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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

Even though I am from the UK, this week feels like the last few days were sucked into a void due to the US election. Four years ago on the Trump vs Hillary election, I woke up at 4am and at that point the news was suggesting Trump might pull ahead and then the notification came through that he had definitively won at about 5.30-6am British Standard Time. On Wednesday night I suppose I subconsciously feared the same would happen so woke up at 4am again. For a while I lay there and just stroked the cat who lives in the house I rent a room in, who had come and curled up against my stomach when she felt me woke up, too nervous to check my phone. Eventually when I did both Trump and Biden had between 100-200 points each with Biden in the lead. Biden pulled ahead quite a lot and was 100 points ahead about 4.30-5am but then Trump won Texas and accelerated 100 points by the next time I woke up, sleeping ten minute increments at a time. About 7.30am it stabilised at around Biden 224 vs Trump 213 and stayed like that for most of Wednesday - every time I checked BBC news compulsively it would be the same. My landlords are originally American from New Jersey and Illinois and they stayed up all night watching the election results and sleeping on the couch on and off. The day felt like a trance due to sleep deprivation and the distraction of checking the results constantly. In my class the lecturer asked if people had been keeping an eye on the election and others answered yes and kind of laughed about how it was stressful and so annoying to not have an answer yet and in general the embarrassing behaviours of Trump. I couldn’t say anything because tears kept welling up in my eyes thinking about how people can kind of roll their eyes and chuckle about something that has the potential to devastate someone else’s life. I kept thinking about my American friend who had undocumented parents (documented now) and what it means to her to sit and watch the results knowing so many people voted in ways that they likely know could hurt so many others and symbolise no care for their existence or quality of life. Last election when Trump won even though I was only just 18 and not very knowledgeable about American politics when the announcement came out that he had won I couldn’t sleep and didn’t know what to do. Eventually I went and had a shower and stood under the water for ages and just wept and wept until it felt like I was dissolving. I’ve seen lots of women say they did this too because they just knew what was going to come once he was in control. That day I had an introduction to gender studies class and our professor who was from Minnesota originally barely said anything the whole lesson, making us watch lots of videos instead of debating etc. The whole semester we had been talking about the gender of the presidential debates so I think people were expecting her to rage about it but all she ended up doing was that at the end of the lecture after the other videos she said ‘lastly someone has something to say’ and played the video of Hillary Clinton’s ‘women’s rights are human rights’ speech from the 90s. To sit in a class nearly entirely full of women / non binary people / gay men and watch it I had to hold in sobs so hard and looking around I’m sure a lot of others were too, including the professor. This election felt really raw with the memory of last time.