Covid Continues

It has been just about a year of Covid now. I would still like to call it the Wuhan virus since it originated from there. 

Life is becoming a routine at home. I am actually liking it. Is that weird? I must be an introvert! 

Work - This is possibly the thing that I miss most - that is seeing my students in a class. Zoom is just not the same. The class participation is abysmal and so is the attention span. The interaction is not smooth and not being able to see them is the biggest drawback for me. Also - I am a little bit of a performer, I need an audience to tell my jokes and show my chemistry demos. I feel a chemistry class is incomplete without demos. I am really missing those! And regardless of whether the students will remember the demos in the future or not, they are missing the fun part (they don't know it).

I have been going to teach the labs since Sept of 2020, which is really helpful for me and the students. All of us get to come out of our shells and be with people again. And it has been very successful.

What I am totally not missing about my work, is the office hours. That was 90% of just sitting in my office for nothing. Students rarely show up for anything. No faculty ever came by to socialize so it was like imprisonment for me. I can do grading and course prep at work, but it is so much easier at home. I am more productive with my time at home.

Personally - My personal life has improved a lot. I am more relaxed, I have been walking 2.5 mi daily and now 5 mi daily. I get up at 6:30 am to go for my walk so it does not get too hot. Don't know how my evening walk will work out once summer is here. My eating is a hit and miss. The one thing I have followed diligently since Aug 2020 is intermittent fasting. I am surprised that I don't much hungry at night. I do eat a bit of junk food - but that is normal for me. I would say overall my calorie intake has gone down by about 300 Cal.

Ever since I got the hedge cut off at my front entrance I have gone a little cookoo about gardening. I am really enjoying planting different kinds of plants. I feel this is the time for me to do this. After this semester goes, I don't know when I will at home like this. This is so relaxing. I have become a little thief of plants, I buy cheap plants and I ask for plants from whomever is willing to give me some. I have cleared out more area for gardening on the southern side of my house. It gets a lot of sun, so hopefully I can grow plants well there. 

I have been able to hang out with a few of my friends, we go out to eat and talk about work and other things. My social life was not that much to begin with, so this is quite okay for me. 

I have not been able to binge watch too many shows as other people do, I don't know why! Maybe I don't have the patience to that long or I cannot find anything that interesting. But I have kept myself entertained with movies and the current shows I watch. That is sufficient.

And then I have to also convert my Blackboard class to Canvas and write questions for the chemistry app. All that is also moving along slowly but steadily.

I think it will be tough for us to come back to work full time once all is normal.

Speaking of normal - the Vaccine! Z great vaccine is out and there but the people who are working and actually need it are not getting it. Only 65 and above age group is getting it. They are getting ready to party! While we, the workers, are still waiting. USA is weird! They should have prioritized teachers and grocery and restaurant workers after the health care workers and then given to the senior citizens. And there is no vaccine for children yet so we are not entirely out of the woods yet. 

The main thing I miss I think of being normal is psychological normalcy - when I can go out without a mask and without feeling that I will get sick if I don't do this or that; when I feel comfortable enough to eat in a restaurant; when I can feel comfortable in a classroom full of students. I think that may come only after vaccinations and maybe another year of seeing low or no cases. I am waiting for that time to come.....

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.

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.