By Nicole Baldwin
This COVID-19 pandemic has not been easy on anyone. Everyone’s routines and mindset have changed since lockdown. For me, the lockdown started when I was a sophomore at a community college. I was starting to do my student teaching when we were all told to stay home and away from anyone who was not immediate family.
I was supposed to graduate with my associate’s in Early Childhood Education that year and since I could not complete my student teaching I decided to transfer to Western New England University and decided to go for my bachelor’s in Psychology. When I transferred here last year, masks were required everywhere, even outside.
I lived in Evergreen, and we weren’t allowed to have more than 6 guests in our dorm. No outside visitors were allowed and testing was required and randomly selected throughout the year, if you did not go they would lock you out of your classes on Kodiak. It was weird to go from not wearing masks to wearing them everywhere. Everyone got used to it after a while.
Transitioning back to not wearing masks everywhere felt weird. I did not mind it… I felt like I was naked if I walked into a store without a mask or I felt like I was committing a crime; I was waiting for someone to yell at me to put it on. I had to keep reminding myself that the mask mandate was lifted and that no one was going to yell at me.
Not wearing them in classrooms now is even weirder. Since I have transferred here I have never seen my professors’ faces. I felt like I still needed my mask just because there are days when I feel insecure about my face and the mask would easily cover it. But since we’ve been wearing masks for so long, it’s better for our bodies to get used to the air again. Overall, now I’m getting used to having my face be shown to the world again.
