Due to a medical accommodation, my roommate and I live in a Resident Assistant (RA) room, which has a bathroom, in Mathes Hall. One day, I walked into our bathroom and heard very light tapping noises. When I lifted my head to look for the noise, I was met with a hoard of gnats in and around the light fixture of the bathroom. The noises I had heard were from the gnats flying into the light fixture. Seeing a few gnats fly out of the bathroom and into the main room, I immediately exited the bathroom and closed the door behind me to prevent more from entering my room. The infestation must have happened in the last few hours because I had used the bathroom without a hitch earlier that day. 

I frantically called my roommate to fill her in on the situation and went to find my RA. The RA and RD for Mathes both came into my room to gauge the situation and were in shock from how bad the infestation was. They explained that they would put in a work order and that maintenance should come by to take care of the situation as soon as possible. In an attempt to do damage control, they sprayed the bathroom with a disinfectant spray and opened the window. However, the gnats were still there the next morning. 

Upon returning to my room later in the second day, I found that maintenance had come by while my roommate and I were away. They killed all of the gnats, but they didn’t clean them up. Our bathroom was full of dead gnats. The bugs were all over the floor and the toilet seat cover. The majority of the dead gnats were in the light fixture, so my roommate and I were hesitant to clean it up ourselves. Neither of us wanted to risk damaging anything while cleaning the bugs out of the fixture, as further damage could have resulted in possibly being fined by the school. 

Our RA put in another work order for maintenance to clean up the bugs, But, three days went by without any action. After another two work orders were placed, the bugs were still there, and our RA received an email saying that maintenance had ordered fly traps for our room. The email said that Amazon had initially delivered the wrong item and that maintenance should receive fly traps in the next two days. At this point, it had already been about a week and the dead bugs were still there. Five days later, our RA got an email saying that maintenance had installed a fly trap in our room, although no one found evidence of this being true. Not that the trap would have been much help at this point anyway. Eventually, our RA came into the room to clean out the gnats in our light fixture. We cleaned up the rest ourselves. To this day, we still have not received the fly traps that had supposedly been ordered.

I understand that maintenance gets a lot of work orders from all over campus, which can pile up very easily and make it hard to keep up with the workload. Despite this, the quality at which they complete their tasks matters. Sacrificing quality of work to achieve quantity of work orders completed will lead to more work orders being put in due to the shoddy work done for the sake of completion. This is a problem I hope Jewell will be able to address moving forward for the benefit of all students, faculty and staff.

Staying sane during a pandemic is hard enough, not to mention staying productive. With classes and meetings being online because of COVID-19, the way people work and study has changed. Outside stressors are frequently affecting people’s mental health, often acting as a distraction. Many people’s schedules are now different, as the pandemic disrupts all aspects of life. Particularly, the switch to virtual learning and work has forced people to change their routines and, in many cases, thrown off their productivity. 

Personally, staying productive during the pandemic is difficult when I have online classes because there are reduced opportunities to change my work environment. Before the pandemic, I used to switch up my environment by studying at coffee shops, libraries or other public places. However, with COVID-19 guidelines and social distancing,  I now have to rely on switching up my study space in my dorm to maintain productivity.

I’ve learned that the way I arrange my room is important to me staying focused and motivated. By maintaining separation between places to relax and study, I’m able to prevent distractions and keep my mind focused on schoolwork. For example, my desk is moved away from my bed to create a physical and mental separation between my workspace and my resting space. Additionally, I keep all school-related materials on or near my desk to further create a distinction.

I make sure to keep my desk clutter-free and strictly organized. I’ve found that if I have a cluttered space, it negatively affects my productivity. I keep my office supplies organized in designated containers and areas of my desk. Utilizing drawers to keep papers sorted – rather than letting them pile up – has helped me stay focused. For my online classes, it’s important to have a designated charging area to ensure that I’m prepared for class and my chargers don’t get misplaced. During my class time and study time, I’ve been extra careful to avoid using my phone or other unnecessary electronics which is especially tempting during Zoom classes or when I am studying alone.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve noticed that staying organized is more difficult when trying to manage ever-changing in-person and virtual obligations. The way I’ve improved my organization is by keeping both a physical planner as well as a regularly updated online calendar. Additionally, I use sticky-notes to keep track of to-do lists throughout the day in my workspace and to keep track of thoughts that come up as I am studying since that is quicker than stopping to update my planner or calendar. 

Although I try to actively avoid clutter, I do have small things that bring me joy at my workspace, such as photos and small decorative items near my desk that add an element of comfortability. In particular, little things like my zen garden breaks the monotony of schoolwork and adds a personal touch. Other items like personal journals and some of my favorite books also add to my environment to make it more enjoyable.