True Grit: The Power of Perseverance

Video Recording of our Live Virtual Exhibition

A Year in Pandemic - artifacts and reflections

Last month marked the year anniversary since our lives were thrown into upheaval by the global pandemic. We asked Avanti students to reflect on the question "How has this past year challenged and/or changed you?" Through these artifacts and reflections, they share their perspectives and experiences of living through this historic event.

Rieley Iverson

Six feet...seems small, until you get there. You look over and want more than ever to be able to hug that person, but you know very well you can’t. To see someone flinch away whenever you cough, even though it’s just mild allergies it feels strange to see people so scared of a simple cough, but you know very well they have good reason. Music luckily for me is enough to distract myself temporarily from the fear, people becoming mere scribbles, while the music takes you to another world entirely.

Quarantine Video

Aden Nevy

This video is something that my family and I made at the beginning of quarantine. In my family, we try to make the best of the situation and sometimes that is in the form of having a bit of fun!

Linus Gordon

Aside from changing me physically this pandemic has also changed me socially and emotionally. Before this pandemic, I used to be happier and most of all I used to care more about things in my life. Nowadays i really only eat sleep and play games in my room to suppress my emotions, the emotions of wanting things back the way they were, emotions of wanting to see my friends and family in even a semi normal way again. So I bide my time waiting for things to change all the while feeling worse and worse and being more tired every day.

Aden Nevy

These are all the letters my friends and I sent back and forth to each other through the mail. I had a lot of fun going through and looking at each one talked about in order to find out when it was. It was a long process but it was fun reminiscing about all the things that happened in the past year. The beginning of the timeline starts last March, when school first shut down.

Hope Miller

2020 and so far 2021, has been a constant whirlwind. But being at home more than ever has brought me to a point where I could take the time to process my own personal change. Yes, I got new glasses, but I also learned about who I am and how the lack of social interaction has affected me. I have always viewed myself through a thick lens of how others perceive and understand me. This inevitably altered how I view myself as well.

Before the pandemic and shutdowns, I found that in social situations, I would struggle to see how I could contribute to that environment. When other people were around, no matter who they may be, it was hard to focus on who I genuinely was, not just who I thought I was around them. In this last year, which has been a lot of time on my own, I haven't had to incorporate other people's perspectives of me nearly as often, leaving a more pure perception of myself. I have been able to analyze and process my thoughts, intentions, reactions, and emotions on a holistic level. With this new genuine enjoyment of my character, I find myself being far more confident in and outside of my house, I enjoy my humor and knowledge far more, and I can appreciate my physical characteristics as well. Not to say all my social insecurities have completely disappeared in this last year, but I now know who I am on a deeper level which I think will allow me to thrive and flourish in environments I have yet to experience.

With the intention of going back to in-person schooling soon, many emotions come up. I am unsure of how returning to school will impact my new sense of self, but I do know that I look forward to seeing faces I haven't seen in over eleven months and I most definitely am excited to get back to the homey Avanti campus. With this, there are also feelings of unease knowing that I won't get to be in my pajamas all day anymore, or just the basic social anxiety that comes with most social interactions. This past year has felt like a major social experiment! Maybe there are aliens from some unknown planet observing us right now.

Adelyn Krone

Brena Smith

Yvonne Haynes Brown

Olin Dubay

On march 9th, 2020, a Tuesday - the day I got my drivers license because my 16th birthday was on march 8th. I tried to go to the DMV on Monday but they were closed. I'm really glad I got it then because after march 9th was when the lockdown started and they closed for months. It was a bummer because I had just got my license but I had nowhere to go school was shut down and everything else. I remember picking my brother up from school then my mom telling me it was shutting down.

The rest of the school year was really boring nothing to do I remember it taking awhile before we had any sorta online learning system. Me and my small friend group where always thinking of stuff to do outside.

But then my junior year (this year) the lack of social interaction has started to take a toll on me. I missed being in school just because of how boring its been.

David Etherage

This is a visualization of how long we have spent in lockdown (featuring the text of the retrospective). Each sun/moon pair represents one day since the WA lockdown.

David Etherage

My last memory from before the pandemic was being in advisory class, listening to Mr. Hanby talk about what was ahead. Few of us thought the school would even close, and even then not for very long. Then we started locking down. The estimate was two weeks, and many believed that estimate. My own friend group met up in person once during the early stages, though we took appropriate measures. Gradually, it became more serious. The two-week mark passed, and the virus only spread. My friends’ regular D&D meetings gradually came to a halt as the world realized they would be in it for the long haul. I wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea of staying at home. I had experience with online classes, and I generally liked relaxing by myself. Completely avoiding public places, however, began to prove itself a high price to pay. I like traveling. I got used to being able to go to many different places after 3 years in Europe, so the inability to go somewhere for summer break took a toll on me. My family was planning to go to Disney World for the first time when the pandemic hit. I also had to give up a ski season. I managed to make the most out of it, however. Not only did I have easy access to video games and other online media, but all my schoolwork was in one place. I could reach the entire world and all the knowledge in it from the desk in my room. This was going to be easy. Or so I thought. Turns out, having work and play in one place makes it harder to separate the two. I constantly found myself surfing the internet or otherwise getting off track when I was supposed to be working. Eventually, I managed to separate the two parts of my life. I used several techniques, including being in a different location when I did my work. My school career got back on track, and I started balancing have-tos and want-tos. That brings us to the present. I’m still working on focus, but I’ve seen a lot of improvement. Recently, I’ve started to get back involved in community service. Things aren’t “back to normal” in a larger sense, not by a long shot, but I’ve managed to turn this strangeness into my own

Taz McBeth

Quarantine. Oh boy. It’s stressful, it’s confusing, and it's very lonely.

However, there’s one huge benefit that I’ve gotten out of it: more time for everything. One of those things being time for self reflection. I believe I’ve discovered some things about myself that I doubt I would have learned just as soon if we didn’t enter this strange time. Similar to what Hope mentioned, I feel that being by myself has allowed more freedom to explore who I am without taking other people’s potential perceptions of me into account. It’s like a puzzle - when I’m around many people daily, I feel that I’m just one piece, confused about where and how I fit exactly. When I’m by myself, on the other hand, I’m the whole puzzle - I know the pieces, I can work with the pieces accordingly, and I can even mold the shape of the pieces to whatever I want them to be. It all works out.

However, each new situation comes with its own disadvantages as well as its advantages. While consciously I enjoy the time and the motivation that I can use in productive and healthy ways, subconsciously I’m gradually going insane. As much as self-reflecting has been beneficial for me, the slope of overthinking has been one that’s difficult to avoid. I’m more disconnected from the rest of the world, which has often led to me being trapped in my own bubble of thought.

It then becomes a delicate balance of tending to my mind and tending to my real world: I want to have enough time for myself to reflect and feel safe, but I also need time with other people in person to stay grounded and to remind myself “Oh hey, what’s going on in my mind is just internal, and nothing more.” Because I know during the times of the pandemic when I’m able to see other people in the same physical space, it’s like a fresh breath of air - and for a few moments afterward, I finally feel balanced, which is so important during this weird and crazy time.

Looking at how school is slowly yet surely transitioning back to being in-person, mixed feelings are stewing within me. On one hand, I very much miss the communal aspect of Avanti - seeing people around me happy, laughing, content, and connecting with safe and supportive people around them. On the other hand, I’m anxious too. Will my gradual build-up of self-knowledge, confidence, and connection to others simply disintegrate by the time we go back to being fully in person? Will I go back to wishing that I had the time to pursue my creative interests, such as filmmaking and visual art? Will my mental health just spiral down? I hope that when we go back to being in-person that there will be opportunities for us to process the transition - such as groups of people taking part in tactile-focused activities such as hiking, or creating art together. So, even if it’s just a few people hanging out while doing something meditative of the sort, that would mean so much to me. Just being in a relaxed environment with other people not having to worry about much would be, I imagine, a relief for many. I hope that it could be a way for me to rediscover my community, as well as help me to hold on to myself.

Ziya Maherali

I chose this photo because it shows that I was able to stay connected with my friends during this past year (wearing masks, of course!)

Inanna Mabwa Childress

Dio/Poe

The pandemic has sucked. That’s a blunt and overly simple way of saying it- but it’s true. It’s hurt exponentially more than it’s helped.

But the time stuck in my house has forced me to spend time alone with myself, which is something I vehemently dislike doing. I’ve had to look inward and reflect on who I am, reflect on how I move about the world, and how others perceive me. I’ve always cared a lot about what others think of me- I defined who I was on how I was perceived by my peers. This forceful self reflection time via pandemic has made me have to confront who I am without watchful eyes. It hasn’t been all lollipops and rainbows- there have been points when I didn’t like who I found when I looked deeper- but I’ve gotten such a richer understanding of who I am as a person. I’ve had to sort out what I truly thought of myself, devoid from the past and labels I had latched onto to feel comfortable. I knew I was non-binary before the pandemic started, but I’ve since learned that I’m also-maybe-sort of male. I’ve changed my name many times (and I’ll probably change it again), changed my pronouns, and changed my labels. Now I’m in a strange limbo where I’m comfortable with my identities and the way I express my gender, but the rest of the world perceives me in a way that doesn’t align with what I’ve found out about myself. It makes me almost nervous to go back to how things were before COVID, because I’ll have to be confronted by how I fit into a premade world.

But I know that the Avanti community will be there for me. I’m only a Freshman, but I already feel more connected to the Avanti community than I was at my old school. I can’t wait to be able to experience the Avanti building and in person school, even if it comes with the terrifying reality of being perceived.

I think I probably would’ve come to these same realizations later down the line without the pandemic, but this certainly speeded up the process. I still have a long way to go to truly know all that I am and what that means, but for once it’s a compelling prospect. premade world.