Before school moved online, I had only downloaded Tinder once. It was toward the end of last semester, and I was curious to see who could be on there. After a few more days, I stopped using it completely. It wasn’t until I moved back home that I learned about Tinder Passport.
The transition from in-person classes to remote learning in the middle of the semester has not been seamless for all students and academic departments. Some students worry about how they’re going to complete their lab requirements for chemistry, how student-teaching will take place or how recreational courses like broomball or social dancing will translate to an online format.
Are 20-year-olds allowed to call people old friends yet? If so, Tommy is an old friend. It was 2014, my freshman year of high school. Pink braces, plaid flats, side bangs and an unreasonable amount of confidence were the most notable things about me during this time. Skinny jeans, too much cologne, black vans and weed were the things most notable about Tommy during the same time.
The automatic opening doors at Kroger’s entrance offered an inviting feeling of warmth compared to the cold outside. My brother, Kalen, and I dodged shopping carts making their way out the building. There were too many people here. Definitely too many for a Monday afternoon. Every person who passed us had a cart that was entirely too full. Some had multiple family members pushing a cart throughout the store. Shelves that once held food were bare. The toilet paper, I found out from a conversation between two employees, had been “out for days,” but they were hoping for a new shipment soon.
Forced to uproot from campus, routines and friends, many Miamians have been struggling with staying at home and wanting to feel more connected. To encourage each other, women on Miami’s campus have been participating in an uplifting email exchange.
Caroline Saldivar first attended “Wingo Wednesday” at Left Field Tavern with a few friends a week before the start of the spring 2020 semester. A night combining a $0.70 wing deal with bingo, Wingo cycled through rounds of the classic game of luck. Prizes wenrg to the winners of each round.
Both of first-year Jordana Luther’s parents were involved in Greek life when they were in college and still keep in touch with people they met through their fraternity and sorority. Luther came to Miami wanting to join a sorority, hoping to find a group of close friends like her parents had. In early February, new members received their bids after days of recruitment. Luther got a bid to join Phi Sigma Sigma and rushed to greet the group of smiling faces of the girls who were now her sisters. About a month later, almost all of the events that she and the other wide-eyed new members had been looking forward to got canceled — socials, Big/Little Reveal, date parties, semi-formals, moms and dads weekends and formals.
For some students, the cancellation of the semester meant going home to the safety of their homes and families where they could all bond over the fact their lives have been put on hold indefinitely. For others, it meant the complete opposite. These students have gone home to find their family members thrown onto the frontline, their lives shifted into overdrive as they are also placed in the line of fire while their relatives fight the good fight against the novel coronavirus.
It's one of those perfect Oxford nights. The setting sun casts orange and pink shadows as it lazily recedes on the horizon. With the constant buzz of laughter echoing from people outside, it seems like a celebration. But really, it’s a heartfelt goodbye. Oxford can’t stay safe in its bubble forever. My roommates and I make our way uptown for our last meal.
You only turn 56 once, but my dad turning 56 during a pandemic is something that is truly once in a lifetime. After rolling out of bed and going downstairs, he enjoys his usual breakfast of a cup of coffee and a cigarette on his porch while pondering the strange circumstance he finds himself in. What do you do on your birthday when you can’t do anything?
On some days, Oxford seems deserted. Along High Street, shops and restaurants lie empty; the warm neon of their “open” signs stand in stark contrast to their vacant interiors. On colder days, uptown park is devoid of life, its stone animal statues the only creatures to be found. Brick Street, the de facto hub of the uptown social scene, greets visitors with shuttered windows and a sign that reads “We miss you. Stay safe.” When the sun shines, Oxford emerges, and the would-be ghost town is strangely full of life.
Ron Becker has taught Media and Culture 143 for probably 14 years. “Probably” being his word. The class is a lecture style in Laws Hall 100, one isolated lecture hall that always confuses students on the first day. To make the class more interactive, he enlists a group of 8-10 of his previous students to lead small groups for class credits and become Undergraduate Associates (UAs). When the coronavirus emails flooded our phones, the UA team felt flutters of anxiety about the upcoming small group. We started to feel the same frustration and confusion as our professors, but we also felt the stress of being students.
I turned the key, and my car purred to life. It had been a little more than a week since I had left my house, let alone driven. The headlights illuminated the small forest of trees in my backyard. I connected my phone to the speaker and glanced over at my 17-year-old brother, John, in the passenger seat. We needed to escape our parents just for the night.
On Tuesday, March 10, Miami students were informed via an email from President Greg Crawford that classes would be moving online for the rest of the semester. Shortly before that, that same news found its way to the ears of the university’s many professors telling them to prepare to move classes online.
For the past three years, Miami’s World Creativity and Innovation Week (WCIW) organization has built Creativity City on the front lawn of the Farmer School of Business. Last year, each exhibit or “property” was marked by a set of backdrops designed to look like the brick exteriors of campus buildings. Properties featured different student organizations and activities to exercise creative thinking. There was even a pedal wagon making rounds on the streets of campus and Oxford.
While quarantined, many students have taken to their Instagram stories, posting bingo cards, motivational quotes and songs they’re listening to. Junior marketing and entrepreneurship major Sam Christie had a different idea. A lover of all sorts of games, Christie started having regular game nights with his friends earlier this semester. When he had to go back to his hometown of Brentwood, Tennessee, he was disappointed he wouldn’t be able to continue the game nights, especially the one he had planned for his birthday.
I took some time out of my very busy schedule (of WebExing into classes for two hours a week and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my time) to compile all of the quality films streaming on Amazon Prime, HBO Go, Hulu and Netflix right now. The Student will be releasing my recommendations in weekly installments until the end of the semester. This week, we have true-crime documentaries, fun documentaries and dramas for you.
Producing theater is no cheap or easy feat, but that didn’t stop five Miami University students from teaming up last fall to launch a new theater company in Oxford. New Wave Theatre Company is an entirely student-run theatrical production group adjacent to Miami. Established in the fall of 2019, the group's mission is to produce a series of student-written and student-produced shows each year, with the goal of championing new works and new voices among the Miami community.
It’s a Saturday, early evening, and if not for social distancing and the events of the past few weeks, many people would be enjoying parties at their respective colleges or towns. But because that’s not within the realm of possibility right now, people will take the next best thing. Cue Club Penguin Rewritten, a replication of a childhood classic, which comfortingly enough, looks just like it did when we left it back in 2010.
Oxford’s sources for local or free groceries are turning into grocery delivery services to eliminate coronavirus contact points. To keep up, they are training additional volunteers.