In March of 2020, the world erupted into chaos, stock markets crashed, borders closed, and my school, the Columbus College of Art and Design, went remote for the remainder of the semester. Fear gripped the hearts of everyone, friends became distant, and relationships either grew stronger or fell apart. The words on everyone's lips? Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.
My plans for the remainder of the year changed drastically, events that I had been planning to attend, races I had been training to run, and plans that I had made were either canceled or postponed. My internship at Radley College included. My original start date, on the first of September, was pushed back two months, putting my start date to the first of November. What was supposed to be a six-month stay in the UK had been shortened, I just prayed that it wouldn't be canceled or pushed back even further to January of 2021. But despite the moving of my start date, COVID threw a spanner in another part of my trip, the process of applying to go.
Luckily I had my passport before the pandemic struck the US, but I hadn't been fortunate enough to have the rest of my travel documents before that. There were many other pieces of the puzzle that had to be filled before I could even walk through the terminal at John Glenn International Airport. The first of those requirements was to get my sponsorship through Radley. I had to get a federal background check, the problem that COVID presented was that the locations that I could get fingerprinted were drastically reduced, and the places that I could go had lines that were too long to cooperate with my busy schedule. When I was able to go to wait in line at my local Sheriff's office, the office was closed for maintenance. However, after several weeks of trying, I was able to find another nearby Sheriff's office that didn't have a line and I was able to get all of my fingerprinting and background checks put through. The biggest impact that COVID had on the process while I was in the states was the fact that everything took longer to do, and as much as I hate to admit it, that extra two months was necessary because I wouldn't have had all of my documents and permissions in time had I have been leaving at the end of August.
While I was preparing all of my documents, I learned that I would have to quarantine for two weeks. When I messaged Radley's HR, I was told that they would be flying me in two weeks earlier so that my quarantine period would not interfere with the time that I would be working. I would be leaving the states halfway through October to stay for two weeks in a hotel in London, then head to Oxford to begin work at Radley. This shortening of the time that I thought I had by two weeks made me rush to get things pushed through, also it pushed the amount of time that I had left with friends and family. I ended up taking the last week off of work and school before I left so that I could travel to spend time with my family and a few of my friends.
In closing, I urge everyone to maintain a safe social distance, keep away from situations with the potential to spread the disease, wash your hands often, and please wear your mask when you're unable to maintain a safe social distance in public. I want to encourage everyone to get out and travel, but we can't do that until we have this pandemic under control. For the time being, spend time with your family and close friends. We can't let COVID-19 control us, but we do have to take precautions when faced with the fact that the only way that this is going to disappear is if we take responsibility for ourselves and encourage others to do the same. You must make a change in order to see a change.
Thank you for reading this, I wish you all the best. Cheers!
Tymon
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