On Saturday, March 13th my roommate and I both woke up to missed calls from an Amherst number. We looked at each other expectedly, knowing what was probably going to come next. We had both been feeling what we thought were allergy symptoms for a day and a half before the calls. Turns out, we tested positive for COVID-19. Next thing you know, we were moving into the quarantine dorms in Washington tower. We were scheduled to move out on March 22nd and we were definitely looking forward to it. I’m here to take you on my journey, thus far.
Let me start by telling you how to be prepared on the go if you were to get a positive test back. Don’t try bringing your whole comforter. It’s too much to shlep back and forth. That being said, you may want to bring a mattress topper because these mattresses with just a bare sheet are pretty uncomfortable. You’re going to need 10 days’ worth of clothing and medicine (bring some Tylenol and maybe Mucinex or Dayquil/ Nyquil). Don’t bring your finest attire because literally, no one is looking at you, except maybe security after 6 pm. Don’t forget toiletries, which include chapstick and tissues. Finally, you can’t forget your phone/computer chargers, and OBVIOUSLY masks.
Now I’m going to take you through the play-by-play of my time here so far. I’ve heard many different stories about people’s time in quarantine, but I’m going to tell you mine so you know what to expect if you happen to find yourself on this inconvenient journey as well.
Day 1: I lugged my stuff here in two huge Ikea bags and one duffle alongside my roommate, and we were quickly ushered into separate rooms and given the lowdown about the logistics of this living situation. I also made the grave mistake of forgetting to pack a pillow, so I had to have a friend of mine do a sort of black market transfer with me through the backdoor of the building where I secretly acquired my pillow.
Day 2: My second day here I had to do another one of these back door drop-offs because earlier in the week a family friend came up to visit the school and brought a bunch of medicine that I take in general and needed to receive. Unbeknownst to us, I would get COVID-19, and so now we had to use this means of transfer for me to get ahold of this very expensive and necessary medication. Later that day, my roommate had a small fiasco where UMass dining decided to forget to drop off her dinner. Moving on from that, the wind decided to howl that night and the UMass architecture really wasn’t working in my favor so, lucky for me, the wind pressing against Washington became so loud that it sounded like someone was drilling at all hours of the night. As you can imagine, during my wellness check call the next morning when they asked me if everything was going alright in the dorms, I was very unwell.
Day 3: My third day here was pretty mundane compared to the first two, however, I did undergo an extreme coffee detox leaving me fiending for caffeine.
Day 4: My fourth day here, I had a little me time. That meant that I was impulse buying clothing and putting on face masks. As an added bonus, I touched up my dyed hair with some box dye I had bought a week prior.
Day 5: Day five was a real doozy. I started off my morning right with the fun wake-up call at 7:30 of someone moving and banging around furniture in the dorm above me like nobody’s business. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one bothered by it, so soon after we had people from multiple rooms on my floor yelling at this person to cut it out. It was quite the scene.
Day 6: Day six was something else. Dining services were acting up and they forgot to supply the whole building with lunch for a while. Needless to say my roommate and I ended up on a long-winded email thread with some nice lady from dining who explained the situation. It was quite the time.
Day 7: So it’s currently day seven and now, it’s getting tough. I’m lacking all motivation and I currently have a lip mask on to give me a boost of refreshment. The only thing holding me together is the beautiful view that I have overlooking Amherst from my wall of window paneling.
This is all the insight I have for right now, but I’m glad that I was able to vent about this all to you lovely readers, and I hope that this has offered you a new perspective!