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Date: March 12th, 2020.

Time of Writing: 9:17 PM.

Weather: Chillier than it's been the last few days. Threatening to rain.

Mood: Saddened, upset.

Day Overview: Both of the classes I had today spent a lot of time talking about the move to online instruction. College Writing compressed three classes' worth of material into a singular day, which was intensely, acutely stressful in ways I don't want to put into words. That was the last time I'm going to see Tsz for a long time. She gave me a hug when we parted, which just made me feel even worse. I spent a good deal of time in the morning packing for the move, even more than I had last night. Montreal trip is 100 percent cancelled, by the by. I'm packing like I'm not going to return, despite the university's decision to not definitively cancel. I got an email from the director of the concert and marching bands here at the university, Dr. Timothy Todd Anderson, inviting members of the band community to come and watch the concert band rehearsal today given that it's entirely likely the concert won't take place. I made a mental note of that in my head as I went about my day. Some of the people on my floor took a group photo to commemorate the year, which I joined in on reluctantly. I didn't want to, but I returned If On A Winter's Night A Traveler to the library. I'm not going to be here for a while, so it was the right thing to do.

I took my Media and Culture midterm while sitting on a couch in the Integrative Learning Center. It was moved to an online quiz, which was good because it rendered it open book. A good deal covered the first two weeks of class, which I missed because I hadn't switched in yet. The lecture slides were never posted online, so there was nothing I could do about that material. I think I did alright, but I'm really not sure. Film studies primarily described how we'd be shifting to online courses, and that there were librarians working on securing streaming rights for movies not already on Kanopy or YouTube.

Midway through I got a text from my Dad that he got laid off from work.

I've been trying not to panic these past few days. Most of my words have been spent telling others not to panic, in fact. But this almost broke me. He worked in event management and consulting, which is an industry getting hit insanely hard right now. All major sports leagues are postponed, many conventions and conferences are cancelled, Broadway has shut down, Disneyland is shuttered, states are banning gatherings over a certain size - nobody wants to schedule an event right now. My first thought was I need to get a job to help out with my family, and my next thought was Nobody is hiring during a pandemic. We'll talk more after I get home. I'll try not to bug Dad too much about it until we all talk as a family. If he wants me to remove this paragraph, I will do so without hesitation.

Afterwards I spent some time packing my suitcase specifically, and then it was time to watch the concert band rehearsal. I saw Jackie there - she'd come to watch - as well as a few of my other friends who are in the band. Though it was definitely rough at times, overall I think the band was very good for where they are in the semester. My Grandma saw the livestream on Facebook and shared it, thinking I was in the ensemble. Apparently, I have a doppelganger sitting in the front row, though I could not see him. LOL. I'm glad she watched it and was thinking of me. Spencer, who's in the band, met me after rehearsal ended. Via was listening from outside - the three of us went to get dinner and then played games in Via's dorm. Spencer won Billiards, I won Ping-Pong, and I won Air Hockey. We sat around for a bit after that, and then Spencer had to go. I left with him. It's gonna be sad not seeing them for a long, long time. This isn't how I wanted this semester to end at all.

On My Mind: Trying not to panic. If I go on for too long here, I'll start to panic. For some reason - maybe due to all of my anxieties about the future - intrusive thoughts filled my head this morning of what it would be like to have a son. I don't have any intention to have children until I'm at least as old as my parents were when they had me. In fact, I might want to wait a few extra years. But I couldn't stop thinking of being a dad for a good hour or so in the morning. Freaky stuff.

• You Made Me Realise by My Bloody Valentine: It's a lot more lo-fi than I was expecting. You can hear the start of the hazey, vacuum cleaner-y sound that MBV are known for here. I like this a good deal more than the follow-up debut album, Isn't Anything. Maybe I'm a sucker for lo-fi, maybe the fact is that these songs get to the point. It's a very concise little piece of music. Very shy sounding, very tormented, I half expected it to take a sharp left into screaming territory a couple times. The soothing sounds of Bilinda Butcher's vocals feel like they can give way to nightmarish noise any moment, like a tight walk rope over a pit of spikes. This EP shows up at the party, looks around, stays close to the wall, and then leaves after a few minutes. In that sense, I can relate to it a lot. 8/10. I might have to reevaluate Isn't Anything a little.

• I didn't really have time for anything else today.

Works Produced: A hundred words of classwork, maybe? And not all in complete sentences. But I wrote several hundred words of fiction, which isn't the complete creative bender I went on two nights ago but, well, it's something.

Other Thoughts: Thank you for reading my blog. Tonight is very likely my last radio show of the semester. Please tune in to WMUA Amherst at midnight to hear episode eight of The Theme Machine: Travel and Transportation. You can do so on 91.1 FM in the area or WMUA.org online.