Dear DEN,

I am a student of Eastern Illinois University and a citizen of Coles County.  I live with my parents on the edge of Ashmore and drive 7 minutes to campus every day.  Due to me living at home, I didn’t realize how lonely I would get when I wasn’t on campus all the time.

I miss being on campus from 8 am to midnight.  I miss seeing my friends in classes every day, I miss my close-knit theatre family, I miss dancing in the theatre drafting lab with my boyfriend, I miss the fat squirrels and the stray kittens begging for food, I miss being in Doudna, and I just miss being on campus every day.  I have realized that I take all of this for granted.

I get up every day at 7:00am and get ready for the day as I normally would.  I feel like I cannot effectively accomplish anything in pajamas or sweats and messy hair.  I’ve gotten my slow-moving mornings down to being ready to go in twenty minutes.  One thing I will note about quarantine is to never put on mascara, you never know what’s going to set you into a mess of tears!  I do my class work from roughly 9 am until a bit after 6 pm.  After 6 pm, I take my time to crochet, look at Baby Yoda memes, watch countless hours of The Simpsons or Brooklyn-99, eat dinner with my family, or play Gin Rummy up to 500 points.  In the evenings, I spend seemingly countless hours cleaning and re-arranging my bedroom in the soft glow of fairy lights until I get so tired that I can’t function effectively (this is usually about 1:30 am). And the next day, it’s the same monotonous routine.

Occasionally, something happens out of the ordinary.  On Monday night, I talked to my boyfriend on the phone from 9:45 pm until a bit before 11 pm.  Immediately after that, my best friend, Katie, and I talked on the phone until 1 am!  A week ago, my high school best friend who lives in Arkansas now talked on the phone for 3 hours!  I make sure to call my grandparents frequently, too!  I believe communication is very important during this pandemic. (oh, and seeing picture of my siblings’, Jessica Meadows and Sam Killman, lovely pets also helps!)

I hope everyone does their part to stay inside and tries to find something positive every day so hopefully we can get back to seeing people we care about and going back to our lives how we wish to.

Sincerely,

Hannah Killough, sophomore, theatre arts major