2 10 239 https://archivingcovid19.libraries.rutgers.edu/files/original/658d90dfd9621f5c4c2225a019383071.pdf 32d5c516d60aee08f224445925f3dbf1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Working From Home Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19, Home Life, Professional Life Description An account of the resource Oral history accounts of the experiences of transitioning from a traditional work environment to working from home. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Donald Koger Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Fall Semester, 2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Website A resource comprising of a web page or web pages and all related assets ( such as images, sound and video files, etc. ). Local URL The URL of the local directory containing all assets of the website https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-you-should-continue-to-work-from-home-if-you-can-during-covid-19 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Why You Should Continue to Work from Home If You Can During COVID-19 Subject The topic of the resource Working from Home Description An account of the resource An Op-Ed promoting working from home. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Christopher Curley Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-you-should-continue-to-work-from-home-if-you-can-during-covid-19 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Healthline Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 11, 2020 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jenniver Chesak Adapting to live under lockdown anxiety Control Rutgers Zoom https://archivingcovid19.libraries.rutgers.edu/files/original/595da23629ec5f4939c8f01b629141eb.pdf 152318f9b850190a0d69febd253dcbcf Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Working From Home Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19, Home Life, Professional Life Description An account of the resource Oral history accounts of the experiences of transitioning from a traditional work environment to working from home. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Donald Koger Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Fall Semester, 2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Website A resource comprising of a web page or web pages and all related assets ( such as images, sound and video files, etc. ). Local URL The URL of the local directory containing all assets of the website https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/09/cnn-mom-pants-interview.html Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource An Interview With the Scientist and Mom Who Had a Little Secret During Her CNN Appearance Subject The topic of the resource Working from Home Description An account of the resource An interview with Grethen Goldman about her appearance on television, including a bit of humor regarding her attire as a nod to the transformation of personal spaces into professional ones. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Heather Schwedel Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived www.slate.com Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Slate Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 17, 2020 Adapting to live under lockdown anxiety humor oal history Rutgers Zoom Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Working From Home Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19, Home Life, Professional Life Description An account of the resource Oral history accounts of the experiences of transitioning from a traditional work environment to working from home. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Donald Koger Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Fall Semester, 2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Donald Koger Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Melissa Newcomer Location The location of the interview Amazed, Pennsylvania Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound DK Okay. Today is November 18, 2020 and this begins and oral history interview with Melissa Newcomer. I am Donald Koger I'm currently located in Piscataway New Jersey. If you don't mind just saying your name and where you are. MNL : I'm Melissa newcomer Emmaus, Pennsylvania. DK: The purpose of this oral history interview is to record and get a sense of people's experiences, thinking about the transition to work from home during the early days of the COVID-19 Pandemic. So, with your permission, I'd like to save our interview here. I'm going to use it in a public archive for a class project, but then it also will be it'll go to the Rutgers Library where it will be publicly available. I just want to make sure you're okay with this being recorded and the contents of our discussion today made public in in my archive project as well as the university library where it may be used in the future. MN: Yes DK: Okay, great. Could you please tell me where and what you do for work? MN: I teach high school Latin. I teach in an affluent district, a very large affluent district. I teach tenth, eleventh, and twelfth graders. DK: Out in Pennsylvania? MN: Yes. DK: And you’ve been out there the whole time since March? MN: Yes. DK: Who do you live with? MN: When COVID first hit, I was living with my parents. DK: Thinking back to March 10th, when the official COVID-19 Pandemic announcement was made by the World Health Organization, what are your memories from that time? MN: At that time, I was teaching at two schools. That Friday before, which would have been the fifth or sixth, perhaps? There was an exposure at one of the schools at which I worked. So I had already been home for a day when schools shut down. I think, because of that, in some ways I was more prepared for that than other people. Thursday, March 12was the last day that we were in school. I didn’t get any work done because everyone was in a tizzy and students have trouble doing work when there’s other things happening. At that point, we thought we would be out of school for around a week but then we were out of school for three months. The gravity of it hadn’t really set in yet. I was feeling- like hysteria? Other people were not feeling that way, but I was. Every one of my classes, I was thinking “I can’t believe that we’re still in school. We all need to go home, don’t come near me. This is not a safe situation.” I remember thinking, “All the schools in Seattle staged walk-outs. I think we should walk out. If we’re here tomorrow, we should walk out.” Which is not the best thing to say, as a new teacher who did not yet have a contract. We had meetings to prepare for it. The meetings were petty much “We don’t have any idea what’s going on but you should take all your teaching materials home with you every day.” That was probably Tuesday, and then Thursday was our last day at school. Then, probably two weeks after that, when the excitement of not having to get up at five AM every day wore off, then stress and panic set in. My sister walked into my parents’ house and all three of us were like “What are you doing? Get out of here! Get out of this house!” So yeah, there was panic. My dad was buying his “last meals.” DK: I assume you started doing online classes at this point? MN: Yes. DK: What was that like, teaching online? MN: feel like that first Friday we were closed, so Friday the thirteenth, spooky. I don’t think we did any work that day. I think we probably had meetings with our department and our admin to talk about what we were going to do. I guess, looking back, how quickly we came up with a plan is pretty astounding. Like I said, I worked in a pretty affluent district. We had the resources to do that, all of our students, for the most part, had laptops already. I think with just the exception of our seniors, because we were doing a roll out and they didn’t have their own yet. We had enough laptops in our district, it was just a matter of getting them out to the students who still needed them. That probably happened within a week. I forgot what your question was exactly, so I’m just going to keep rambling and something will answer it. DK: You’re doing great, this is exactly what we’re looking for. MN: That first day, I feel like we just had some meetings. A lot of it was focused on the mental health of our students. A lot of our students, their parents travel around the world for work, which is why I think we had exposure before other places did our in our area, because of the traveling that was happening outside of the county. There was a lot of concern about our students being home alone all day, if their parents were still going to work, caring for younger siblings, or just not having a good home life and being stuck there. More so than my other teacher-friends that I have talked to about this. Our district was very focused on mental health and I think that was a good shift. I think that one of the good things that came out of this, even now that we are kind of out of the woods as far as things adjusting, the shock has worn off, that’s something that our district is still very focused on. They were before this, because we have a high suicide rate in our county and in our district. So the first couple days, that transition was mostly focused on everyone’s mental health and having meetings to figure out things like what our new schedule was going to be and how we were going to get information to students. Nothing was mandatory, that was one thing they decided at that point. So our students didn’t have to do any of their work, which didn’t go well, obviously [laughs]. DK: It sounds like efforts were being made to support people in the transition. MN: Yes, very much. Granted, that mostly fell on teachers. It as my responsibility, as a teacher, to not only figure out how to teach these kids virtually but to also figure out how to support their mental health. DK: Prior to this transition, having to teach online, did you have a dedicated office space in your home? MN: No. At that point, I just stayed at school late. So I just did all my work at school. Unless my recliner in front of the TV counts, because I did do work there. DK: Did you have access to go to the building to do your classes? MN: No. When we started up again this year, our first four weeks were all virtual. At that point, we were teaching from school, but that did not start until fall of 2020. In March, all the teachers were home. Like I said, in our meetings, we were told to bring everything home with you, “You will not be allowed in the building.” There was probably, about two weeks into distance learning, we were allowed to go into the building. They had scheduled very specific times and you had to personally request to go into the building, it’s not like you were immediately offered a time. As the school year was winding down, they scheduled times for us to go and pack up our classrooms. One of my principals, which I think was just so cool of him, emailed everyone and said “Admin is in the building,” I don’t know which point they drew that line, if it was just the principals or if their administrative assistants were allowed in the building, I don’t know where that line was. Obviously custodial staff was, but one of my principals emailed everyone in the building and said “I’m in the building Tuesdays and Thursdays at this time, fi you need anything from your classrooms, tell me where it is and I will go get it and I will meet you outside by this door and socially distantly hand it to you.” Which is cool, because he did not have to do that. That was a big deal that he did that, I thought. DK: Where were you doing your lessons from? MN: Both of my parents worked through the pandemic. I pretty much had the house to myself. I have an Ikea table that’s beautiful and it folds up, so I could adjust the size of it. I had that set up in my bedroom which was horrible because my bedroom is super small. That table was twelve inches from my bed, which created a lot of struggles. Sometimes I would go sit at the desk and I would just look at my bed. I had that table in there and some shelves to put my books on. DK: Did you have that table already or was it something you bought specifically for this? MN: I had it already. It’s my craft table. DK: Did that put a hamper on any of your crafting projects? MN: On occasion, because it was so full of textbooks and I didn’t have the space for it. I didn’t really have time for crafts at that point anyway. It was more time that affected my crafting, not the availability of a table. DK: Did you find that work took up more of your time than normal? MN: At first, absolutely. We had a couple phases, as I recall. Phase one of distance learning was all optional and all enrichment, well enrichment and that other word, that will come to me in a minute. It was all reviewing material for students who didn’t remember it; or needed extra support; or challenging students who had mastered the material. I wasn’t allowed to teach anything new. It was probably two or three weeks into distance learning that we were allowed to start teaching new material. What was your question? DK: Were you working more hours than normal? MN: The first three weeks, absolutely not. I put up, my favorite assignment was, I told my students “What if COVID-19 became so strong and potent that it could make you time travel to ancient Rome? What would happen? What would it look like?” I had students make videos, some wrote essays, some wrote plays, oh my gosh; it was amazing. A lot of those first two or three weeks was just fun random activities like that. Watch this video answer some questions. Because, sixty percent of my students were not doing it. But then when we started doing new material, I taught for five weeks before COVID-19 happened, so I’m new to this. I have no flipping idea what I’m doing. Then, all of the sudden, I’m teaching new material online and I don’t even feel comfortable doing it in person yet, and now I have to do it online. I have to learn all these new tools that I hadn’t been using previously, I don’t even know how to take attendance yet. So the first three days of phase two of distance learning, when we started doing new material, I was working from 7:30/8:00 in the morning until 10:00 at night. I did that three straight days. I took a break for two hours in the middle of the day to eat dinner and go for a walk with my mom for two hours. I did a lot of that, I think a lot of people did. I was losing my mind. Twelve hours, no what’s that, fourteen hour days? With no human interaction. I’m online doing work but my students don’t show up for our calls because they’re not mandatory and I’m just sitting in this corner at this desk in my tiny room so I can’t even get comfortable in my desk because I’m squeezed in it. At that point, I was pretty much like, “This is not sustainable. It’s not healthy. My students aren’t getting the best of me because I’m miserable.” So at that point, probably after the first two weeks of phase two, I was like: “I need to not do this.” I took a step back, I found three or four online tools that worked really well for me. I used those tools, which was probably really boring for my students, but I couldn’t – I didn’t know how to do more and I emotionally and time wise could not do more. Like I said, we were really focused on mental health. Once I stopped spending fourteen hours a day on my computer, I made sure that I spend more time checking in on my students if I hadn’t received work from them, making sure that they were okay, calling parents, which was another weird thing to do. I don’t have a work phone at home, so I had to star sixty seven, is that what you hit? So they don’t know your number? So they couldn’t call me, and I know, obviously a lot of teachers were doing this. I know one of my friends who teaches, she forgot to hit star sixty seven, and now has a parent texting her and calling her at odd hours, which is so not appropriate or okay. Did I answer your question? DK: Yes. MN: Okay. DK: It’s a good transition into my next question. A lot of folks are using personal equipment for work at home in this time. You’re using your own phone, did you have any trouble getting any equipment? MN: I had my school-sanctioned laptop. Like I said, they told us multiple times: “Bring all of your materials home with you.” Since I had been traveling between schools at that point, I did already do that, because I had to bring it from school to school. Luckily, I didn’t run into any tech issues with my laptop at that point. I know our school did drive-through tech support every other week to help people with that. I didn’t have to print anything because everything was online but I did have a printer at home. There were a couple things that I had forgotten at school. Maybe two things, like my planner, which I was sad I didn’t have, a bunch of notes I had, like content notes about latin stuff, that I had forgotten at work. But I didn’t have trouble getting the resources I needed. Again, I worked for a very affluent district, so I had access to those resources. The district had access to those resources. Other school districts were not as lucky. DK: What was the drive-through tech support? MN: I never had to do it. It was more for students than teachers, although I’m sure teachers did use it. My understanding was you drove up in your car, handed your laptop out the window, and then you would come back the next day and pick your laptop up. I’m assuming, because I’ve had tech issues this year, that they would give you a replacement laptop in the meantime. So I guess you would trade laptops out the car window. We did a similar thing when students had to return textbooks. I helped with that, physically went to school and helped with it, which was terrifying at that point still. Because I was close to people and handing them things, but all the students had to put- I mean all, they were supposed to, put their textbooks in plastic bags. Then we took the plastic bags out of the trunk of their cars. They drove up like a drive through and wrote their name on a list, checked off what books they handed in, and then we quarantined those books for four days before they were sorted and given back to the teachers they belonged to. DK: You mentioned earlier that your dad was buying what you called “his last meals.” Were there any immediate changes in the kitchen in your household? MN: Honestly, those changes were all good because you had to think ahead. My uncle was very informed and conscientious and prepared, so we were like: “If Uncle Chuck is doing it, we better be doing it because he knows what’s going on. He’s smart and I trust him, so we’re going to stock up on food and toilet paper.” We did online grocery ordering and picked up curbside mostly. You have to plan ahead to do that because at that point, you had to wait almost three or four weeks to pick up the order, so you had to think ahead and you had to be conscientious about what you were ordering. You can’t order too much produce and meat supplies were low, somethings were out of stock. There was certainly more creativity but I don’t follow recipes anyway. Since I had more time, I was home more, I was cooking a lot more than I usually. I don’t believe recipes as I do about essay prompts in that if you need them, you probably are not capable of writing a good essay or cooking a good soup. I think there was a flexibility there because if I didn’t have arugula, had to come up with a different, maybe less delicious green to put in my soup. I don’t think our eating habits changed a lot. DK: Were there any items you had a hard time getting or things that ran out? MN: We never ran out of toilet paper but there was a fear of it. There were definitely times that we ordered it and didn’t get it. Arugula would be one of those things, why did they sell out of arugula? I was really upset becuase I wanted to make this super delicious, arugula pizza? I don’t even know. I didn’t get arugula. Cottage cheese and plain yogurt, plain yogurt happened a couple of times and that’s a staple in my diet. I was pretty sad I didn’t get plain yogurt, and cucumbers. Other than that, it was pretty much like just weird random things that weren’t in stock. We had cleaning supplies. I can’t think of anything else that was a repeat offender. DK: Did you make bread? MN: Did I make bread? No, I didn’t make bread. I made a lot of casseroles and soups. DK: We covered a good amount here, and I appreciate you sharing. Is there anything else that you want to add or anything you think we might have missed? MN: I don’t think so. Sometimes I worked outside. I had office hours every day so I had to be on a Teams call every day at a certain time, but literally twice a student showed up. So I sat outside on a Teams call and pretended I wasn’t on one. DK: Did you use any of the virtual backgrounds? Maybe to hide the fact that you were outside? MN: Oh no, I absolutely told my students. I had bright blue sunglasses with eyelashes. They knew I was outside. [laughter]. Sometimes they were outside. There were a couple times where I would get on a call, maybe three times, I had students and they would hop on the Teams call just to say hi, which warms one’s heart, and I would end up being on the Teams call for an hour talking with them. We would often sit outside and to that. DK: Thank you again for taking the time to talk with me. MN: Of course. DK: I appreciate it. MN: Any time. ----------------------------End of Transcript-------------------- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with Melissa Newcomer, a Pennsylvania Resident and Teacher Subject The topic of the resource Working from Home Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Melissa Newcomer, a Pennsylvania resident and teacher who recounts her experiences during the early days of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, where she had to transition from teaching in a traditional environment to a virtual one. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Donald Koger Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Oral History Interview Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource November 18, 2020 Adapting to live under lockdown anxiety Barchi college distance learning oal history Rutgers students Supply Distribution Failures Teachers work from home Zoom Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Working From Home Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19, Home Life, Professional Life Description An account of the resource Oral history accounts of the experiences of transitioning from a traditional work environment to working from home. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Donald Koger Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Fall Semester, 2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Donald Koger Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Paul Orlowicz Location The location of the interview East Rutherford, New Jersey Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound DK: Today is December 4, 2020 and this begins an oral history interview. My name is Donald Koger and I am located in Piscataway, New Jersey. Please introduce yourself. PO: My name is Paul Orlowicz, spelled O-R-L-O-W-I-C-Z and Donald you’re talking to me, I’m in my apartment in East Rutherford, New Jersey. DK: The purpose of this interview is for a public class project and then it will get saved at the Rutgers University libraries, with your permission, where it will also be made publicly available. I just want to make sure that you’re okay with our conversation being recorded, used in my public class project and then handed over to the university libraries where it will also be available. PO: Full permission, absolutely. I have no problem with participating and helping with the project. DK: I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. It’s 2020, it’s December, so future historians should be aware that at this point, the pandemic has been raging for quite some time now. PO: Mhmm. DK: Can you give an overview of who you are, what you do, and how the pandemic has changed that? PO: Well, I’ll go into it in a bit. In some ways the pandemic has changed very little for me, but not in every way. I’ll go into that a bit later. Again, my name is Paul. By profession, I am an ESL teacher, English as a Second Language. I have been an ESL teacher for eight or nine years now. Seven of those years, I actually lived in China. I moved there, I believe it was January of 2012. I moved back to the United States August, 2018, I want to say. So, I’ve now been back in the U.S. for a little over two years. I am currently a masters student at Rutgers University and I am studying history and education; basically, because I want to switch subjects. In a variety of ways, I’m actually a little tired of teaching ESL. It’s very repetitive. Every year, you teach the same thing. English doesn’t change. [laughter]. I really want to switch subjects and start teaching history, because I feel like it will be a bit more of an engaging career in terms of being able to do it for thirty or forty years without getting tired of it because there’s just, you can’t run out of history to teach. Right? Whereas in English, it’s like teaching algebra. Algebra doesn’t change, you teach the same thing every year. So, I’m an ESL teacher in the midst of a career change and getting my masters degree. I grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey. I’m not living in East Rutherford. That, actually, is part of this pandemic story. I moved out of my parents’ house. I was living with my parents, most of the last two years, since I got back from China, because it was a good way to save money while I was getting my masters. When the pandemic hit, however, because my parents were older, and because they’re in a very strict quarantine bubble with my sister and nieces and nephew, I didn’t feel like it was sustainable for me to stay in that very tight bubble. I moved out with my friend Dan, because I felt like I couldn’t justify going on with my life and doing the things I need to do outside of the house, because it would be putting them at risk. I guess that’s about it. That’s a pretty decent introduction to who I am. [laughter]. Oh right, the pandemic, sorry! I said, I would say. The pandemic in many ways has not changed my life. I’m a masters student, mostly. Yes, the classes have shifted online, which is uh, a little annoying. It’s not the end of the world, right? I mean, I’m not a bio major who needs to go into labs or whatever. I’m a history major and most of my work is reading at the library, so yes it’s switched to online, but I hasn’t stopped or curtailed my education at all. Then, in terms, of the small revenue stream that I do have. Which, I teach online. I still teach Chinese children, even though I am now living back in the states. I teach online. Part of it is through a company where I work as an independent contractor and students sign up for my classes. I open up blocks of time and people sign up. The other part of my income stream is some private tutoring clients that I’ve maintained, in China. That’s another thing, right? Because China’s economy as not been as severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, that income stream has not been affected. Yes, my classes are online now, but my education has not really been interrupted by the pandemic and my income stream hasn’t been interrupted either because I’m not dependent on the local economy. I’m dependent on a foreign economy for my income. In many respects, with of course exceptions: my social life, going out places, sort of being me in the world; that has changed of course. I am much more isolated. I stay home most of the time. But in terms of my professional and education life, very little has changed for me. I’m very privileged in that way. DK: You’ve been working from home since you came back from China? PO: Mhmm. DK: That was, two years ago? PO: Two years ago. DK: What was that transition like? You’re changing where you live at the same time as changing the way you worked? I assume in China you were doing traditional classes? PO: Very challenging. I honestly did not anticipate just how different it is between in person teaching, in person classes and teaching one-on-one virtual classes with video. It took me, god, I feel like it took me three months to really fully adjust to teaching online, as opposed to teaching in person. I didn’t even have, at that time, two years ago, I didn’t even have the extra stress of the pandemic. It was my own choice to transition into that. Yes, I felt like it was just so different than teaching in person that it took me quite a while to adjust to that medium for teaching. DK: Did you have any issues finding space in the house to do your work? Did you have a space where you could say: this is my office? Or were you just clearing away dishes after dinner and taking over the kitchen table? PO: I was lucky. I am the last child of four. The house that my parents have has five bedrooms. They’re small, because it’s an old house, but numerous. Of course, I’m the baby. All my sisters are out of the house. I was the last one to maintain a space in my parents’ house. Even when I was living in China, actually. The three rooms on the top floor were kind of always mine. While I was living in China, they were just storage, but because I’m the baby, my parents had plenty of extra space. When I set up my virtual classroom upon moving home from China, I had my own bedroom, my own living room, and my own study. On the third floor. I was very lucky in that regard. I didn’t have to fight for space, I just turned my study into a virtual classroom. DK: Did you have any issues getting equipment? PO: Getting equipment was not the problem. Figuring out the best way to set it up was. I had never done anything like that before. Lighting was a big problem. The way my office was, the window is to my right, in the study. So I would get this side light that would kind of cast awkward shadows on my face. I ended up, honestly, looking up on the internet how to improve lighting. Especially with the job where I do independent contractor work, I’m basically fighting other teachers. I’m in competition with other teachers on the platform for the clients, for the students. The move professional I am, the better I do; the easier it is to get regular clients who will book you every week or so. I wanted to make sure that it was going to present professionally, there wouldn’t be any awkward shadows, and honestly the figuring out the lighting was the biggest challenge. I ended up having to buy these ring lights, on these bendy, flexible sort of things. I have one light above and two lights to the side to illuminate under my chin so it all looks bright. I wear glasses, which was a huge problem! Because I couldn’t have any light directly at me otherwise it just looks like giant white lights in my glasses. The lighting was the biggest challenge, honestly. Getting the equipment? It was just a matter of buying it on Amazon or going to Staples, or whatever. But figuring out the best way to set it up and how to make myself look okay- I also have, in my digital classroom, I have a white board behind me. I also had to figure out how to position the lights to not reflect badly off the white board also. The lighting was the biggest challenge because in that platform, the nature of it, having to fight for clients; having to compete for clients, essentially. You want to be as professional and have as good of a digital presentation as possible. DK: That’s all well beyond my abilities. PO: I had to Google how to do all of that. [laughter]. There was a learning curve! [laughter]. DK: In contrast, just to compare this to current experiences. Your classes are now virtual, and I assume they are using video technology. PO: Mhmm. DK: Are you using any of those same lighting tricks now or is that mostly for the professional Paul? PO: Once the pandemic hit and I decided to move out of my parents’ house, my mother and I initially compromised and said that I could still use the attic and still use my virtual classroom, as long as I don’t live there. Don’t use their bathroom or kitchen, obviously, just go up and down the stairs to the third floor with my mask on. Just walk up and down quickly, I only used the side door, so I didn’t have to worry about door knobs on the front or the back door, which is what my parents use. In the short-term, that was a great compromise. I would wake up in the morning, go to my parents’ house, go upstairs, teach and then leave. Because it’s on China time, it’s early morning for us in Eastern Standard Time. As time went by, that became a little bit less sustainable. I did put a little bit more focus into setting up this. It’s just my kitchen, but I have a small apartment. There’s not any other space for me to do it. Actually, I don’t have it on right now, but now I just turned it on. It’s actually a therapy lamp. I don’t know if you’ve ever hard of a therapy lamp, but it’s for use in the winter to help keep your mood high because of the lack of sunlight. DK: Vitamin D or E or something, right? PO: It’s mostly because it enters in through your eyes, so it’ tricks your brain into thinking that it’s still summertime. I’m now using my light therapy and I ended up moving my television, or repurposing my television as a second monitor. There’s a second monitor here, so that I could work in two places. Honest to god, especially as a teacher, I can’t imagine people who are really doing work every day in this digital video format and not having two monitors. I just can’t imagine. I had a friend who does all their work on just one little laptop, and I’m like: “How do you get through the day with just one screen?” [laughter]. DK: Setting up this space where you’re living now, how much has that disrupted what normal life might have been like? Let’s say you made this move when there wasn’t a pandemic? PO: Initially, like I said, the initial compromise, I was going to my parents’ every morning and then just realized that was not sustainable. Setting this up in my house, though [sigh]. It is problematic. For one, my finances are strained because of the pandemic. Now I’m paying rent. I wasn’t paying rent before. I didn’t feel like I could justify another fifty-dollar camera and more little circle lights like I set up back at my parents’ house. I didn’t want to dismantle the office at my parents’ house either because I still use it sometimes. It became, like repurposing my therapy lamp, right? Repurposing my television so I wouldn’t have to spend more money. The financial strain of the pandemic that disturbed this whole process. I had to figure out how I could set this up to be professional, but still not have to spend any more money on it. Then the second thing, of course, I live in a small apartment now. The only way I could afford to move out was to move in my friend. I live in the living room, essentially. It’s a very East-Asian sort of living situation. Small space, two people. The only choice was to set up in my kitchen, which is not the end of the world. Sometimes I use my dishwasher as a backdrop. I actually have a white board I can magnet onto the front of my dishwasher and that can be a small board. One challenge of setting up the second post-pandemic setup here was finances. I didn’t want and I didn’t have the money to spend on new equipment like I did two years ago. Then, the other thing, like I said, of course, was just, where am I going to do it? Where it’s not going to get in the way of my roommate or get in the way, in general. The kitchen became the only place, which is complicated because it sucks away a third of the kitchen space. So, my kitchen, which is actually a pretty good size, is now kind of reduced in size, so to speak. [laughter]. DK: How has that changed cooking? PO: I just have less space to work. Or, if I do need the extra space for cooking, I need to shift my laptop over, put the wireless keyboard away, etc. It requires a little bit more daily shifting. It is a permanent setup, but no so permanent. It’s more flexible than the setup at my parent’s house, because it has to be, because it’s in my kitchen. It effects cooking sometimes. It just adds time. If I’m doing something complicated in the kitchen and I have to partially dismantle my setup here, that’s an extra ten minutes to dismantle it and when I finish cooking, an extra ten minutes to put it back together. So it just sucks up time, mostly. I don’t have that permanent office space that I had at my parents’ house. DK: Did you ever try and makeup as part of your presentation for your online teaching or just the lighting? PO: Just the lighting. Although, I know people who do things like that. I think, if the teaching I was doing was different, because the teaching that I’m doing was chosen because of the flexibility. Because I’m focusing more on getting my masters than I am on making money right now. This business that I’m doing, or this platform that I’m using to make money, it’s really only semi-professional. Yes, I have to compete with other teachers for clients, but on the other hand, it’s not as serious of work as working at a normal school like I used to. Perhaps if I was doing more serious work, I would spend even more time on my image. For, I think the level at which I’m teaching, or the quality of the program that I’m teaching, just getting the lighting right was enough for me. I didn’t feel like I really needed to go the extra mile in other aspects of my presentation. DK: It could be very easy to get lost in all those details. PO: Mhmm. Just look at YouTube stars. I remember, and this is just a small anectdote. Towards the beginning of the pandemic, Stephen Colbert, who I watch pretty religiously, or maybe it was Seth Myers. One of the two of them. During one of their monologues, went into this whole thing about how, because they were suddenly not in a big studio, they were doing their shows from their home. They gave props to all these YouTube stars and YouTube influences and they were like: “God! You know, I never realized how much work it is to get everything right in your home and your own spaces because it’s not a professional studio.” They were just like: “To all those YouTube stars out there, I give you credit because you’re doing this all on your own, with no help.” I agree, it’s much more work and much more thought that you need to put into it than most people realize, when you shift into this video based at-home situation. DK: What do you remember about the first days? When the pandemic first became real for you? For a lot of people, it became real the day the World Health Organization announced the pandemic. PO: Mach 11, yes. DK: When did become real for you, and what was that like? PO: Earlier. My clients are all in China. They were in lockdown in January, February, March. My business was BOOMING because I’m the side school. I’m not the main classes they take in their normal day classes. I’m like their night classes. My business was booming while they were in their lockdown in January, February, and March. I was already hyper-aware of the whole situation, starting in January. I also have maintained both a professional and social network in China because I lived there for seven years, which is pretty significant. Of course, I also knew through my friends and former colleagues, the seriousness of everything. I was fully expecting it to come to the United States. Most of my peers and my parents and everyone was shocked that it got into America. I was like: “No, of course it’s coming.” So, I was ready. DK: What changed? Did you stop doing anything or did you start doing anything differently? PO: Good question. What changed? One, I took advantage of that boom in business that I just mentioned. In February and March, I probably made more money and booked more classes than I ever have. There was another change, actually, in the, I want to say late summer, early fall. Business was gone, it disappeared almost. I suspect, although I don’t know this for sure. I suspect it was because the people in China had become, sot of fatigued from this whole situation and decided just, “You know what? We’re taking a break from life.” [laughter]. Including booking classes with me. [laughter]. In the late summer and early fall, there was that change. Taking advantage of the business opportunities during the Chinese lockdown; losing the business opportunities in the end of the summer and beginning of the fall, when I think most Chinese people were like “We’re taking a break,” those were really the only big changes. Because I had started teaching online prior to the pandemic, my own life didn’t change much, as I mentioned before. DK: When was it that you moved out of your parents house again? PO: That was the beginning of July. March, April, May, June, four months. I was at my parents’ house still. We were in extremely deep quarantine. NO supermarket. Everything delivered. The only thing left my house for, for four months, was to go on bike rides, too keep myself from going crazy. That was it. For four months, I never left the house for ANY reason except to exercise. Then I moved here in the beginning of July, because I knew that wasn’t going to be sustainable for me and I wanted to make sure that I had myself set up in my new place by the time the fall semester started and I was going to start my new courses for my degree. DK: How did that change? It sounds like you went into hermit-mode early on? PO: Mhmm. DK: What was that like? To go from being able to leave the house and go to the grocery store to- PO: Right, right. On the one hand, like I said, there was no change. I had already been working online. Of course there was a huge change in my social life. One of my resolutions, New Years’ resolutions that is, in January was two things: One I was going to get myself in better shape again this year. I feel like it was really bad when I was having my reverse culture shock, when I moved back to the U.S. Culture shock is a serious thing and reverse culture shock is often worse than the initial culture shock when you move to a place. It took me a year and a half to truly get over my reverse culture shock, to be honest. My New Years’ resolution for 2020 was get back in shape, improve my diet and also visit friends, do some domestic travel. January and February, I was at the gym three or four times a week with my flat-mate; well who’s now my flat mate. We were really kind of going at it, and then March happened and that was it. That was it. All hope of being able to fulfill, I mean yes I was able to go for bike rides and whatever, but it’s just not the same. Being able to do things at home, it’s not the same as being able to go to a gym to a place where everyone around you is sort of doing the same kind of activity. My goals for 2020, my personal goals. Not so much professional, and not so much school, but my personal goals were completely detailed by this pandemic. Those first four months in that deep deep quarantine, with not even the supermarket or anything was very stressful mentally. My mother struggled more than I was expecting her to. She’s always been kind of a rock in our family and I actually found myself being a bit more of the stabilizing factor in the household, more than I was expecting to be. My parents still, even to this day, still do not do any supermarket or anything. I now do, because I live on my own with my flat mate. I’ll just, honestly, going to the supermarket, or the Seven-Eleven, or to get a coffee at whatever, is one of the things that’s been keeping me mentally stable since I moved out. Because my social life is still- yes I’ve opened up enough to go run my errands, but I’m not willing to do other things. Right? Like a large amount of social life or whatever. DK: Did you run into any issues when you were ordering your groceries online? PO: [Groans]. I mean, okay, so yes and no. It depends on your perspective. One of the things that actually as a problem between my Mother and I – you have to understand, and I know I’m generalizing here, and this is probably going to make me sound like a dick, but- My mother is a Baby Boomer. As such, she is spoiled rotten, whether she realizes it or not. [laughter]. From my perspective, especially, living for many years in a developing country, the access that we had to food delivery and everything was fine. Right? Yes, it as a bit of a challenge to get a delivery time or whatever, but we got enough. T’s not like we were starving, plus we had basics in the house anyway. Because I saw this coming, as early as January, I had already fully prepped the house with basics. My mother sometimes has these things where like for example, “I’m having this particular meat dish, so I only have that with broccoli.” Or, she has these things in her head where certain main dishes have to go with certain side dishes. So where I was at, my perspective, having lived abroad for so many years in a developing country: I was just like “Whatever, so we spend a few months not having the side dishes we want. Who caes?” But this really, this was hard for my mother. It was much harder for her. You know, not having, like “Oh my god, we don’t have sour cream! For this whatever.” And I’m like, “Okay, so we’ll make it different side dish.” “Oh but this side dish GOES with what we’re cooking!” So, yes it was a challenge getting food delivered. It didn’t bother me so much. Except for the time consumption, I guess, of having to spend so much time on your phone to get all this stuff done. It didn’t bother me so much, it bothered my mother a lot more, the sort of limited access, or oh maybe you’d get it this time but not next time. Trying to think ahead about everything I might need in the next week or two. It bothered her much more than it bothered me. DK: Some stores offered substitutions. Some were better at it than others. Did you have any items substituted for a different brand or even a different item? PO: [laughter]. At first, yes. They generally were substituted with things that we would not use or could not use and we just ended up giving them away, so then later, after a few times of that happening, we just set the app to “don’t replace.” If they don’t have it, then just take it off the order. After a few times where they would just give us something that we didn’t want, I just said, “Well, forget about it. If they don’t have it, they don’t have it. C’est la vie.” So, we changed the settings on the app. DK: The big question. Did you make bread? PO: NO! No. But, boy did it become popular, right? No, I did not. I did not increase my baking at all. It’s not really my thing to begin with. I’m more of a cook and less of a baker. My dad is more of a baker. But even him, they’re on a keto diet because of my mother’s very specific condition that my mother has. The keto diet is ideal for her condition to reduce inflammation. They don’t eat much bread, anyway. Or baked goods because a keto diet is a very low carb, I think maximum of fifteen grams of carbs a day, which is often covered by just vegetables. They don’t eat much bread to begin with, and I’m okay with sliced bead. During the pandemic, when we were getting things delivered, if they sent me the wrong bread, I was just like, “Whatever, I’m not starving. I’m not some starving farmer in Western China, I’m alright.” DK: How long passed between you going into hermit-mode, and I want that to be the term future historians use, and having a cup of coffee that you did not brew at home? PO: Ahh! It was like the first day, maybe the second day after I moved to this apartment that I’m in right now, in July. I went to my favorite coffee shop, Ara Coffee. I will totally say their name. For the record, it is the best coffee in the state! Those four months I was in hermit mode, I missed it! It is the best coffee you will find anywhere in New Jersey, I swear to god. It’s in Rutherford, New Jersey. Ara Coffee, A-R-A Ara Coffee. Run by a lovely South Korean family. DK: When did you start doing take-out food? PO: Take out food? My parents are, again they’re Baby Boomers, they’re relatively well-off. We went into that whole “Support local businesses” thing. It’s not something that I can really afford to do, now that I’m living on my own. But for my parents, it’s something that they’ve been really trying to do. They probably order-out maybe twice as much as they used to? Usually, it would be they would go out to eat maybe once a week. Now they’re probably ordering take-out twice a week. And they’ve been trying to go to different restaurants to kind of spread their money around locally. DK: Can you compare what your spring semester was like versus your fall semester now? PO: I’ll start with the fall semester. The fall semester has been pretty stable. I don’t really like going to class online, but I tolerate it. I don’t really like not being able to go to the library, but I tolerate it. The spring semester, though, because it was half in person and then right before spring break, Rutgers went on lockdown and everything shifted to online, it was chaos. It really was. It wasn’t just chaos because of the school. It was chaos because of my private life. Dealing with the emotional complications from my mother, or from myself as well. I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t have my own emotional issues when this whole thing first happened. Still do. I think we all have a lot of emotions. The transition to digital mid-semester like that, in the spring semester, I ended up taking an incomplete in one of the two classes I was taking. I was able to get most of the work done except for one paper and I was just like, “Screw it. I have to focus on me right now. I have to focus on me, and I have to focus on my family. I have to focus on moving out. I have to focus on my mental health.” So I took an incomplete in one class and I managed to finish all the work in the other class. Being thrown into digital classrooms halfway through the semester, kind of all of the sudden, was not good for me. [laughter]. That’s one of the reasons I moved out, because I recognized it wasn’t going to be as sustainable living my parents. I wanted to make sure that I was set up in a way that would be better for mental health and better for doing classes online, because even as early as May and June, even though it was before Rutgers official said that fall classes were online, the department head that I was talking to said: “Paul, it likely will be online, so prepare for it.” And I did. Part of me moving out, setting up the second digital space that I have here in the new apartment. All of that was that to prepare for the fall. I don’t like it, but I was able to spend the summer. I had the luxury, and the privilege, and the money to set myself up for the fall semester very well. A lot of people just didn’t have the time or the energy or the money to prepare for whatever was coming next, but I really took a solid three months to just make sure everything in my life was as ideal as possible so that when the semester started it would go smoothly. Like I said, it’s so far been pretty smooth. Don’t like it, but smooth. Spring semester? Chaos. [laughter]. I’m not that happy that I have an incomplete. I have a year to finish it. Thankfully it’s just one paper, it’s one project, so it’s not the end of the world. It was chaotic enough in the Spring that I decided that taking the incomplete was the best route. DK: We’ve covered a lot. I really appreciate you taking the time. Before we go, is there anything else you’d like to add? PO: Not that I can think of. We really did cover a pretty broad range of things. I guess the only thing that I’d like to add is: for anyone out there who might be listening to this. Not in ten years, but maybe a bit sooner, if you don’t have a second monitor in whatever you’re at home set up is, invest in a second monitor. Repurpose an old TV or something, because having a second screen with whatever your home setup is, it makes such a difference. It really does. It makes it so much more user friendly, so much easier to deal with all of the situation if you have a second screen. That’s my advice for anyone who reads this. DK: Thank you very much for talking with me. PO: You’re very welcome. ----------------------------End of Transcript-------------------- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with Paul Orlowicz, a New Jersey Resident Subject The topic of the resource Working from Home Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Paul Orlowicz, a New Jersey resident and graduate student who had been working from home prior to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, but needed to relocate both his living and working space while his studies had to adapt to a remote environment. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Donald Koger Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Oral History Interview Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 4, 2020 Adapting to live under lockdown anxiety Barchi college distance learning oal history Rutgers students Supply Distribution Failures Teachers Zoom Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Working From Home Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19, Home Life, Professional Life Description An account of the resource Oral history accounts of the experiences of transitioning from a traditional work environment to working from home. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Donald Koger Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Fall Semester, 2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Donald Koger Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Miss Z Location The location of the interview Middlesex, New Jersey Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound DK: Today is December 10, 2020 and this begins an oral history interview. My name is Donald Koger and I am located in Piscataway, New Jersey. Please introduce yourself and say where you are. Z: Sure. I am Miss Z. and I am located in Middlesex, New Jersey. DK: The purpose of this interview is for an archive as part of a class project that will be made publicly available online. With your consent, the contents of this interview will be made public as part of my project as well as passed along to the Rutgers University libraries where they may also be publicly accessed. Do I have your consent? Z: Yes, you have my consent. DK: Thinking back, what are some of the first things that you remember from when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit? Z: I will be honest, and Chris, my fiancé, will probably tell you the same thing. I didn’t think it was as big as it was going to be. I was still wanting to go out even though I was working from home, and still wanted to do all these things. Even now, there’s bits and times where I’ll think, “Oh, let’s go out and eat breakfast,” and Chris is like, “No, we can’t do that. We have to stay home.” It was just a little bit of a shock, trying to wrap my own head around: “I can’t go out and do things.” I couldn’t go and visit with my parents; I couldn’t go and visit with friends. It was just very very lonely and boring, to say the least, being stuck in the same four walls all day. DK: When did you first hear about COVID-19? Z: I remember some people saying some things about it, but I don’t watch the news all that often. Everything I got was hearsay from other people. The first really big sign, that I knew something was going on, I was at work at one of my jobs and I received a text message from the school I work at, saying that all of our after-school activities, all concerts, all musical performances were going to be canceled and everybody is going to be having a half day, the following day, in order for teachers to change to possibly teaching fully virtually. Then, when I got the call on Saturday night, saying you are now all fully virtual, no one’s allowed in the school building. It was kind of like, “Holy shit, this is craziness.” Also, when I was working at my other job, at the food store, there was lines and lines of people getting hundreds and hundreds of dollars-worth of food and taking all the toilet paper, milk, all the snacks, and everything like that. DK: In March, you were working multiple jobs? Z: Yes. My main job is a school-teacher at a school in Paterson, New Jersey. I also teach private lessons in a music school near where I live. At that point in time, I was also working as a cashier in a supermarket for a couple months. DK: So you were busy? Z: Yes! Yes, trying to save money for that wedding that got postponed. DK: You had a wedding postponed because of this? Z: Mhmm. DK: A lot of changes. Z: Yes. DK: What has that been like? Changing the date? I’m not married, so I have no idea what goes into a wedding. How was that? Z: I ended up ordering my dress in a weird way. I went into the store, I tried on a whole bunch of dresses. This was also, the Sunday before everything was going on. Went, tried on the dress, and a couple weeks later, I called the store and they said, “We are not letting anyone in, but we can do a phone order.” So, I ordered an eleven-hundred -dollar dress on the phone. That ended up coming in about three weeks after we decided to move the wedding date. For the most part, we already had most of our stuff. We had our centerpieces. One of the things that we had to do but we couldn’t do because everything was closed was we couldn’t get the guys’ suits, we couldn’t get the girls’ dresses or anything like that. All the little stuff we couldn’t do. DK: What happened with work once everything hit? Z: Once everything hit, we ended up going fully virtual. My school thought that it was only going to be for about two weeks. We put a plan in place for two weeks, and then two weeks turned into four weeks. Four weeks turned into, “We’ll reevaluate after Spring Break.” Then, they decided to close us for the rest of the year. For the first two weeks, they wanted us to do reviews on stuff. The homeroom teachers were doing reviews from the beginning of the school. I was just doing, as a music teacher, fun things for them to do. Then, they started wanting the homeroom teachers to actually teach some of the curriculum. Being a special, they didn’t mandate us to have live-Zoom lessons, just activities because they understand that teaching a ‘special’ is not necessarily core stuff and it’s supposed to be fun. We still had to do something because they had grades for it. We weren’t allowed in the school building, if we needed to get something, we realistically needed to talk to our admin team. After the first two weeks, they said, “If you need to get something, contact admin and then go in.” I’ll be honest, I stayed home. I left the building on March 13 and I did not return to the building until I had to pack up my stuff in June. We weren’t allowed to teach in the building, no kids were allowed in the building, all the secretaries were working from home. The nurse was working from home. It was very interesting. DK: Did you end up doing any live instruction? Z: During that time, the specialist team decided what the kids needed was some interaction with people outside of their homes. We did a fun Zoom with each of the grades. For one day, we had all of kindergarten, one day we had all of first grade. So that way they could interact with each other in a supervised setting and have some fun instead of just being bored at home. I didn’t really start doing any teaching music from a computer until September. I did have Zoom calls with some of the kids, if they needed extra help, or they didn’t understand something. I said, “Okay, come join my Zoom, I’ll talk you through the assignment.” DK: How was that? Z: It was interesting. The days we had all of the kids, it was very loud. We couldn’t mute it because we had to hear and supervise them. It was great seeing the kids. I didn’t realize, as much as some of them drove me crazy as a teacher, and I’m sure you know this from you driving your own teachers crazy a little bit, I missed them. Them coming on and saying, “Miss Z., we miss you. We miss you.” I still miss it now. I have students I never go to say goodbye to when they graduated Third Grade because they went off to a new building. There’s still some kids, who I never got to say goodbye, so it kind of breaks my heart a little bit that I’m never going to see them again. DK: You were also doing private lessons before the pandemic? Z: Yes. DK: Did you do any of that, virtually? Z: Once March hit, they all switched over to Skype. Teaching private instrumental lessons through Skype is very interesting because you can’t go and physically fix their fingering. You can’t play with them, the sound’s not going to line up for duets. You can’t get them used to performing with another person. It’s getting better. I do have some students who have excelled being at home because all they can do is practice. I have some students who have gone on the downside with the private lessons because they are at home and not practicing. They’re watching TV and playing video games instead. DK: What happened with your job at the grocery job? Z: The week after my school closed, that one first week, I actually took off from the supermarket because that was supposed to be my tech week for my students’ musical. After my tech week, or the first week of quarantine, I called them and said, “I can’t come back in anymore.” Chris didn’t want me to come in because he’s still going to work, he’s immunocompromised, and the food store is one of those places where I could catch something easier compared to if I just stay at home. After that, I went on leave, and then when things didn’t change in June, I ended up giving them my resignation because I didn’t want them to hold a spot for me if I wasn’t going to come back in the summer. I ended up, when summer hit, I went and worked for my parents’ company, managing and working in one of their stores. At any point in time, there’s no more than four people in that store. It’s not that crowded, so I wouldn’t have caught anything working there. DK: It sounds like everybody would behave there more than we’ve seen at the grocery stores. Z: And there is more distance. It’s a larger store so I could distance myself easier, compared to being behind a checkout counter. DK: Thinking about working remotely, did you have any issues creating a space in your home from which to work? Z: You’re looking at it. I take over a spot in my kitchen from 7:30 in the morning until about 3:00 or 3:45 when I can’t sit in this area anymore. That’s it. The only reason I picked this spot, even though I’m in my kitchen, I have knives in the background, I have my back door, it’s the only place where I have a light that’s right over my head. So, the kids can see me and I’m angling it so I don’t have liquor in the background, or photos of me and Chris in the background that might be distracting to the students. DK: Have you had any issues with getting physical equipment? Z: My school actually gives all the teachers laptops. So, I’ve had a laptop with my school since I started, five years ago with them. We already had a table in place, because this is where Chris does his painting and sometimes cooking on it. The only thing that I had to get that might have been a little bit of an issue getting was, some school supplies I needed at the beginning of the this year. Like masks and stuff like that. For working from home, not really, because I had all that stuff here. DK: Did you already have a home internet connection? How has your internet been? Z: We already had a home internet connection. When we moved in, about six years ago, we decided we would get the fastest speed internet that we could. Knock on wood, I’ve only had one main issue with my internet. That was two weeks ago, where it just, all of the sudden, crapped out and we had to call Optimum to come out to fix it. I was lucky enough that my school was like, “Okay, that’s fine, you don’t have to do live lessons that morning, just keep us up to date.” So, I put an assignment up and I taught in the afternoon. DK: It sounds like you were pretty-well supported by the school. Z: Yes. In September, my school started a hybrid program where kids staying fully virtual and I had kids in person. The kids in person, it was okay. The kids virtual it was okay. But then, combining the two together, I didn’t know who to focus more on. Sometime after Halloween, we had an outbreak on the campus, we had to close and a whole bunch of people had to quarantine for two weeks. After those two weeks, my school, higher up than my principal, wanted to have all the teachers come back and all the teachers would teach from the building but the kids would stay home. My campus put up a fight about it, and we don’t know if it was because we put a fight up about it, about going back even though we got exposed, or because so many people still had to quarantine; they let the teachers stay home. After Thanksgiving until January, I want to say January 11, all teachers and all students are fully remote. They’re going to re-evaluate after the holidays. DK: When it first hit, you mentioned that you were working at a grocery store and that there were people buying a lot of certain items. Either working there, or in your personal buying, did you notice any things going out of stock? Were any things harder to get than others? Z: Yes. I noticed, and this was the Thursday, after I worked in the supermarket. I went to do my own food shopping, there was no toilet paper, no paper towels. There were hardly any tissues, I don’t remember if there were any napkins, but that was the one main thing that I saw that was just crazy-insane, how there was none left. Same thing with cleaning supplies. I understand the cleaning supplies, I understand the paper towels, I STILL don’t get the toilet paper. [laughter[. Food-wise, not that I can think of. I think a lot of people were getting soup, non perishable stuff, stuff for kids snacks. There were people who were getting a lot of meat, but I think that there was a sale on meat so they were picking up the meat because there was a sale, not necessarily because there was a quarantine about to happen. DK: Did your buying habits change at all? Z: I will be the first one to admit, I never, I didn’t pick up two paper towels in one thing. But I do have an entire, unopened thing of paper towels and an unopened thing of toilet paper, extra in my closet. Now, I just make sure we always have an unopen thing of paper towels and unopened thing of toilet paper. Once I see that I’m in that, I’ll get another one. It’s one of those, just in case, I don’t want to run out of that but I don’t want to overstock it too. Trying to get a lot of crackers and stuff, non-perishable stuff for snacks and everything or lunch. I was trying to avoid getting a lot of frozen foods, although I jam-packed my freezer, not realizing it. Then, I was going food shopping maybe every two weeks in March. I’d go food shopping, I’d do a huge haul and then I’d have no room and no idea what do eat because I never plan out the food I want to eat for lunch or what we should have for dinner. DK: Did your eating habits change? Z: I have a bad habit sometimes, if I’m busy and just working and working, I won’t eat. For example, yesterday, I had cereal for breakfast and I realized at 3:30 when I was leaving to go to teach my lessons, I didn’t eat lunch. The only thing I can say is, that changed, where I’ll either not eat or I’ll just snack all day. That’s just normal for me. If I’m teaching, or if I was teaching in the school, it would be the same thing. Okay, I’m hungry, I have twenty minutes, lets scarf down a yogurt. But now I don’t want my lunch. DK: Did you make bread? Z: No. [laughter]. I didn’t make bread. I didn’t bake in March. I think I started baking some brownies and some muffins in September, but like boxed stuff. But yes, I didn’t make bread [laugher]. DK: We covered quite a bit. Z: Mhmm. DK: If you could tak to yourself back in March, or earlier, what would you tell yourself? Z: Maybe try and spend more time with friends and family that I didn’t think to spend time with. I normally go and see a friend of mine every summer, but with everything going on, I didn’t see them. I also haven’t seen my cousins who are seven and ten, I think, I haven’t seen them since last Christmas. Seeing my mom, like three times since March, it’s kind of hard. But spending time with more family as much as I possibly can, and make sure not to stay up super late and try and get on a regular sleep schedule. I know, right now, I’m having trouble making sure I’m on a consistent sleeping schedule staying home being home and trying to make sure to stay on a sleeping schedule. Don’t freak out as much. DK: That’s the tough one. Z: Yes. Don’t freak out as much and don’t get upset with the people around you when you start freaking and you can’t handle your own anxieties. [laughter]. DK: That’s the tough one. Z: Yes. [laughter]. DK: Thank you very much. Z: Yes, no problem. DK: Is there anything else you want to add, or anything else that should be included? Z: Not that I can think of. DK: Thank you. Z: No worries. ----------------------------End of Transcript-------------------- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with Miss Z, a New Jersey Resident and Teacher Subject The topic of the resource Working From Home Description An account of the resource An oral history interview with Miss Z, a New Jersey resident and teacher. Miss Z recounts her experiences while working multiple jobs, including as an educator, during the first days of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Donald Koger Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource December 10, 2020 Language A language of the resource English Adapting to live under lockdown anxiety Barchi college distance learning oal history Rutgers Supply Distribution Failures Zoom Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Working From Home Subject The topic of the resource COVID-19, Home Life, Professional Life Description An account of the resource Oral history accounts of the experiences of transitioning from a traditional work environment to working from home. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Donald Koger Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rutgers University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Fall Semester, 2020 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Donald Koger Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Kathryn Tracy Rizzi Location The location of the interview Branchburg, New Jersey Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound DK: Today is March--no, November 13, 2020. This begins an oral history interview with Kathryn Rizzi. My name is Donald Koger and I am located in Piscataway, New Jersey. KR: My name is Kathryn Tracy Rizzi, and I’m currently in Branchburg, New Jersey. DK: This is an oral history interview that I’m conducting for a class at Rutgers University in order to help document people’s experiences during the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’d like to use this interview in the class and then it will then be passed along to the university library. It will be made public. For the class project, we have an omeka site where it will be accessible. I just want to make sure that I have your permission to conduct this interview and that you consent to it being made public and made available for future use by the university. KR: Yes, I give my consent. DK: Just to begin, you currently live in Branchburg, New Jersey? KR: Correct. DK: Have you lived there the whole time since the pandemic was declared? KR: Yes. DK: What do you remember, off hand, about the days surrounding the World Health Organization announcement that COVID-19 had become a pandemic? KR: While I don’t remember the exact date that the WHO declared this a pandemic, my memories are shaped around Rutgers’ response and the subsequent shutdown of [the State of] New Jersey and the schools. What I remember is being completely shocked. In retrospect, I should not have been shocked and I’ll explain why later, but I was completely shocked. [During the] weekend of March 6, my husband and I went skiing. We were at Elk Mountain in the Poconos. We got there and there was nobody skiing. We said, “Is there no one here because of the pandemic? Are we, as a result, really silly to be here during a pandemic? Or is it because of climate change and Pennsylvania has gotten no snow this winter?” That was on a Friday. We skied that weekend. The following Tuesday, March 10, Rutgers issued the email [in which they said] they were going to suspend brick-and-mortar teaching and shift to virtual and outlined the whole plan for following spring break. By Thursday, March 12, we were working from home, and by the next week, schools had shut down. My husband was working from home. I was completely shocked and taken off guard. I should not have been. My sister lives in Berlin, Germany. She had been sending us articles since January about the impending pandemic and what we should expect. Then, from doing interviews of Rutgers administrators since that time, Rutgers also had a response going in January, maybe even before (in December), but do not quote me on that. The Rutgers response was going on, but people like me were not aware of it. So, I was taken totally by surprise, maybe because of media underreporting, maybe because of lack of attention from the Executive Office, the Chief Executive, President Trump. There’s probably a whole bunch of different reasons, but I was shocked and probably should not have been. DK: Where did you first hear about COVID-19? KR: In the news. It would have been, probably not in December, it would have been in January. I go running every morning, and I listen to news podcasts. I sometimes listen to NPR’s Morning Edition. I remember hearing about NPR reporting on it in China. I can’t tell you exactly when that was, but it was probably January; it could have been December. DK: Do you remember how long passed between hearing about COVID-19 on the news and your sister sending you articles? KR: It was [mentioned] a tiny bit in mainstream news, so like CBS, CNN a tiny bit. My sister was sending articles that were stressing the urgency, how Americans need to take this seriously. I can’t pinpoint the timeline of that. I do know that the concern that I placed on the pandemic from my news sources versus what my sister was telling me were different. That's what I was thinking. DK: Once you started receiving news, did your buying habits change at all? KR: Actually, no, besides having to buy more food because there are four people in our family and one dog, and we were home basically 24/7, so we had to buy more food. Our food-buying habits didn’t change. We did start buying stuff more online, consumer goods. Our food-buying habits did not change. We did not hoard food. We suffered from a toilet paper/paper towel shortage like everyone else did. We discovered that probably most of it was being stockpiled at my sister-in-law’s house. [laughter] Our food-buying habits didn’t change besides having to buy more food, and then our buying habits with buying online, mainly through Amazon, have really changed. Just to give an example, do you want a non-food example? DK: Sure. KR: For myself and for my children, I try not to buy books. We borrow from the library, and with the libraries closing, because they were completely closed for a while, we were buying books on Amazon. DK: Did you and your husband both transition to working from home about the same time? KR: Yes, I was the first to work from home, followed soon after by my husband working from home and my children schooling from home. DK: Do you have an office space you can normally use in your home, or did you have to set something up for this? KR: At that point, in March, we did have to set up work spaces. We don’t have a dedicated office. We didn’t before the pandemic, and we still don’t have an actual dedicated office. When my husband has meetings and when I do interviews, we use my daughter’s bedroom, which has a huge desk. We can shut the door and that’s our "office," where when the door is shut, our children know, “You may not enter. There’s business going on in here.” Then, we had to set up other spots around the house for private work spaces, you know, near plugs. So, right now, I’m in my basement. [Behind me] is a couple pictures and printer, and if I turn, you’ll see a whole bunch of toys over here. Then, I have little corner in my bedroom where there’s a rocking chair and there is a plug right there and that’s one of my work spaces also. Because our children are schooling from home, a lot of times we are sitting around the dining room table, with our kids next to us, so we can keep one ear on what they are doing, make sure they are on task, and make sure we are there to help. So, sometimes it’s just a big shared family work space. DK: Did you have a hard time obtaining any office supplies? Did you already have a printer at home, for example? KR: That’s a really good question. I have not had any trouble obtaining office supplies because our office established a procedure for ordering supplies that get shipped to me. The rest of the technological infrastructure of my "home office," I have had to erect, let’s say. The printer/scanner behind me, that was my mother’s. She gave it to me. That’s been absolutely invaluable. I’m on my PC, which is my own personal PC, and my husband and I pay for our Wi-Fi. Things like IT support, getting access to our network files through V-P-N [Virtual Private Network], Rutgers was unable to help me make that connection. There is one person, for the record, Donald Koger, who helped me map my network drive in a way that was sustainable because IT couldn’t help me do that, despite good intentions. The person hacked into my computer and couldn’t do it, basically. Those are the infrastructure issues that I’ve had to set up for myself. DK: Did you have any trouble finding office furniture? KR: Yes, actually. A lot. We still do. I need to order a desk; I’m working on a ping-pong table. I’m in my basement and this ping-pong table is doubling as my desk. I’m sitting on an antique chair that my mom gave me and there’s a pink swivel chair that’s next to me that has a scooped seat. If you sit on it, it causes sciatic back pain within fifteen minutes. [laughter] These home office essentials, we still don’t have everything we need. DK: Have you had any conflicts as far as multiple people needing the same space at the same time? KR: Yes and no. With my husband and I, no. We coordinate in the morning what time we each have meetings or obligations. So, for me, an obligation would be doing an oral history interview, which is a chunk of probably three hours that I need to be alone and in a space and then there’s the child care issues that he would have to take care of in that case. Vice versa, when he has meetings. Then, I make sure that he has the space and the time and support to have his meetings. Space conflicts with the kids are: one of my children is nine, so if Mommy is in the room, Mommy is automatically available to fulfill his wants and his needs, which becomes a conflict. My older child is twelve, and while she will ask for things and I’ll have to say, “Not now, I’m doing something,” she is certainly more understanding and less demanding. DK: Have you had any experience trying to work from home pre-pandemic? KR: Yes, I have. From 2010 until 2018, I was a part-time staff person for the Rutgers Oral History Archives, working from home. That was my original mode of operation in my capacity working for the Rutgers Oral History Archives. In that sense, this kind of adapting to this pandemic virtual workplace has been pretty natural because I enjoy working from home. It’s something I had done for a long time. I am task-oriented and organized, so I don’t have any problem getting anything done. I was working from home while raising very small children, so coming up with some sort of balance of work and family was also something that I had been doing for many years and I was used to it. DK: Do you feel like you’ve found a good rhythm to balance the work and home life now that they are taking up a lot of the same physical space? KR: Yes, we’ve definitely come up with a system and a balance in our family. For my husband being able to work, me being able to work, and our kids being able to be successful in school, we have come up with a balance, but that’s not to say it’s not challenging, because there are constantly new challenges presented. For example, there’s been two models of schooling for my children since March. There was March to June of 2020 and then there’s this school year, starting in September. Then, in January, my son’s elementary school is going to switch again to a different format, and there’s a chance that my son would have to switch teachers. That’s just incredibly disruptive in the middle of the year for a kid to have to do that. It would actually be the second year in a row that would happen. Challenges like that come up. That’s not a work challenge, but it does effect work because I’m working from home and my son is schooling from home. We are going to have to figure out a whole new, third system and then adapt everything around it. DK: Did you have any issues getting your internet set up? Four people draw a lot of bandwidth. KR: Luckily, no. We have really good internet speed. We have like two hundred megabytes per second. That’s really good internet speed, so I haven’t had any problems. That is, it’s expensive and we are paying for that. We are supporting two professional jobs and two educations on that; it’s expensive. We go that extra expense because we need it and I think it certainly makes me appreciate that we are lucky that we do have that. So many people do not have that, and the digital divide is just becoming even more pronounced. I see that in my job. You hear about it from other kids that are in our world. I see it in my job, doing interviews with people who either don’t have internet, don’t know how to use something like a video conference, or have really slow internet speed, and that impacts things. I’m definitely aware of that digital divide. It’s just something that we already had set up, luckily. We were just fortunate to have that already. DK: Is there anything that you miss about working in the office? KR: I’m an introvert, so I’m okay being at home in my little bubble with my family because that’s who I draw my energy from. That’s who I want to be around, so I’m okay in that type of situation for a sustained amount of time, whereas a lot of people aren’t. I am an extroverted introvert, if that makes any sense; I do like other people. I miss being in the office and being around other people face to face. I miss face-to-face interviews with people; it’s different doing virtual interviews. It’s going well, it’s working, but it’s different. So, yes, I’m missing that collegiality on a day-to-day basis, missing that teamwork on a day-to-day basis, that collaboration, that brainstorming that happens in an office. That’s something that I miss. Seeing other people in the building who I don’t work with but just talk to, that’s something I miss. Being on campus is something I miss. I love being in New Brunswick, working in New Brunswick, it’s super fun. However, I don’t have to commute, so I’m more productive and I don’t have to waste all that time every day going to and from work. It’s a huge waste of time. In terms of just comfort, I’d rather work at home, I’m more comfortable. I don’t have to dress up. I don’t have to do my hair every day. I don’t have to wear shoes when I’m at home. My home is comfortable. My office at work was always 120 degrees. [laughter] I just want to say, for the record, I do miss my two monitors in my office, which I was so spoiled by. DK: How have your eating habits changed? KR: Not really much. I think we have always really focused on buying really good quality food that’s healthy and eating really well, in a healthy way. That’s always just been something that we’ve done. We probably spend a pretty penny on food. In terms of our eating habits changing, not really, except that meal time has become more special. Because we don’t go anywhere, having a meal and sitting down with my husband and kids has probably become more special, more of an occasion. I’ll say, for example, to my husband, “I’m going to make bacon, egg and cheese melts for breakfast. 9:00 AM, meet me at the counter.” We put our laptops down and just eat and talk a little bit and just have this great breakfast. We do that almost with every meal. Sometimes during lunch, we will work while we eat, but we really do try to eat together. Then, we have family dinner every night. So, I’d say not much has changed. A positive, on a lighter note, my kids now eat lasagna. They did not eat lasagna before March. [laughter] So, that’s awesome. DK: Did you make bread? KR: I am one of the few who has not made bread. [laughter] DK: Any plans to try the sourdough bandwagon? KR: No, absolutely not. I see everybody’s pictures, well, in March and April/May, I was seeing everybody’s pictures of their really stale hard-looking bread that they were posting online and I said, “I am never making bread.” My sister and her now-fiancé were making bread and sending out pictures and I just said, “Nope, we are not making bread.” DK: Is there anything else that you feel we may have missed or anything you want to add? KR: I want to add that this has been a really challenging time for everybody. It’s been a challenging time for working parents, it’s been a challenging time for students, for graduate students; it’s just a challenging time for everybody. I’m so thankful that I still have a job. I’m thankful that my husband has a job. And I‘m thankful that my kids are able to go to school like they’ve been doing and have had the infrastructure in terms of Chromebooks and internet to be able to do that. I feel lucky because a lot of other people are undergoing circumstances that are more challenging, [situations] that are really severe, that are showing economic disparities in the country. In my immediate family, we have all had our health as well. That’s been a huge factor and something I’m really thankful for. DK: Thank you very much for taking the time to talk with me. KR: You are very welcome. It’s been my pleasure. Thank you. ----------------------------End of Transcript-------------------- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with Kathryn Tracy Rizzi, a New Jersey Resident Subject The topic of the resource Working from Home Description An account of the resource An oral history interview where Ms. Tracy Rizzi recounts her experiences during the early days of the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic. 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Title A name given to the resource European Soccer During COVID-19 (Serie A, Premier League, Ligue 1, La Liga) Subject The topic of the resource Soccer, COVID-19, European Domestic Leagues Description An account of the resource An account of how the coronavirus impacted the domestic soccer leagues of various countries in Europe. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Can Eker Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Can Eker Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Infront ties up with Serie A for first eSerie A TIM Subject The topic of the resource Soccer, COVID-19, European Domestic Leagues Description An account of the resource The Logo of the Top-tier Domestic League of Italy (Serie A) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://www.insidesport.co/infront-ties-up-with-serie-a-for-first-eserie-a-tim/ Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 8, 2020 Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kunal Dhyani #soccer https://archivingcovid19.libraries.rutgers.edu/files/original/91e2f9ff94c5a712457475508ab05e9d.png eb9a9fa7e7de6c6892d130d4dae14ba3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource European Soccer During COVID-19 (Serie A, Premier League, Ligue 1, La Liga) Subject The topic of the resource Soccer, COVID-19, European Domestic Leagues Description An account of the resource An account of how the coronavirus impacted the domestic soccer leagues of various countries in Europe. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Can Eker Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Can Eker Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource This is the logo owned by Premier League for Premier League. Subject The topic of the resource Soccer, COVID-19, European Domestic Leagues Description An account of the resource The logo of the England's Top-tier Domestic League Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource EFL Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://www.premierleague.com/matchweek/5676/blog Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available premier league #soccer https://archivingcovid19.libraries.rutgers.edu/files/original/5c8b3f7614a01f126d275d3e1f727bf0.png 068894c152c9b9a179e862af223e0695 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource European Soccer During COVID-19 (Serie A, Premier League, Ligue 1, La Liga) Subject The topic of the resource Soccer, COVID-19, European Domestic Leagues Description An account of the resource An account of how the coronavirus impacted the domestic soccer leagues of various countries in Europe. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Can Eker Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Can Eker Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New Logo for Ligue 1 Subject The topic of the resource Soccer, COVID-19, European Domestic Leagues Description An account of the resource The Logo of France's Top-tier Domestic League (Ligue 1) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ligue 1 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://www.ligue1.com #soccer https://archivingcovid19.libraries.rutgers.edu/files/original/e16f05a89341cd3e73098ae006ae5f63.png bf2f81de2752eb9537360c7a83847b5c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource European Soccer During COVID-19 (Serie A, Premier League, Ligue 1, La Liga) Subject The topic of the resource Soccer, COVID-19, European Domestic Leagues Description An account of the resource An account of how the coronavirus impacted the domestic soccer leagues of various countries in Europe. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Can Eker Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Can Eker Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data photo Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Subject The topic of the resource Soccer, COVID-19, European Domestic Leagues Description An account of the resource The Logo of Spain's Top-tier Domestic League Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://www.laliga.es/logos Title A name given to the resource Logotipo de LaLiga #soccer