On March 16, 2020, the governor of Pennsylvania issued a state-wide stay at home order. Up until this point, Grove City College was one of the few schools remaining open. Sadly, with this order, the Grove was finally forced to close its doors and move to online classes. But some students were not able to return home. The 30 or so of us stuck on campus nicknamed ourselves: The Remnant. During my time with The Remnant, I journaled about my life on campus.
April 1, 2020
I apologize for the lack of updates over the past few days. I’ve been quite busy with schoolwork and spending time with The Remnant so I haven’t found the opportunity to write. We haven’t done much out of the ordinary the past few days. I’ve hit it off very well with one member of The Remnant in particular. She took an interest in my balisong skills, so I’ve been teaching her some tricks. I’ve quite enjoyed our time together as we have very similar senses of humor and tastes in music. Speaking of balisongs, I’m close to mastering a trick that has eluded me for several years due to lack of time for flipping. Now that I have the time, I’ve been able to learn the Behind the Eight Ball. It’s a fairly advanced maneuver, and I’d recommend you look it up on YouTube. My new trainer has proved very useful in learning new tricks. I’ve also become the de facto tech guy, not just for my professors, but now for the students on campus. It’s been fun helping people solve problems and helps distract me from the fact that we’re effectively trapped on campus. This evening we had a meeting with one of the RDs in which he told us that we are not allowed to leave campus unless there is something truly essential that we need. On the plus side however, he also wants to try and keep some kind of social activity going. We’ve already been doing so, but now that we have an RD we have a little more power at our disposal which means being able to possibly use the large lecture halls for movie nights. Since he’s also backed by the campus, he has some money he can use on events which means snacks for movie nights. I’m oddly looking forward to the coming weeks and what they have to offer. I hope this extra long post has made up for my absence. Until next time. -Jacob
This hopeful outlook marked my final journal entry. Due to increased workload from school and the time I was spending with The Remnant, I opted to stop writing. We had a few more adventures, but for the most part we fell into a steady rhythm of school and game nights. I hope you have enjoyed this series as much as I have enjoyed putting it together! It was a very unique experience and I am glad to have shared it with the world. Thank you for reading!
