Quarantine Diary 9: The Small Joys

Posted on May 8, 2020 by Nicole Sherman

Hear ye, hear ye, to all the inhabitants of the world, especially the readers of the UGL ‘Quarantine Diaries’. It’s me, Tath, another Graduate Assistant at the UGL. I’m writing from my apartment in Urbana with my windows open, even though it’s cold. Someone told me “being present with the temperature is being present with yourself” and I have developed a small crush on that thought. I do not know how many weeks shelter-in-place has been in effect.

I wanted to be finished with my large assignments several weeks ago, but have instead been spending time biking around Urbana. Although living in Chicago for five years before moving here, I am just now beginning to understand what flatland means as a kind of psychological condition. It’s not actually flat, you can see some rolling hills on the country roads just northeast of Urbana but they’re always a little out of reach, or actually in the middle of an early-season cornfield.

My eyes are in legitimate pain from Zoom meetings but I like FaceTiming with my sister’s cat, Dusty Butt.

Other small joys?

Peppermint Tea:
It just rules. There is no tea I like better. Even Vanilla Rooibos doesn’t compare.

Rewatching the Sopranos:
Anthony Jr. is sick and there’s nothing I want more than to see him wearing the same Marilyn Manson shirt I wore all through middle school through college – the album cover to Family Portrait. Also high-key love Carmella and really really wish she and my mom were friends. In the mid-2000’s at the height of the Martha Stewart, Barefoot Contessa cultural phase, themed homemaking books and cookbooks were published kind of often (as opposed to today’s regional/cultural fusion trend). The Sopranos has not one, but two, whereas something as epistemically massive as Napoleon Dynamite only has a scattering of recipes across the internet. I’m vegan but I’d probably step to Carmella’s ziti.

Reconnecting with an ex who is an actual rockstar.
I won’t tell you who they are but when I saw their picture in December’s Art Forum Top Ten my heart skipped a beat. They are also a rockstar at phone calls, and have good critiques of seltzer. Of seltzer, I highly recommend the Instagram page @seltzerflex.

Geoguessr
This is a Google Maps oriented game where you guess where you are based on your street view. I have guessed within 30 meters of where I have been dropped. You always know when you are in Australia, but inland regions of Mediterranean countries look eerily like Mongolia.

Skyrim
I’ve been homesick for my native Western Massachusetts since like 2013. Skyrim helps fill the void a little bit because culturally it’s the same place (for better or worse, although without the paranoia), and geographically even closer to a replica of home. My hometown looks like the outskirts of Whiterun.

A water-wheel turning in Skyrim

Falcon Cam
Sometimes I wake up and check on these falcons on top of UMass Amherst’s W.E.B. Dubois Library.

Written by: Tath

Edited by: Nicole

Quarantine Diary 7: TV and Tutorials

Posted on April 30, 2020 by Nicole Sherman

Hi, I’m Simone! As the semester wraps up, I have attempted to get into Westworld, at the suggestion of a friend. I have finally arrived on the current season, season three. I have binged watched every weekend for the last three weeks. While I do not think it will ever be a favorite show of mine, it is interesting. I now understand all the memes and references on YouTube about Ford (Anthony Hopkins’ character), so that’s a plus. However, my favorite way to relax and destress has been YouTube. I am a devoted watcher of Desus and Mero, CinemaWins, and CinemaSins and I am lucky that they are still posting (I am a movie nerd, sue me 😉).

I am ever hopeful that soon the shelter in place order will be lifted. I signed up on the TRX website for a teacher training course and unfortunately, I do not have TRX cables or the ability to hoist TRX cables in my building. Thus, I am hoping that I will be able to take the course at a gym facility in May, if the order is lifted.

However, when I am not trying to destress by watching television or exercising (I am quite fond of the Les Mills BodyCombat series), I found a great library resource created by Scholarly Commons. Mallory Untch has put together a series of resources that are downloadable. One I have been exploring in depth is Python Anywhere. It’s a free website where you can code in the python language. If you have never coded before (I am a novice, as well), there are many helpful sites like W3 Schools, which has a tutorial on Python that you can test out on the Python Anywhere console. Right now, I am trying the tutorials on tuples. There’s also a hands-on tutorial hosted by Matt Harrison through PyCon 2020.

I hope wherever you are that you and your loved ones are safe and healthy.

Quarantine Diary 4: Tips for a Healthy (Indoor) Lifestyle

Posted on April 19, 2020 by Amy Spitz

Hello world! My name is Annabel, and I am coming to you live from quarantine in West Michigan! If you’re like me, you’re a person who can’t sit still for five seconds, craves productivity, and is fueled by an anxious energy, which is maddening unless you’re busy. We are the Leslie Knopes of the world, and I would argue that quarantine is essentially the antithesis of our entire beings. While I haven’t yet completely come to peace with the situation, in order to stave off existential dread and debilitating uncertainty, I am here to advocate for a practice that has kept me sane – proper exercise!

Exercise is vitally important for not only your physical health, but also your mental health. Of course, as a graduate assistant for the university libraries, I can point you towards numerous library guides which are full of information on various facets of health. For example, check out this guide on wellness and personal wellbeing, this guide on campus resources for health education, or this guide for mental health resources. !]. In addition, the University has provided us with a free subscription to Les Mills home workout videos! If you haven’t tried them out yet, I have tested a few of them for you, and here are my reviews:

1. LES MILLS GRIT #29: I thought I was in pretty decent shape… until I tried this HIIT workout. Let me tell you, it kicked my butt. I had to keep hitting pause so I could breathe! This definitely disrupted my elevated heart rate, but I couldn’t have made it through without some extra breaks. If you’re in an apartment, I don’t recommend this video because it is a lot of jumping around. You will definitely disturb your downstairs neighbors! However, I often find that workout videos are never hard enough. This one is an exception. It’s a great video for an intense cardio workout!

2. SH’BAM #36: This workout was similar to Zumba or any other dance-based workout you’ve tried! The workout was definitely on the easier side – it was fun, but repetitive and even a little boring at times. The music was great, and the hosts are vivacious, but in the end, I didn’t get as much of a workout as I would have liked. I did this video with my mom though, and we had a lot fun! This video is great for freestyling and it’s also great for beginners.

3. LES MILLS BARRE #07: For this workout, you only need a couple of small weights. I didn’t have any, so I improvised with jars of pasta sauce! I think this was my favorite workout of the three I attempted. It was challenging, hit all of the major muscle groups, but it was quick! I want to do this workout over and over, because I feel that I can improve each time I do it. This video also brought me back to my days in ballet class and made me a little nostalgic! I highly recommend this workout for anyone with a dance background, or anyone who wants a quick & efficient burn!

There’s a multitude of other great workout resources online too! One of my favorite places to go for free yoga instruction is doyogawithme.com – my favorite video is ‘Rise and Shine.’ I also love to run, so I’ve been hitting the trails to clear my mind. Exercise is super important, but a healthy lifestyle is made up of a lot of components. To summarize, here are my top ten tips for staying fit and healthy to survive the quarantine:

Written by: Annabel

Edited by: Amy

Quarantine Diary 2: Pilates and Cake

Posted on April 13, 2020 by Lauren Camarillo

Hey everyone! I’m writing to you from a small town in southern Illinois, just twenty minutes outside of St. Louis. Like many of you, when the governor issued the shelter in place order, I moved home with my parents to be with family during quarantine. I don’t know about the rest of you, but for me “moving out” consisted of packing bags as quickly as I could, shoving in clean comfortable clothes and whatever I thought I couldn’t live without for a week or two. I cleaned out my fridge, put my Cavalier spaniel Hattie in the car, and took off. It’s been four weeks now and our house is bustling with my parents, sister, brother, myself, Hattie, and two cats.

One of my favorite things to do, especially with my mom and sister, is to bake and cook. However, not leaving the house + constant baked goods and carbo-loaded recipes + a small dose of stress/bored eating = a dangerous combination. To offset the calories we’ve been eating, we’ve been taking advantage of free yoga and Pilates on YouTube. My favorite Pilates channel on YouTube is Blogilates with Cassey Ho. She does a great job of walking you through each exercise at the beginning of the video and explaining which muscle groups you’ll be working. She has a huge library of past workouts available, and there is something for toning just about any part of your body! All I use when following along to her videos is my yoga mat, but even that is optional. The workouts are very home/apartment friendly and Cassey has even been posting workout calendars for the COVID-19 quarantine, so you can follow along with her recommended workouts, or create your own routine. Hattie is an overall great workout buddy and huge help…

Maybe some of you are experiencing the odd time warp we seem to be in where each day feels like a week and yet each day slides into the next and it’s easy to lose track. One of the best methods I’ve found to fight this is to spend some time in the sun or to break up the day by going outside. We’re lucky to be in a rural area, so we are still able to go for walks and enjoy our yard! In fact, the only one who might not be enjoying our walks is poor Hattie. She’s only two, but she is the biggest couch potato you can imagine! While I think she felt spoiled at first with everyone home, now she just wishes we would leave her alone to take her naps. I have also been going out to the trampoline to get some cardio in since I can’t go to the gym. Apparently, this is a highly entertaining part of the morning for Hattie and the cats. The cats typically spend the day bullying poor Hattie, but they call an armistice for the hour or so that I’m on the trampoline every day to sit and watch their human.

Hattie after her second walk for the day

After burning some calories, my mom, sister, and I love to head to the kitchen! For one of my quarantine projects I am transcribing and posting all of my grandma’s old handwritten recipes onto a blog for my aunts and cousins. We’re making as many of the recipes as we can so that I can add in little notes and pictures of the finished products. One recipe that will always hold a special place in my heart (especially around Easter) is my Grandma Ruth’s pineapple upsidedown cake. It’s sweet as can be and just makes you happy. It’s the kind of dessert where you can have just a little square and have to cut yourself a generous rectangle. My grandma makes her cake batter from scratch, but here’s a quick and simplified version using yellow cake mix. Now Grandma Ruth had a couple tricks to truly knock this recipe out of the park that you can still use with the easy cake mix version. First, toast some pecans in a small pan. You add these to the top of the cake at the same time as the cherries and pineapple. The crunch and texture that these add just takes the cake to another level. Also, if you don’t mind sacrificing some of the neat presentation, use crushed pineapple instead of the rounds. This makes the cake even more moist and ensures you get a bit of pineapple with every bite. If you have enough leftover, you should also consider using a full cup of pineapple juice rather than any water with the cake mix. Finally, use a little extra brown sugar than this recipe calls for. Don’t pat the sugar down, rather make sure it’s well blended with the butter, but leave the top “crumbly.” I hope some of you get the chance to try this and it spreads a little joy! Ours didn’t last long past Easter dinner.

My family and I have really enjoyed exploring and preserving my grandma’s recipes, especially those that we know were passed down through generations. If you’ve ever been curious about exploring your own family’s history, consider checking out this guide from UIUC’s Main Library about how to research your genealogy. The guide includes an explanation of free resources available online as well as recommendations from UIUC’s own collections. This is an activity that the whole family can enjoy and get involved in.

That’s all for now! I’m going to get back to my 1000 piece puzzle and maybe sneak one of the last slices of pineapple upsidedown cake. Hattie says she can’t wait until she can get back to Champaign and all our friends–apparently, we’re a little too boring for her!

Written by: Jayde

Edited by: Lauren

April is Poetry Month!

Posted on April 3, 2020 by Lauren Camarillo

April is National Poetry Month, and since we are all stuck inside for now, there couldn’t be a better time to dive into some verse. If you don’t happen to have any poetry books wherever you’re at, or you’re just looking to read something new, check out these five e-books available through the library.

Ross Gay’s poems are exactly what we all need right now: thoughtful, playful, and full of moments that gracefully hold the joys and pains of life simultaneously. Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is a collection on themes of loss.
bell hooks is an activist and writer from Kentucky whose work explores sexism and racism. Check out Appalachian Elegy, a collection of poems about her home state.
Jack Kerouac, best known for his novel On the Road, was also a successful poet, even inventing his own form of haiku. Readings by Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation is a spoken word album recorded in 1959.
Sarah Blake infuses her poetry with pop culture references and insights into her own experiences in Mr. West, a portrait of Kanye West.
Nate Marshall is a poet from the South Side of Chicago. In Wild Hundreds, Marshall composes a love song to his city.

Bonus: Homopup: Queer Dog Poetry. Speaks for itself, really.

To find more e-books available through the library, check out the Library Catalog. Be sure to narrow your search results by format and choose “electronic.” If you have questions about accessing these, or other, electronic resources, feel free to Ask a Librarian!

Information from poetryfoundation.org.

Written by: Izzy

Edited by: Lauren

Handwashing Entertainment

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Nicole Sherman

At times like these, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reminds us that handwashing is critical! In order to keep yourself and your household safe we know that we should be washing our hands frequently and especially any time we have left the house, touched something that is new like a delivery or groceries, or are handling/preparing food. However, did you know that to be truly effective when washing your hands, you should be scrubbing for a full 20 seconds? This information was just as true before COVID-19, but is critical now as we all seek to stay safe and be responsible in preventing the spread of this virus.

So exactly how long is 20 seconds? And are you expected to stand at the sink counting multiple times a day when you’re already bored and restless with cabin fever? Never fear! We have curated a list of monologues, songs, quotes, and movie scenes to get you through handwashing for days! Our goal? For twenty seconds to have never been more entertaining and for your hands to have never been cleaner. So turn the water on, lather up, and repeat after me…

Monologues/Movie and TV scenes:

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope | Princess Leia hologram speech

“General Kenobi. Years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire. I regret that I am unable to present my father’s request to you in person, but my ship has fallen under attack, and I’m afraid my mission to bring you to Alderaan has failed. I have placed information vital to the survival of the Rebellion into the memory systems of this R2 unit. My father will know how to retrieve it. You must see this droid safely delivered to him on Alderaan. This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.”

Star Trek | 1966 introduction sequence

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!”

Shakespeare’s Macbeth: Act 5 Scene 1 | Lady MacBeth’s speech

“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.”

Pride and Prejudice | Darcy’s first proposal to Elizabeth

“In vain I have struggled, it will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. In declaring myself that I am fully aware that I will be going expressly against the wishes of my family, my friends, and I hardly need add, my own better judgement.”

The Office | Bird funeral eulogy

Bird Funeral - The Office GIF | Gfycat

“What do we know about this bird? You might think, ‘Not much, it’s just a bird.’ But we do know some things. We know that it was a local bird. Maybe it’s that same bird that surprised Oscar that one morning with a special present from above. And we know how he died, flying into the glass doors. But you know what, I don’t think he was being stupid. I think he just really, really wanted to come inside our building to spread his cheer and lift our spirits with a song.”

Songs and Lyrics:

Parks and Recreation | “5000 Candles in the Wind”

“Up in horsey heaven, here’s the thing

You trade your legs for angels wings

And once we’ve all said good-bye

You take a running leap and you learn to flyyyyy

Bye bye Li’l Sebastian

Miss you in the saddest fashion

Bye bye Li’l Sebastian

You’re 5000 candles in the wind.”

Toto | “Africa”

“It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you

There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do

I bless the rains down in Africa

Gonna take some time to do the things we never had”

Or, try these handwashing lyrics:

“It’s gonna take a lot to wash germs away from you

It’s something that a fifth of a hundred seconds could do

I bless the sink down in my bathroom

Gonna take some time to do the things we need to do (ooh, ooh)”

My Chemical Romance | “Welcome to the Black Parade”

“When I was a young boy

My father took me into the city

To see a marching band

He said, “Son, when you grow up

Would you be the savior of the broken

The beaten, and the damned?”

Lizzo | “Truth Hurts”

“Why men great ’til they gotta be great?

Don’t text me, tell it straight to my face

Best friend sat me down in the salon chair

Shampoo press, get you out of my hair

Fresh photos with the bomb lighting

New man on the Minnesota Vikings

Truth hurts, needed something more exciting

Bom bom bi dom bi dum bum bay”

The Killers | “Mr. Brightside”

“Jealousy, turning saints into the sea

Swimming through sick lullabies

Choking on your alibis

But it’s just the price I pay

Destiny is calling me

Open up my eager eyes

‘Cause I’m Mr. Brightside”

The Lion King | “I Just Can’t Wait to be King”

“I’m gonna be a mighty king

So enemies beware

Well, I’ve never seen a king or beast

With quite so little hair

I’m gonna be the main event

Like no king was before

I’m brushing up on looking down

I’m working on my roar

Thus far, a rather uninspiring thing

Oh, I just can’t wait to be king”

Hamilton | “My Shot”

“I am not throwing away my shot

I am not throwing away my shot

Hey yo, I’m just like my country

I’m young, scrappy and hungry

And I’m not throwing away my shot

I’ma get a scholarship to King’s College

I prob’ly shouldn’t brag, but dag, I amaze and astonish

The problem is I got a lot of brains but no polish

I gotta holler just to be heard

With every word, I drop knowledge”

Well, that’s all for now folks. We hope you were able to find some handwashing inspiration and entertainment!

P.S. Another quick tip from the UGL: consider tracking down that hand lotion your aunt got you for Christmas three years ago that you never opened. Frequent handwashing and hand sanitizer use can be damaging to your skin, so keep that skin hydrated!

Written by Jayde

Edited by Nicole

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