Like a lot of college students, I’m stuck in my apartment trying to process what is happening as this crisis unfolds day by day. This is a collection of my very scattered thoughts in journal format.

Thursday, 12 March 2020, 3 PM: Brigham Young University cancels all classes through Tuesday, March 17 to resume online March 18 and encourages students to go home if possible.

As I sat on a bench in the sunny first-floor study area of the Talmage at 3 today, staring at my copy of City Upon a Hill, I heard cheers from the various corners of the building. BYU doesn’t have a spring break, so three days in the middle of winter semester feels like a very long time. But the atmosphere quickly became liminal and surreal. Everyone was processing—on the phone, talking with each other, staring blankly at their homework. This was goodbye to our physical campus community.

I’ll miss it. I was homeschooled for all of K-12, and high school for me was sitting alone, reading textbooks in my room. My first course in a classroom setting was Writing 150 last semester at BYU, and I loved it. I’ve felt more sharp and focused than ever when surrounded by people in the academic context—in the swivel chairs on the fifth floor of BYU’s library overlooking campus, or in a windowless lab in the Talmage. Campus seemed to me like an essential part of the college experience. And now we’re all homeschooled.

Thursday, 12 March 2020, 6 PM: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [suspends all public gatherings] (https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/gatherings-worldwide-temporarily-suspended) of members worldwide effective immediately, beating their own effective date for suspending large gatherings announced on Wednesday.

No doubt that the First Presidency of the LDS Church did their duty in protecting public safety with this decision. In a college town where the vast majority of students practice the same organized religion, this was very effective. And for a religious person in a secular-by-default society, community is an anchor for me. Worship service every Sunday and an occasional game night help me feel like I am a part of something, and make my religion more “real.” As a BYU student, I have two communities: friends from school and friends from church.

Wednesday, 25 March 2020

I walked to campus today to pick up books. I haven’t been out in almost two weeks. All of the surfaces seem radioactive. It’s hard to know what the risk of getting the virus is at this point, and COVID-19 seems to be “worse than you think” as a general rule, so it’s prudent to be overcautious. The effect is that what was mundane before is fraught now. But right now, all of this danger seems so peaceful.

I’m sure there are beautiful spring days in Chernobyl and Pripyat. There is cognitive dissonance that results from walking around a beautiful but empty campus and trying to imagine it is an exclusion zone.

What kind of war is won by staying home? Maybe it’s just that it’s so hard to think about a pandemic with the vocabulary we normally use for crises. Hate crimes, oppressive policy, and war all have a human culprit. Acting in defiance is an option. We can stage protests, build tanks, and hand out awards for patriotism. Not so with the virus.

A pandemic seems like a crisis engineered to be devastating—one that anticipates the human response to crisis. We can’t send out an army to defeat it. Our fear of illness or death is not offset by patriotic drive. No going out in a blaze of glory in the line of duty, just suffering and dying in isolation. Viruses punish so much of the default behavior that people use to overcome crises.