Since I was little, I've had the biggest expectations of college. I wanted to go to a place like the University of Oxford or the University of Washington and live my best Dark Academia life, reading old literature and having debates about the meaning of a film. I would have friends who valued education, and every night we'd stay up late discussing existentialism and planning how we were going to change the world. I would spend my free time reading under trees as old as the surrounding buildings and drinking tea in small coffee shops. Growing up in midwestern America, this wasn't necessarily reality, but a girl can dream, can't she?

Even though this big dream of mine wasn't necessarily what I expected my college experience to be, I never thought that I'd instead spend my first weeks of college hiding away in my private dorm room, in fear that I may contract a virus that's killed nearly 860,000 people worldwide and has no plan to stop anytime soon. While I have very little to complain about, as I'm young and healthy, and I'll most likely stay healthy for a long time, I'm still fear-ridden that I may contract the virus and pass it on to someone that may not be so lucky.

Rather than going out every night, making friends and having the experiences of a lifetime, I spend most of my time sitting alone in my dorm room, too scared to get within 6 feet of another human. Making friends is incredibly difficult, as the only thing to do is walk around campus, and after the 15th walk of the week, that starts to get incredibly dull (though I understand the necessity of social distancing, and I'm happy to do it for as long as it takes to get this virus under control).

One of the worst parts of this pandemic is that I have no hopes of life going 'back to normal' anytime soon. The cases continue to rise exponentially everyday, and with the amount of people still not wearing masks or social distancing, the ignorant and selfish nature of our communities is almost as concerning as the deadly virus. I'm sick and tired of hearing about large gatherings of privileged students, acting as though their lack of social distancing isn't going to be the cause of a large number of covid cases.

I'm constantly hearing students complain about not being able to go out and party (or complaining about getting in trouble for partying), and while I understand that to an extent, I also think that minimizing a global pandemic down to just the reason you can't party is absolutely incorrect and completely selfish. People are dying, and yet there are students worried about whether or not they'll be able to go to a frat party on Halloween (you won't by the way).

It's understandable to be upset about the effects of the pandemic, especially if you're doing everything possible to stop the spread of the virus- I mean, that's literally what this article is about- but it's not okay to ignore the pandemic and act like your lack of mask and need to party isn't going to make this pandemic last even longer.

Wear a mask, social distance, and start taking the lives of others seriously- it's not that hard.