My Twelfth Week In Lockdown - Coronavirus Crisis

So much has changed for me this week. I’ve gone from being a stay at home uni student, to going back to work and no more uni work! I think this is probably my busiest week in lockdown so far, which compared to normal life really wasn’t that busy but for lockdown, I was pretty busy!

This week, I was un-furloughed from my part-time job after nearly 3 months, and I returned to work ahead of the reopening of the store the which is next week. We had a big task on our hands with stock being out of date due to us being closed for so long, so we had a big turnover of stock, change of season and a big cleaning job. We also had training on the new rules and regulations of how the store will run once it is reopened with the social distancing rules and the safety of customers as well as us. I am feeling apprehensive ahead of my first shift back in retail after such a while as I hate the unknown, added to the fact that I haven’t really left the house or been anywhere for 12 weeks so mixing with customers, even if socially distanced, will be new to me. It’s also very unpredictable what shopping behaviours will be like, but I’m sure as everyone’s confidence increases, shopping behaviours will be constantly changing. Over the next few weeks, it will be interesting to see what happens!

I virtually celebrated Callum’s birthday this week, one of my close friends who I met through theatre school when I was younger. We had a really long catch-up on Zoom with our theatre friendship group and the time went so quickly! I haven’t had too many occasions to celebrate birthdays during lockdown, but as far as I know, I don’t think they seem to be as disappointing as anticipated at the beginning of lockdown. I think everyone is putting a lot of effort into celebrating and making it special for people even more than they possibly would have normally, so even though everyone can’t be reunited to celebrate, virtual celebrations are doing the job well.

On Thursday, I was involved with the Leeds Beckett Library and Learning Innovation staff conference which of course, was held virtually this year. I spoke at the conference in person last year, as a first year student, and I was filmed the previous year when I was studying for my A Levels as part of the conference too. I think that the staff have found it interesting seeing my progress through my years at university and this year I took part in a Q&A with the staff members to answer some of their questions that they had for students during the year and also through the pandemic. It didn’t feel like I was talking to around 70 people on the conference; the virtual aspect kind of hid the amount of people that were part of the conference because I couldn’t see everyone, which was a good thing for my nerves, but I do really enjoy things like this, because it felt like I was having a chat!

This week my delivery also came in the post. I’d ordered myself a gratitude journal, to help me concentrate on the positives in life at the moment. It’s a really nice activity to do before getting into bed to round the day off and focus on what I could do tomorrow to make a better day for myself. This week was the first week I have had it and I’ve really enjoyed reflecting on my day and setting myself goals to better myself, as I think that at this time in our lives, we are being given more time to breathe and focus on ourselves and better ourselves for the new normal to come.

This week, I FINALLY finished my second year at university. I handed my last assignment in on Friday and celebrated with my family with a Dominos, gin and Celebrity Gogglebox. I feel kind of lost with what to do with my free days now; it feels like I have so much free time on my hands and I don’t really know what to do with it. I am really grateful that the lockdown measures are slowly being lifted because it means I can meet up with my friends now and sit in my garden or go for a socially distanced walk, which will definitely make a huge difference because I am missing everyone a lot now. I have listed a few things I can do through my free days, and I want to tick at least one thing off a day on the days I am not either going to work or seeing someone, so I can keep being productive and get stuff done whilst I have the time.

I feel like there is going to be less and less to update everyone on as lockdown keeps being prolonged. I am hoping and praying that progress keeps being made in the pandemic and slowly when things start to open, it doesn’t damage how far we have come as a nation.

Thanks for reading! Keep smiling and have a great day! Liv xxx