COVID-19 and Concerts
Katie
I thought that I wouldn’t be in school in March-May, so I jam packed my schedule with concerts. I had made a New Year Resolutions of sorts to only try to do concerts during the weekends (Thursdays of Off Friday weeks count as weekend) as leaving work early to get up to shows was getting harder and harder to do as my responsibilities at he job increased. The only exception was that shows in Fairfield could be done any day of the week because it is so nearby. Despite these restrictions, it seemed like every show I wanted to go to was on a weekend! So I filled up my plate – and then realized that the final course I needed to graduate would NOT be offered in the Fall – and SURPRISE! March 16 – May 4th I’d now need to spend on research for a 15 page Capstone final paper. :-O (I think the Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone “AHH” gif was most appropriate) But I had managed to finish course assignments at airports and on the beach in Hawaii and Jamaica so I wasn’t going to let a few concerts stop me.
Well, I guess the Universe had another idea. I had 13 concerts scheduled from March – May. Here’s a breakdown of where we are at now:
- March 11 – John K radio show – canceled due to health concerns the afternoon of the show
- March 28 – Mandy Moore – venue closed to end of March, Mandy postponed tour
- April 2 – BBMak – rescheduled to October 2020
- April 4 – Dashboard Confessional – DC says tour is postponed. Venue/ticketmaster say nothing
- April 18 – Stephen Kellogg – going virtual, I can watch from my living room
- April 19 – Stephen Kellogg – going virtual, I can watch from my living room
- April 28 – David Archuleta – tour postponed, venue closed until end of April
- April 30 – Eric Hutchinson – venue closed through May
- May 1 – Niall Horan – no news yet, but this will probably be the next cancellation
- May 10 – Ben Folds – venue closed through May, postponed
- May 15 – Hanson – postponed to 2021
- May 16 – Hanson – postponed to 2021
- May 17 – Hop Jam – postponed to 2021
My one concert a month streak – which I started in January 2009 came to an end in February 2020. I guess it will have a * now, as you can see, I should have had shows in March, April and May. It also seems like my fall is going to end up pretty jam packed, but that’s ok because I will be graduating in August! (Although the graduation ceremony was supposed to be in May and is now TBD)
Music Is My Life has a lot of ways to help you cope with life through music – cry it out, get creative with it, shout about it. Of the artists mentioned in the book, I had seen about 10 of them live, which was pretty cool. There are song examples and facts about them and they are all split by your moods so you can choose your playlist based on how you are feeling. There are some really cool illustrations in this book and all genres and eras of music seem to be included so at least someone you’re interested in should be in here!
Stars before bedtime is all about the different constellations in the sky. There are icons for exercises you can do for relaxation before bedtime throughout the book. I found the stars and constellations in this book to be so cool, that while I was in Jamaica and out on the beach watching the Hanson concerts each night, I would try to see what constellations I could find. I was able to spot Orion’s belt on my own, but I also used the app “SkyView” to look for even more and was able to find my Zodiac constellation and many more. If you have a child who is interested in the stars this may be a great book to use before bedtime and combined with the app may be a really cool “hands on” so to speak project for them!
Cryptocurrency is a digital currency, like bitcoin. Crypto means hidden. Bitcoin uses block chain technology to be created and if you lose it, it is gone forever. There is a story in this book about someone who buried a hard drive with bitcoin on it – now worth $127 million and it is totally missing. There are definitely pluses and minuses on using cryptocurrency so it will be interesting to see how things evolve.
Online Search teaches about the ways you can find things on the internet. It starts by explaining how early computers were HUGE! and that computer programming is basically a more complex way of saying to give a computer instructions. Searches aren’t always accurate, but it depends on what you tell it to look for as it can take things very literally. It also talks a little bit about data privacy concerns – which is a big deal for everyone – and comes up a LOT in my cyber security grad classes!