daily life in ways we never imagined. My whole family is back under the same roof, spring break became an entire semester and my parents' work has orbited around the uncertainty of this virus.
As coronavirus wraps around the globe, causing school and business closures, erratic economic swings and a critical toilet paper shortage, some have compared the ongoing struggle to contain the virus to a warlike effort. Like in the great wars of history, governments and private entities are dedicating mammoth amounts of resources and manpower to eradicate the illness.
Due to the increasing severity of the COVID-19 outbreak, the April 1, 2020 edition of The Daily Tar Heel will be the only paper the newspaper makes for a while. This is a nearly unprecedented event in the history of the DTH. Print production has only been suspended or significantly reduced on a few occasions, including during World War II.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If the coronavirus has proven anything, it has been exactly that. The virus, known as COVID-19, has revealed flaws in almost every bureaucratic system in the United States: in legislative and governmental decisions, in healthcare proceedings and in how public health officials have handled the pandemic.
To our readers:
Crying in Davis. Two M&M cookies smushed in your hand as you ride the escalator out of Lenoir. Basketball-induced hysteria (or, in this season’s case, weeping and gnashing of teeth). Silent Sam and the aftermath.