Let’s throw it back to the start of the year, shall we? Pre-COVID-19 territory. My biggest worries at the time included getting coursework finished, my dissertation filmed and edited, preparing myself for graduation and throwing myself into the big bad world of journalism – or so I thought. It goes without saying that what I had expected of 2020 has been in no way a reality, much like how every other person on this earth’s 2020 has gone.
My first memory of Coronavirus occurred when completing a week’s work experience at my local television news station (STV North) and the headlines during my entire time there were mainly Covid-19 related. “41 confirmed cases of a new Coronavirus in China” sprawled across the tv screens in the newsroom. I remember thinking to myself that it was a Swine-flu imposter, a disease that probably wouldn’t affect us all that much – so why did it have to take up so much airtime? At this point there were very few deaths and confirmation had only just come through that the virus was human-to-human transmissible. No one in the newsroom seemed particularly affected by the news, none of my peers seemed worried by the idea of a new virus – it was in China, Wuhan to be specific. What did we have to worry about?
“It’s strange how an occurrence that was so familiar in the past is now something completely forbidden.”
Flash forward to March. The first death in the United Kingdom. An older man with underlying health conditions. Cases were now rising at a steadier rate. I don’t remember this commotion with the Swine Flu? Yet, things still seemed normal, life was still going ahead as planned. I attended a concert that housed 15,000 Stereophonics fans, an activity that seemed completely normal at the time, although, in hindsight it seems like a completely out-of-this-world thing to do. Now, the very thought of a concert with thousands of people feels like something that will never happen again, a distant memory. It’s strange how an occurrence that was so familiar in the past is now something completely forbidden. Then there was the announcement of a death in Scotland and things became more serious. How could the virus kill someone in our country? I stared at my computer screen and pondered the idea of the country going into lockdown. I projected my concerns onto my family who told me not to worry and to get on with my studies.
This is when things went from 0-100. I had been down in Glasgow filming for the documentary I was producing at the time as part of my dissertation, and although I had wondered whether the interview would go ahead or not, it did and so I made the trip. Things were uncertain, and I didn’t want to lose an interview if there was no real reason to with the possibility of a national lockdown potentially blowing over. Yet, it was when I pulled up in the driveway of my flat-share from said interview that an email came through from my university stating that classes were off, and the university was closing all their facilities. As I sat in the driver seat and accepted that my university career had officially ended via a mere email, I booked a moving van to take me home.
“Whilst a reality-check has definitely settled in, I am grateful for lockdown showing me how much I want to succeed.”
Ahhh lockdown. What a time for everyone. After finishing my dissertation and coming to the conclusion that, yes, an online graduation will suffice in the grand scheme of things “with everything that’s going on”, I went through all the phases: digging out the old Xbox, starting exercise again (it was the only thing we were allowed to do outside of our houses and it did allow me to lose all the university weight), cooking (a lot of cooking), Munro bagging, clearing out old stuff and mostly pining after the days that my friends and I would sit in our local Wetherspoons. Eating out seemed almost criminal and a holiday? Abroad? Are you mad? I worried that we’d never socialise again.
It’s been 7 months and 2 weeks since Coronavirus landed in the UK, and there have been 41,608 deaths. My dreams of a promised graduation, birthdays, celebrations, holidays, nights out, nights in, hugging, kissing and eating out are all just a drop in the ocean. Now that restrictions have eased and we (2 households of us) can eat out, drink in pubs and visit our loved one’s homes, I have realised that although these things are extremely important to me, what I hadn’t realised would be so affected would be my career. I knew that graduation was cancelled, that gatherings weren’t going to be able to happen for a while but what I hadn’t initially realised was the effects on the job market. I didn’t realise that a job I was never promised in the first place now seems unattainable. Companies are financially struggling, and many graduate programmes have been cancelled. Whilst a reality-check has definitely settled in, I am grateful for lockdown showing me how much I want to succeed, that the opportunity of sitting down with an interviewee will one day be mine again. It motivates me to do my best to both contain the virus and maximise my opportunities as a recently graduated, yet currently unemployed, journalist.
Many of the rules set by the government may be confusing but just as people want to go to cinemas again, party with their friends, hug loved ones and go on holiday – I want to start my career. I want to type up articles in coffee shops, I want to meet new people, engulf myself in office culture and be the journalist I have dreamed of being long before 2-metre rules and hand sanitiser. So, until then I’ll continue writing until things get better – and I’ll do my part in staying safe for the benefit of me and those around me.
Kirstin Tait
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash. Image license can be found here.