This isn’t a sappy post about how to move on from your boyfriend or girlfriend. I’m not here to talk about that.

A year ago I lost one of my best friends, my dog. I know I know, sounds cheesy, but I loved coming home to her and running around the house with her. I joke around and say that she was my divorce present from my parents. I got my sweet girl a few months before my parents mentioned to me they were getting divorced, so I had to find some humor in the situation.

When I was in Ireland I woke up to a text from my dad saying that my dog had peacefully passed in her sleep. I was heartbroken. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t get to go on a final run with her. I didn’t get to see her excited face as I called her name when I pulled into my driveway. She was the one thing from my childhood that I really brought into my “adult” life. I say “adult” in quotes because I’m only 22 and still attempting to figure my life out.

So, after I got the text I had to wait until later in the day for it to not be 4 a.m. back home and called my dad sobbing. My best friend was gone forever. I just had to ensure that my family wasn’t going to go out and just buy a random new dog without consulting me first. They did that with one of our other dogs. I just didn’t want to feel like I was replacing her so soon.

So, now it’s been right around a year, and winter is over (supposedly) so now I feel like it’s the perfect time to start looking for a new addition to the family. I’ve asked my dad when I could bring a new pup home. He said what have you found? I honestly wasn’t expecting this response.

My point basically is I didn’t think it was a good move to try finding a dog right after my dog died. I feel like that’s just a quick replacement for a beloved furry friend. I needed time to cope and make sure I could pick out my next pound pup and make sure I could give them a good, loving home.

It’s been a year and I think I’ve finally had enough time to finally say yes to another dog in the family. So, sorry dad I’ll be coming home with a new dog soon. Hope she’s just as crazy and lovable as the last.

The best thing about quarantine is I get to watch unlimited movies, TV series, and listen to the same albums on repeat without feeling like I’m wasting my time. All I have is time now.

An album that was released in the beginning of March by artist who goes by Lauv features tracks that make me want to drive around in my car contemplating life and my own feelings. Over the course of a year Lauv has been giving his listeners sneak peaks to his album and finally we have a complete soundtrack. His album “~how i’m feeling~,” describes just that, how he’s feeling.

Lauv is seen as this awkward man who isn’t scared to show his feelings, but his audience loves it. He shows his true self with his music and when he performs it live, he does just the same. Lauv is just like any other person with real feelings, but he doesn’t forget that he can still be happy and energetic about life, while still dealing with regular human emotions.

The thing I like the most about Lauv’s music is how his style stays the same. When I first started listening to him in 2018, he always knew how to make a catchy tune, how to give his audience a fun song to sing and dance to. He knows how to connect his music to his audience.

The song “Sweatpants” on his album seems fitting during this whole quarantine time because of the coronavirus. It’s hard to want to get up and get dressed just to move to the living room or kitchen. In the song he’s talking about how he’d do anything to get by without a certain girl in his life, but in it he says, “oh no, no don’t judge me.” Which is fitting for the quarantine. Don’t judge me even though I’m only wearing sweatpants and the same hoodie for the past three days. I’m in the comfort of my home, hanging out in my sweatpants.

Most of the songs on the album seem to be good relaxing music, but there is one song that just makes me want to get up and dance. “El Tejano” seems to be the most unique song on the album. Even in his visualized video of him singing the song, he’s just dancing around and vibing to his upbeat song.

This artist did a great job at expressing his feelings with his music, while still making it relatable to his audience. I think that’s what makes an artist great is if they can produce great music that others are able to relate to. It helps make the listeners feel like the song was written for them.

It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve had to write a blog post for class. Hopefully, my “spring break” didn’t make me feel too lazy to continue doing school work.

These past two weeks have been kind of hectic for me. I’ve had work events being cancelled, I’ve had hours cut back, I’ve had to switch over to online schooling, and now I’m having to get used to two roommates being unemployed and figuring out what they’re going to do next.

I think my biggest worry is how my hours with work are going to be affected. There’s been many of my fellow employees who have been offered furlough. This means that they can file for unemployment, but still have their jobs when the store is ready to bring back more employees.

I know almost every position in the store so I was able to keep my hours, but who knows how long I’ll even be able to work. The wedding company I work for is also kind of taking a hit. Every bride and school event have either postponed or cancelled all together, so that means that’s another job I have that I can’t get hours to help pay rent or my other bills.

This is so stressful! I feel like I’m grounded in my house and if I leave my parents are going to add another month to my grounding. I’m tired of only being allowed to go to work, home, and occasionally the store when I run out of essentials.

Also, the fact that there’s more and more positive cases being confirmed around my hometown is starting to make me feel really uneasy. I still have quite a bit of family in the Madison area and many of them are older so they are more prone to getting the coronavirus.

Anyways, I just wish we would go into a full lock down to help stop the spread of the virus so I might be able to walk at my college graduation. I just want to be able to have a nice and fun summer. I don’t want to be on lockdown anymore. I just want things to go back to normal. Hopefully, soon it will.

It seemed hard to top the successful children’s movie, Frozen. All of the catchy music, a talking snowman, and two sisters coming back together. After six years a sequel finally prevails and continues to add to the warmth of Disney movies.

The story starts out a few years after the first movie ended. It continues on with the story where Elsa is still Queen of Arendelle, Anna and Kristoff are still in their little love duo, and Olaf is still the friendly, talking snowman who likes warm hugs.

Everything seems to be going fine with Elsa running the kingdom and Anna able to roam the Kingdom freely, until something strange happens. Elsa starts to hear a calling, a sing-song voice that only she can hear. Now the movie gets going as she starts her quest to find out where that voice is coming from.

This mysterious voice seems to be the secret to finding out where Elsa’s magical powers come from. It also unlocks what happened to the girls’ parents and what happened in the past between the kingdom of Arendelle and the enchanted forest.

The movie sends the main characters on an adventure

All in all this movie is filled with hit new songs and of course the classic sisterly love. It brings all the loose ends from the first movie together. It puts Anna and and Elsa in their rightful places within the kingdom and allows for a happy ending for all

Surprise, surprise here’s another post about coronavirus and it seems to only be getting worse. At first it seemed like everyday there was a new case and new sense of fear of what stores should be doing with their employees and business. Now it’s every hour I check the news and something new has shut down or temporarily closed.

Something that I find scary in my situation is how restaurants across Kearney are either closing or cutting hours. My job that’s my main source of income, how I pay rent, has just announced to the staff that they are shortening our cafe’s hours. I know I have money saved up and I have some options going forth, but it’s still scary thinking I might not have a stable income in the next few weeks.

Focusing on school work at home is going to be a lot tougher now that I can’t go to campus and focus there. Whenever I’m at home I think I should be cleaning or wedding planning. I’m not thinking I should be working on a new blog post or discussion board or what photos I need to be taking. I’ve found it’s really hard for me to focus at home.

I have friends who are being given the option to move off campus and receive a partial refund. Some are accepting the refunds and heading home, some are staying and others are stuck on what they should do. Do they just isolate themselves? Do they accept the money? Do they give up their bit of freedom and move home with their parents? Who knows, there’s so many options for them and I feel stressed because of that.

Then there’s the concern of being out in public or coming into contact with people. My job I am constantly interacting with numerous people a day either through the drive thru or inside the restaurant. I live with four other people who are also having to go out to their jobs and interact with everyone. Living in a house of five people we need groceries so that’s even more people we’re having to come into contact with.

Something concerning I also just learned today is that one of the managers at my job has a brother who recently traveled to Colorado. Apparently, he avoided all of the quarantine procedures and once he came back was hanging out with family, this included my manager. Now the brother has some symptoms and my manager has quarantined herself and I was around her today, so now there’s a possibility I could’ve contracted the virus. Such fun news! (She says sarcastically.)

Anyways, the closer this gets to me the more stressed out I become. I thought I was going to be stressed out enough with it being my final semester at UNK, but I guess that wasn’t hard enough. Now, I get to stress about a virus that seems to me affecting me more and more every day.

A movie that came out in 2020 shows an inconsistent rhythm throughout the movie. Usually it seems to not work for movies, but the movie “Inside the Rain”, is about a man with manic and depressive episodes seems to follow the lead characters mood.

A movie review done in the New York Times follows the story of a boy named Ben who is on his second attempt in college. Normal fails at romance cause him to self harm and a misunderstanding threaten to get him expelled. Ben decided he needs help from an endeavoring actress and sex worker to make a film about his situation.

Writer and director Aaron Fisher based this movie on his own life experiences. It’s a bounce between comedy and drama and half-finished plot lines, but is seen to reflect Ben’s constant changing of manic and depressive states. Fisher wanted to highlight the real side of mental illnesses rather than sugar coating it or show horror behind it.

I haven’t seen this film yet, but I’ve always been a fan of movies that are based on true events. I always find those the most fascinating because it shows the true sides of people’s lives.

I’ve never done any kind of movie or music review, but here’s my chance to practice on both. Kesha just released an album a few months ago after a long hiatus.

She used to be the party monster Ke$ha and after a long journey and what seemed like some kind of awakening she took a more spiritual and earthier path to create her newest album High Road.

The album gives listeners a look into the new Kesha, while she still gives us some tunes to relive our inner Ke$ha. She mentions her therapist and Tarot cards, but also has an anthem for getting ready for the club.

It’s refreshing to have Kesha making music again because her music always put me in a good mood. And it seems her music is putting herself in a better place too.

Kesha is bringing the essence of her old self into her music. In her song “Kinky” she mentions how she’s ready to hit the town and dance her worries away. In “Father Daughter” she talks about how she grew up without a father.

She seems to have some relatable material for some. In one song she says, “Do you ever lie in bed with your three cats and get obsessed with some boy you met once three years ago in Nashville and you can’t remember his last name?” I had a friend who said she could relate to that statement.

Kesha’s newest album has everyone going back and forth saying she sounds so sane yet so crazy and the same time. I guess that’s the price you pay to make great music that people can relate to and reminisce on the old Ke$ha.

On Thursday it seemed like tension was rising when I saw that UNL was going to remote classes starting this week. Shortly after, UNK followed suit and is moving to online classes after spring break. So, now what?

I’ve taken online classes before, but not a full semester of them. How do I manage to take 3 different types of photography classes online? One class we’re doing a variety of chemical processes and I can’t necessarily do those at home. Another class we do a lot of in class work to understand the camera. And a third class is taking photos for The Antelope where I have to take photos of stuff happening on campus, but if no ones on campus what do I take photos of?

People aren’t being forced to move on campus, but if they can leave they’re advised to. We have a few people at work who are going home and I know there wasn’t a notice for going to remote classes, but are leaving work without a notice. So, someone is going to have to cover their shifts since they’re moving back home. I know it means more hours that I could pick up, but it’s also more of a distraction for me from my homework that I’ll be doing all online now.

I live in a place with four other people and now we have to adjust our lives a little so we can do our homework and also figure out how to not murder each other. We’re all going to be home more often and I know we can always coop up in our rooms or risk going out in public, but there might be some days that that just doesn’t work.

Then there’s the risk of being out in public. I might not be prone to catching the coronavirus, but I could still potentially carry it to other people. Or even still catch it myself. It’s kind of scary to think about how fast it’s spreading around, but also it seems like something everyone is overreacting to.

I don’t know how well my last semester at UNK is going to play out. Only time will tell, but hopefully it won’t be as bad as I’m expecting it to be. I just want to finally graduate, so hopefully the coronavirus doesn’t mess that part up for me.

I never feel like I’m good with this political talk. I can understand it myself and understand it when others explain it, but I’ve never been good at explaining it to others.

A travel ban was set into place in December for people traveling in from China because of the coronavirus outbreak. The U.S. so far has detained 333 Chinese nationals that have been trying to enter the country illegally.

This might’ve been the only way seen to try and stop the spread of the coronavirus, but I don’t think it was the right way to go about it. Hundreds of Chinese migrants are being detained at the border even though none of them are testing positive for the coronavirus or COVID-19.

I could understand why this might be a smart move to make, but even by having those people detained the virus still got out and is spreading all over. And they warn us to not be in large groups, yet here they are detaining all these people in a large group. All it takes is one person to become infected or finally show signs and spread it through the detained community.

The virus is spreading, and I get it’s bad, but forcing people together in a confined area when everyone else is being told to stay away from crowds doesn’t make sense. If they aren’t testing positive, then let them travel. If they later get the virus that was a risk they wanted to take by traveling in the first place.

I’ve seen numerous articles about the conditions of border patrol facilities and most of them are overcrowded. When they are overcrowded the people in the facilities can often catch other diseases like measles, chickenpox, or the regular flu. A center down in Texas had to be shut down after multiple detainees fell ill and a boy died. These facilities aren’t helping to stop the spread of diseases.

Two Political Views

Just because your favorite 2020 presidential candidate is out of the race, doesn’t mean you can’t still vote for someone who is a close second.

So far, it seems that Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are pretty close in pole numbers. Both are fighting for the primaries in all the major states, but it seems Biden is in the lead with support.

Even if you are rooting for Sanders and he ends up dropping out or not getting all the primary votes, there’s still a chance for you to vote for a president who is supporting similar issues. It’s shown that if America wants to move more to the left, then Biden isn’t seen as the end but as an opportunity to make a move towards the left.

If Biden does end up in the White House, some issues like raising the minimum wage and advocating for health care reform are still possible. So, even though it seems like you might be losing this election if Sanders doesn’t win, there’s still a chance to make a difference for the future with Trump out of office.

The common goal just needs to be to get Donald Trump out of office and get someone in that will work to make things right. If Biden wants to win this race, he will have to integrate some of Sanders’ ideas to get more of the left and progressive sides. This might help attract some of the younger voting crowd that was rooting for Sanders into still voting to hopefully get Trump put of office for good.

Biden has a chance to unite the Democratic Party with the Progressive side and hopefully does it and still keeps some of Sanders’ promise to make the country better. Progressives have been making change in policies and if Sanders doesn’t win, hopefully Biden can continue to make these changes for the good.

A story that seems to start out nice and cheerful, takes a turn for the worst. A man named Charlie just wanted to celebrate his birthday at work. A few glasses of champagne wouldn’t hurt anyone, right? Well, for Charlie it hurt him.

After a long night of drinking and almost getting into a fight, Charlie ends up in jail. He constantly says he has money to bail himself out and once he pulls out the money, he gets himself into more trouble. The other drunks that are in weekend court with Charlie started strangling and trying to rob him. He cries out for help and fortunately gets placed into a cell by himself.

It seems that no matter what Charlie does to have a good birthday it always backfires. He tries to enjoy himself for his birthday and he gets labeled a drunk. Anytime he asks for help, he gets threatened and called a drunk again. All because Charlie wanted to have a good birthday.

During his case just got called a drunk and was dismissed. Charlie wanted to avoid the men he encountered in weekend jail, but they find him and get his money out of him. It’s hard for police to protect you in the public when there aren’t many around. Charlie just can’t seem to catch a break on his birthday.

Only one person was willing to help Charlie and even then there wasn’t much to be done to catch the goons who stole his money. Charlie couldn’t outrun them, he could catch them, he couldn’t even find police that weren’t doing something else to help him.

The last line of the column says, “But next year, stick to cake.” Hopefully, this becomes a lesson for Charlie. Nothing good will come from his excessive drinking, but eating cake can’t do much harm for him. At least he won’t be getting called a drunk if he’s only eating cake.

A survey was sent out to UNK students and faculty about what the name of the Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) building should be. Options like Veritas Hall, Discovery Hall, The Nexus, and The LinK were suggested, but no options for names of people were suggested. All of the names are based around unity.

The options given for the new building are poor. The STEM building is supposed to be seen as a great addition to campus, but it’s hard to see that given the suggestions for new building names. Naming the new building after someone who was inspirational in those fields might encourage others alike to pursue a career in that area.

Most of the buildings on campus that are named after men, are named after white males. Randall Hall, Warner Hall, Bruner, Calvin T. Ryan are all named after white males. The only facility on campus that has a female name is the Ron and Carol Cope Stadium, and the women’s name comes second.

The new STEM building should be named after Katherine Johnson. Johnson was one of the three African American women that helped John Glenn, the first American to successfully orbit around Earth. She was known as the “human computer” because one of the men in charge of the calculations for the orbital mission didn’t trust electronics. So, after the computer was done running tests, they sent it to Johnson to double check the numbers by hand.

Johnson and the two other African American women who helped with the space orbit not only helped advance space travel for Americans, but also helped open doors for other women and POC. Former U.S. President Barack Obama said that, “Johnson broke the barriers of race and gender, showing generations of young people that everyone can excel in math and science and reach for the stars.” A movie called “Hidden Figures” that came out in 2016 highlighted the impact these women made while working with NASA to help get the first American to space.

In 1940, Johnson attended West Virginia University and was the first African American to enroll in the mathematics program. Johnson even had a special mathematics program created for her. She died earlier this year and since then has been recognized for more of her outstanding work. Naming the STEM building after Katherine Johnson might also encourage other women and people of color to go into STEM programs.

The new STEM building should be named after someone of importance and who has made history in a department like STEM. UNK’s new STEM building should be named after Katherine Johnson, one of the mathematicians that helped the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth.