The Last Days of Trump Reality Show

People have always thought that Trump was the president and should be treated like one. In reality he was always just Trump with all the perks of the presidency with none of the responsibilities. He never cared about anyone but himself throughout his four years and its ending on that note as well.

People voted him in to bring about change - and they got change. One of the things that republicans always want to do when they get into the government is to break it. Why? And then they want to keep getting elected again and again so they can stay in the broken government. They are completely demented. And obviously they don't have need to help the people who elected them because they are in it to break the system.  And their electorate is so stupid they keep electing them again and again - masochists. Or actually their leaders are so good in convincing them that the "other side" is preventing them from doing anything - when reality is something else.

Trump was the chief of all. He is the ultimate con man. He has been perfecting it all his life. All he can do is bully, grieve, be a victim and not take responsibility for anything. All he wanted was personal benefit from the presidency. He only knows how to do transactions in money so all his dealings were purely bank oriented and the more for him the better. He completely took advantage of doing business at his properties where ever he could. It was all about him and his family. His daughter and son in law are as big of grifters as he is and his two older sons are equally selfish.

I don't know why reporters were always respectable to him - he wanted to use them or they were the enemy. Reporters should have treated him like the reality star he was and held him to that standard. He was never the president that everyone wanted to think he was. He had no respect for the office, for his cabinet, for his colleagues or even his voters. He is a person of no character and no morals and never will be. All throughout the pandemic he had super spreader events making his own supporters sick. How can such a person be taken seriously?

The presidency meant nothing to him except power to do whatever he wanted, punish whoever he wanted, fire anyone and of course make money....not to forget enjoy golfing on his own clubs. Again, no character.

Despite all this everyone is talking as if his words have any meaning. They don't. He is not ruining democracy by not acknowledging the results. He sounds like a deranged old geyser and a sore loser. I know he has that position of presidency but until now he has never done anything to be deserving of that job so why now? Our democratic systems are working just fine - voting was fine, counting was fine, people stood by the results ethically. 

What is really not working is the republican party - the congress - they are the ones who are the true enemies of the people and looking to end democracy. They are the ones providing oxygen and water to Trump. What people are not able to see is that the republicans are the ones who are doing the most damage. All of them should be held accountable - but the will not, because they are lucky, their constituents are stupid and ignorant. 

Sadly, we are going to be stuck in this rut until people start becoming more educated and understand what is happening in their own lives - who is for them and who is against their interests. But again, sadly their interests are so narrow and short term that they cannot see far enough for what is good for everyone. When you cannot see a human being as a human, everything is lost.

The Wuhan Virus - 9 months later

 It has been 9 months since we in USA have been in limited mobility due to the Wuhan virus. I cannot even call it Wuhan virus anymore - because USA now owns this virus. I cannot believe I live in the most advanced country with the most cavemen like thinking of so many people. How did it come to this?? One answer - Trump. When someone at the top with the blowhorn keeps insisting it's a hoax then people tend to believe him. Also, these are the same people who voted for him. And sadly, they are everywhere.....

I wish it were possible to take all the people who did not believe in the virus and put them in one state and lock that state down. Let them kiss and go to the bars and enjoy their freedom as much as they want there. That way I can can enjoy my freedom here with my mask on. These stupid people keep contaminating the system. And their leader who does not give a damn about them keeps stoking all this freedom nonsense.

How can one convince someone who is dying of the virus that they are dying of the virus if they choose not to believe? How do you tell them the virus does not care what you think - it's there and it loves your lungs. 

More than 270,000 people have died - more than in any country and yet there is no sight of brakes in this ride. These people who don't wear the masks are the prolifers. They don't see 270,000 embryos in these poor souls who died (okay - some were not poor souls - some were the idiots who did not believe in the virus in the first place.) I hate the double standards of these prolifers - they allow people to die of the virus but want to protect the embryo in a woman's womb. It makes it clear that these people have nothing to do with life - they want to control a woman - that is all - plain and simple.

Anyone who says that God will take care of them should not be allowed to carry a gun and should not be allowed to go to a hospital when they are sick. Just leave those people with their Gods. 

It will take a year or two before life feels normal again. When will we feel comfortable going out in public without a mask? Washing hands is a good thing - but until now I had not used hand sanitizer like the way I have now. I don't know when I will feel normal again. 

This virus could have been controlled easily if everyone had just followed some simple guidelines. We are all suffering because of the few million who refuse to listen.

Black Lives Matter

 Why would we have to say Black Lives Matter if they did matter? No one ever said White Lives Matter or Chinese Lives Matter. We have to say BLM because their life is in danger....all the time. I think the media has also helped bring it to light lately. For all of us who were living our lives blisfully ignorant about all the police killings going on, it was wake up call. I knew about all this but not to the extent that it has been going on.

I have become more aware of for the past 8 years when it young Trayvon Martin was shot for no reason but wearing a hoodie. How can that happen in such an advanced country? Since then I have been observing more of these incidents and each time they seem more and more wrong.

How can any human live with such wrong doing? Why don't more Americans stand against this kind of police killings? I thought about this a lot and only answer is that the police don't think of these Blacks as human beings. Now that there have been more videos of the shootings, it is clear that the police is racist.They are not protecting all Americans, only the white ones.

Last night was the ultimate. I was sleeping at night when a car drove by on Jog road and something from it sounded like three - four loud thumps. I woke up with a startle and thought someone was banging my door. It was the car and not my door. But I was awake for a long time, thinking about what happened to Breonna Taylor. The police did not even give her the courtesy of knocking on her door! They just came in and shot her eight times. And all the time I thought, if some cops had come in and shot me, what would they say to my family? How would they get around it and blame me for my shooting. What kind of lies would they tell to protect themselves? 

The police here seem to be above any law and with no consequences. When the security of a country is based false values there will never be any justice. I had such a high opinion of America but it turned out to be another corrupt country.

Teaching During the Wuhan Virus

We had our spring break in the first week of March. My friend in Ohio was already going to start remote/online teaching. Another friend mentioned that her daughter was coming home on 16th March from her university in Missouri after they decided to go online for the rest of the semester. I was shocked! 

Nothing was going on for us yet at Palm Beach State College. We went back to college after spring break and I was a bit concerned about being there. I took tissue to the class and told my students that they were welcome to sit far away from each other if they wanted (they did not). Classes and labs went on as usual. On Thursday I mentioned to one of my classes that if we do go online then it will be class as usual for us.  And then on Friday we got the email saying that classes are suspended for the next week and we will be going remote/online for the rest of the semester, so we have to prepare our courses for it. 

This was very hastily done. We were to report to college on Monday as usual, but no classes. We had a faculty meeting with our Associate Dean where he answered questions. We all decided as a chemistry department to skip one lab, that was missed during the suspended week, and do videos or dry lab for the next two. We all had only three labs left. After collecting all my notes etc. that day, I left. 

Next day I came back to record two organic labs, one for 1 and one for 2. One of our lab techs helped to record. It felt just strange to be there doing this with the virus hanging around. It took him about a week to send it to me and then I worked on it and uploaded it for my students. They were good in watching it and giving me a good report on it.  Once the labs were over, I was feeling a lot better.  I had to make a final exam for my organic 1 lab. It was interesting to make it on Blackboard. It took me a bit but I think I was able to do a good job on it. And so did my students, they did well on it.

I spent the week of 16th March working on changing the dates for the work due and making new calendars. I had done a lot of work already on making all my lectures online on YouTube, so I did not have to worry about that. I had to sign up for some online testing for my organic because I knew that was going to be hard to test on Blackboard (our learning software). We all had to learn how to use Collaborate, which is to teach a class in synchronous manner. It is a good software.

The college messed up a bit on this. They knew this was coming and could have warned us earlier to get ready so we don’t lose that one week. But I don’t know what they were thinking! Because of their lack of timely action, we lost a week and we had to work extra hard one week to get things ready for the rest of the semester. And then within the next week the campus was shut down. The technology we ordered was put on hold without telling us for more than a week. That was stupid. I had to order a laptop in order to be able to teach my classes. I just cannot do without writing in my classes. Other professors may teach using power points but I don’t. 

The students were very good in adapting the new method of learning and I am grateful for that. There were some minor cheating incidents, which was kind of expected.  Other than that, students were participating more actively in class and came to class more and more on time. Although there were some that I lost due to them having kids at home and their time was divided. 

I will be glad when this semester is done in the next couple weeks. I am sure the students are also just waiting for this to be done. 

The couple good things that came out of this were one, I got to learn some new technology in Blackboard. I got a new laptop; a Microsoft Surface Pro and I am really enjoying using it. The second thing that is really working out is that I finally have a schedule that I like. I go for my exercise in the morning, teach, take a break and teach again and then I am free! It's nice that I am free after 2 pm. Although I still have work to do but I can do it at my own time.

I am very much a homebody and I love where I live so it is not a big problem for me to be working from home. Maybe I am even liking it. Although I don’t think it is good in the long term.

Six Weeks of Wuhan Virus

It has been a strange 6 weeks. I started hearing about the virus in February on NPR when they were reporting that Wuhan in China, was on lockdown. Travel to and from China was still going on. At that time, I did not realize how contagious the virus was. I just thought that Wuhan was on lockdown to stop the spread – like flu. It turns out this Wuhan virus has upended the whole world! 

China did not stop any flights. A number of countries flew their citizens out of Wuhan. I remember a Nigerian student saying Nigeria was not flying him home, saying that Wuhan had better way to deal with and treat the virus than Nigeria. Nigeria was probably a little smart in not getting infected citizens back into their country. But a number of other countries still had people traveling to China and back. The spread was inevitable. How much, was not anticipated.

After China, it was Italy that went in lockdown in March. By that time, the virus was in news a lot in USA, but no measures were being taken. I went out for lunch on 6 March and then 15 March with friends. Both times it felt weird to be eating out, but I was okay since there had been no cases in Florida. I was hearing about cases in Washington State. Spain was hit hard next.

I started calling and emailing my friends in key places to see how they were doing. They were okay, all at home. I knew the virus was coming here but I did not realize how much it would impact our daily life.

Once the teaching/working from home began on the 16th of March, reality sunk in that we would not have a normal life. Florida did not have anything other than social distancing recommendations. Spring breakers were still coming to Florida. But I took that week of 16th March as the last one of freedom and went shopping a bit, and did some major groceries and vitamin shopping. Some essential items were hard to find like toilet paper, bleach and sanitizers…and for some reason, eggs. Luckily I did not really need of those things. I got my alcohol from the lab and was all set.

It has now been 6 weeks of staying home. Teaching has been going on. I commend the students for transitioning into the online system and coming to classes. 

I have been trying to discipline myself in more than one way. I started going for morning walks….every morning so I could get some exercise. Our community closed the gym and pool also at this time. So morning walks is the only excercise I count on. I started eating a little more healthy. Instead of snacking on junk food, now I snack on vegetables and fruits. Intermittent fasting is becoming normal for me now. I eat only between 9 and 5. I feel if I don’t do all these things, I will become really unhealthy sitting at home all the time. 

I watch little news and all my comedy shows and movies.  People are saying they are getting bored and watching a lot of TV, and I wonder how?? I don’t have time to get bored. Between teaching and preparing for summer classes, I don’t have much time during the week. I try to keep weekends free for relaxing.

I am talking a lot more on the phone now to my extended family and a lot of friends. It has been nice. Some days go by with just being silent all days, which are not different than what I used to have before – hehe.

Going out once a week for vegetables and milk is a little strange now. We have to wear masks (as of two weeks ago) and now I always carry hand sanitizer, which I never bothered with before. It is amazing to me that people in Florida do not maintain a good distance and they don’t care about wearing masks also. Some shops have restricted enterance based on wearing masks or how many people are inside, but other than that, things seem to be normal. Yeah, we cannot eat out or go shopping, some parks are closed but its not India where there is a complete lockdown. 

I got my driveway painted (well my HOA wanted that…I did not care). I have made my office room a much more inhabitable room. I like all the pictures I put on the walls. Otherwise my home is quite set, I don’t really need much work and may God keep it that way.

Sometimes I feel like going out to eat, or ordering pizza, but I let that thought pass since I have always believed in “better safe than sorry”. I can always eat out next year. 

This experience will stay with me for my lifetime. Very unusual.