Hey, my name is Jiaxin Tong, and people call me Jack.
I'm a international student from China.
And I major in film and television in College of Communication.
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Because I live on campus, President Brown sent us email saying that
we have to leave the campus before Sunday because of the coronavirus,
and that all classes were moving to online.
Some of the international students decided to leave campus and
go back to their countries during that time.
I signed up for petition to stay in the same dormitory, and I got accepted.
The reason why I wanted to stay on campus,
the first reason is it might be dangerous for us to leave campus to fly back home.
That's one thing that my parents were worried about.
And secondly, they may affect our courses as well because the VPN and
the Wi-Fi may not work in China.
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>> Then the shutter will open, take a picture and close and
they turn that into a movie camera where that mirror will spin around.
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Life in my dorm: every day, it's the same.
Doing course, being in the class.
The only thing I can do is to sit on my bed, watching movies, watching videos.
That's my day.
Playing video games by myself, reading books by myself,
there's no surprise, I cannot go out, hang out with my friend.
Or have lunch with my friend.
Not anymore.
So, yeah life is pretty boring now.
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So things are different, streets are quiet now.
I'm doing self quarantine and I barely go out these days.
As you'll see people jogging on the street and
some of them decided to not wear a mask.
But I do wear a mask and I prepare myself before I go out for shopping or for
walking.
I put on gloves and masks.
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As I'm walking on this empty streets, this empty campus,
I'm thinking, am I the only student left in Boston University?
And I keep asking myself, was it wrong decision to stay on campus?
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Food here is not a problem for a quarantine because I always can go out for
shopping to get soup or to get snacks or cookies.
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We have abundant food supplies in supermarkets.
I always buy instant food or frozen food that can be heated up in microwave,
because it is easy for me to make myself a meal.
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And also dining hall.
Warren dining hall is still open.
It is very weird to see nobody sitting in the dining room.
The dining room seems so empty now compared to the past.
So, I can go to dining hall and pick up some food.
They have sandwiches.
They have salads.
My favorite thing to eat is of course, frozen dumplings and frozen udon.
Also, if I feel lazy where I don't wanna cook for myself,
I can have food delivery which is really convenient.
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So I'm out today again to dump my garbage and to get some water.
So every night I put on my mask and I go out and
take a 15 minutes walk because we don't have that trash can in the building.
So I have to go out and dump my garbage in Towers.
It's the most interesting part of my day because I can get out of my dorm,
get off my apartment to breath in some fresh air.
Taking out garbage is a treat for me.
That's my activity for every day.
>> [FOREIGN]
>> [FOREIGN] I keep contacting my parents,
my mom every day by video chatting because I want to let them know that I'm safe,
I'm okay, and I have enough supply in my home.
>> So, not to be worried.
And it is weird when I was doing video chats with my mom two months ago,
they were on their quarantine.
And now it turns out, it's my turn.
I'm complaining about it every day.
[LAUGH] It's funny to see how things change so quickly in one month.
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In a few days, I'm taking off to fly back to home in China.
I really miss my family.
So, it's nice for me to be with my family again.
And fingers crossed, the flight won't be cancelled.
And for these days, I'll be working on the final projects, the final test and
also pick up everything from my dorm.
I'm just getting ready to take off.
So, although I'm going back to China and I feel excited about it,
I want to come back to BU and I really miss the life
of having classes with my classmates, meeting my professors in person.
Instead of being distant from people,
I want to communicate with people like I did before.
I sincerely hope that this pandemic will end, and I really hope to come
back to BU and to be with my friends, classmates, professors again.
But always, I love the life in Boston University.
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