Written by Shivani Desai (W’25); Edited by Cheryl Bai (W’25)

Perhaps I was a bit too cocky this entire semester - times too often, I lamented on the fact of “wow, I still haven’t gotten COVID yet!”

Not that I was an anti-masker (it was very surreal flying home to visit Georgia and witnessing the differences in masking), but it was very hard to believe my 3 vaccine shots were somehow protecting me from the rapidly growing waves of cases at the beginning of both semesters ( thanks Delta and Omicron).

When Philadelphia repealed the indoor mask mandate, I was sitting in Stommons as we got a “Message to the Penn Community” email where Penn soon followed suit. I remember seeing someone rip off their mask immediately, and thinking, this is going to be such a change from what I’m used to - how is this possible?

Perfect timing, though! Spring Fling was just around the corner, and because it was coming back for the first time in three years, I didn’t know if the entire student population was ready for what it entailed. The most of us had only heard stories, so the energy and expectations were high.

I won’t go into too much detail about Fling, but that’s because I was too busy hyping up Flo Milli. I had a typical night with the concert and subsequently tried to win as many free things as possible at the Carnival on Saturday, with nothing out of the ordinary.

On Sunday, the fire alarm in Hill went off at 8 AM. I woke up feeling like absolute sh*t. As the siren went off, I immediately had a sinking feeling. Shoutout to my roommate who came with me to Walgreens, looking like we had just rolled out of bed (which we did). With N95s and the lingering smell of smoke from the dining hall, we waited on opposite sides of the room for our respective rapid tests to come out.

Fifteen minutes later, I found two bright lines staring back at me. Lovely.

The next few hours were almost surreal. This wasn’t happening, but it was also playing out just like I was in a fever dream. Let’s do a little play-by-play:

Call SHS
Call another SHS extension
Wait for a call back
Blow nose violently
Don’t get that call back
Call another extension
Start packing frantically
Cough violently
Wait for isolation instructions
Spend 30 minutes contact tracing
Wait for isolation instructions
Fall asleep
Wake up to me sleeping through my move-in time.

By 5 PM, the entire day had gone by - I saw students happily walking down Walnut, and I was envious. This was only a taste of what was yet to come, but I felt so unproductive. And then I felt horrible because why was I worried about “losing a few hours of work” when I literally had COVID?

Every breath I took felt like inhaling fire. The walk from 34th & Walnut to 37th & Chestnut where I was assigned to live at the Mason was the longest walk of my entire life. It was kind of funny, though, seeing people’s somber looks when they glanced at my suitcase. Once you see luggage and someone wearing a mask outside walking on Chestnut, you kind of have a “oh sh*t, they have COVID” moment.

I felt alone, but little did I know I’d be joined by many more of the fellow infected very soon. The rest of the night flew by. The Mason is an interesting building to say the least, but the rest of the week would only get better.

How did I spend my time in isolation, you might ask? Here are some fun ideas of what to do when you test positive on Penn’s campus:

Go on Sidechat unironically because you’re so braindead
Call your parents for the first time in forever
Get officially tested with the nose swab so violently they take brain matter out
Cry inside when everyone gets to SABS on Locust when it's sunny and 70 degrees outside and you won’t get out until it starts to rain all week
Existential crisis

Don’t get me wrong - we found moments of solace in these dark times:

Playing rowdy and competitive Catan
Celebrating a friend’s birthday in quarantine
Watching the full moon rise from the balcony views
Making hot chocolate and playing We’re Not Really Strangers

One week was just right. Oddly enough, as I left and said my goodbyes to my still positive COVID homies, I felt a little bit emotional. We had found an escape from the pressures of daily life inside this building, and I was about to head out into the real world again.

To everyone reading this, good luck with finals! Stay safe and have a great summer.

“Be Positive, Test Negative”: Finally Catching COVID-19