Lessons Learned in 2020

Simon Armstrong, 20, is a psychology major at UW-Platteville. Armstrong was born and raised in Rockford, Ill. on the west side of the city. He was top ten in his class at Guilford High School. Armstrong is a free thinker who says what’s on his mind. In his free time, he likes to go on walks, play video games and watch basketball.

Q: How did quarantine affect your life. Did it anything change?

A: My major changed, that certainly pushed me out of my current major because I hated online schooling but then I learned that I hated the major anyway. I started playing video games more. I couldn’t just do as much shit with people. I guess that’s how I felt for a little while. It didn’t affect me that much because I didn’t work.

Q: Would you say you were afraid of anything? Were you worried about your family?

A: No, I was not worried, the only part that scared me was that this thing affects old people.

Q: Were you worried about your grandma?

A: Yeah that was part of it, but initially I was like no we are going to go party. We are gonna go back and fuck around. They are going to send everyone home and we are going to get sick, so yeah that was our attitude towards it we didn’t take it seriously at least when we were leaving.

Q: How do you think the quarantine and the pandemic affected politics and jobs? Do you think it changed anything or will we just go back to normal?

A: We’re just gonna have a bunch of automation, I guess it pushed that along. It will make it so that I guess people will be working more from home now on. That just depends on what they are doing, of course. If you’re in a factory job of course they are going to be at their job but if you are in an office or some white-collar bullshit you can arguably work at home through a computer. It, in the U.S., I guess it brought division. I don’t think covid became as politicized in England or some shit. There was a lot less stuff about masks there. I think for the most part we are going to go back to normal. I guess we will become more health conscience or some shit. Maybe people will be in better shape after this.

Q: Did you learn anything about the people around you or your community or the U.S. during this time?

A: I mean, I’m not going to say because ya know because fucking George Floyd died we have more racism and shit like that. I already knew shit like that existed. I learned how fragile the us health care system is. That one I learned very quickly. Even in the greatest country in the world you can still overload if you have too many people in hospital beds in critical condition.

Q: Do you think the pandemic would have been as politized if it didn’t happen during an election year?

A: It depends, let’s say it started in 2018, 2017, 2018- 2019 sometime around there.  At this point by march 2020 or by the summer in 2020 it’s been largely destroyed, but that may have not happened if Donald was in f***** office still. Maybe the vaccine roll out wouldn’t have gone as smoothly. Maybe it would have. Maybe it wouldn’t have. I don’t know. I am imagining that it would have gone pretty well. If he handled it well, which he didn’t. So, let’s say it happens in 2017 it ends in 2018 fall the republican would say he did such a great thing remember that. The democrats would have said that he did a bad job and this is why, so remember what happened. It would not have been as fresh in people minds but it still would have been politicized because it’s one of the biggest things that’s happened in the world. If it happened earlier, it still would have been politicized. I don t know if you would have had the anti-mask sentiment. Maybe Donald would have worn a mask. I don’t know if that was an election year thing. If fucking Benghazi can be a politicized issue and Obama’s birth certificate can be a politicized issue than this can definitely be politicized.