Why is there a stage in here?
Stories
8 posts
Everything is old. They never update anything at CUNY. Even with campus being closed for two years.
I found this secret bathroom on my campus and it the the most updated bathroom I have even seen at CUNY.
I miss the Mill. Nice people used to work there. The manager used to dress up for Halloween. I miss the pecan bar that it was just sugar and butter and sugar. Where do we get coffee now?
Submitted by:
Luis.
I first returned to campus in January before the Spring 2022 semester actually began, because I (correctly) thought nobody would be in the shared adjunct workspace so I could use it as a private place to work. At John Jay English, there are lockers that adjuncts can use. My mug and box of K-cups were right there where I had left them, and I still had a “March 2020 Writing Center Workshops” handout in my mailbox.
My ID wouldn’t let me through the turnstiles, even though I had uploaded all of my vaccine paperwork to CUNYFirst. It took several visits, a trip to the Wellness Center, and a Wellness Center staffer calling her friend who had been in a similar situation to ask what they had done, before I could get it fixed. Turns out that as a graduate assistant, I count as a “visitor” to John Jay rather than an employee, even though I AM also employed directly by John Jay as an adjunct, so there was a separate place I had to upload my vax stuff as well. It was very frustrating.
In my classroom, they had implemented a lot of ventilation stuff — some kind of portable filtration machine is next to the board, there’s a wall fan, and the regular HVAC vents in the ceiling are on high all the time. That made me feel good from a covid perspective, but I’m autistic and as a result have some auditory processing problems, so it’s become a huge access barrier in my teaching — I can’t hear my students!!! I have to ask them to repeat themselves sometimes 4 or 5 times, and it’s frustrating and embarrassing for all of us.
I still haven’t been back to the Graduate Center in person. My last day there was 2 years ago tomorrow (tomorrow is March 12, 2022). I already knew it was likely going to be my last day on campus for a bit, since they had just announced that CUNY was moving online the day before, but I was doing some work in a student lounge between my therapy appointment (which was a little ways north of the GC) and my chiropractor appointment (a little ways south of the GC). Then I heard a rumor that the MTA was going to shut down entirely due to covid (it didn’t, but it freaked me out). So I cancelled my appointment and went “apocalypse shopping” instead. Specifically, I went to several stores on 34th street in hopes of finding a bluetooth headset I could use for working from home. I didn’t find one. One of the stores I went to was the Target across from Macy’s. While I was there, I also went to buy a bunch of Dayquil and Nyquil to stock up in case my partner or I got sick. A lot of it was already gone. When I was trying to decide which products to buy and how many I should get, there was a man beside me doing the same thing. He asked me for help reading the labels so he could also decide what would be best. Those bottles of medicine are still in my bathroom cabinet, still mostly full and now covered in dust, since my partner and I have been fortunate enough to not get covid (that we know of).
Other object-based reflections– my mom and my grandma made a lot of masks with fun patterned fabrics- thanksgiving and christmas patterns, snowflake and penguin patterns, etc. Now with Omicron and the importance of N95 masks, I don’t get to wear my fun masks anymore.
The pandemic has robbed me of time with my cohort, many of whom I am close with. It’s already sad that we would only get 5ish years together, as funding runs out and some of us graduate and we hopefully begin to get jobs elsewhere. But the pandemic started partway through my 2nd year, and now it is partway through my 4th year. Some of my friends are comfortable hanging out in person again, and others are not, or they’ve moved away from NYC due to the ability to work online. It makes me sad.
Submitted by:
Olivia Wood
Like an Alanis Morrissette song, I like keeping my hands clean. I like seeing these guys around. In a way they make me feel safer, but they also make me feel like all of the years before of the pandemic I have been carrying around dirty hands. I hope this is something that remains after we are “back to normal”.
Submitted by:
Emily
Stupid metrocard, I keep losing you. I used to keep you in the back of my phone case, but then I hated having to unplug my headphones every time I had to use you. Now my options are wallet or back pocket. But the wallet usually sinks to the bottom of my backpack, and I feel nervous that I’m gonna lose the train or make people wait at the turnstile for too long. So lately I’ve been keeping you in my back pocket. But this means I have to remember where I left you the night before when I didn’t want you in my back pocket anymore. When I didn’t use you I kinda missed you but now that you are back in my life you bring me troubles. I still don’t want you to be replaced by the new ways of commuting, I am not ready for so much change!
I worked for two years from my living room. I was able to look out the window, take a short walk, listen to the sounds of the neighborhood. Now, coming back to campus I am working in a windowless room. The day passes and I don’t see the sky or know what that weather is like. Taking a trip outside feels like a burden. The day passes but I have trouble keeping track of time. I miss being able move to my reading chair to rest for a moment, opening the window to let fresh air waft in, taking a minute to breathe.
