After the relaxed and fun introductory period, we were thrown into our first "proper" uni work. I really enjoyed the first assignment, which involved working as part of a group to create a podcast. The university was really concerned with things like distancing and trying not to share equipment but it was still fun.

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At this time, Manchester was in what was known as a "local lockdown", which meant that were weren't allowed to mix indoors and had to adhere to the "rule of six" outdoors. Despite the local lockdown, the atmosphere was quite relaxed and people were mixing quite well at Uni. I was having loads of fun and it seemed like everyone else was too. 

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For quite a long time, I thought that the COVID situation was only going to get better. I had an underlying feeling of nervousness but I wasn't very concerned about it. The idea of a second lockdown was unthinkable to me at this point. 

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After a while of things going smoothly and me having the time of my life, it got to a point where COVID cases were rising quite significantly and things were starting to get worrying again. I was going out and seeing "stay at home" messages on the fronts of busses and I was constantly anxious about catching COVID.

 

Although the illness itself did worry me, as a young person, I was more worried about the inconvenience of having to self-isolate for two weeks than I was about the actual ramifications of the illness. I remember being very anxious about a tickly throat that I had for a while and I became paranoid if I felt unwell in any way. From my perspective, the atmosphere started to get a lot darker midway through October and I started to think about COVID a lot more.