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<strong>Because of the pandemic, I wasn't enrolled in school last semester -- this lead to me scrambling</strong> to find opportunities during the summer and trying to find really, anything, to make me feel productive. Ultimately, <strong>I ended up overburdening myself</strong> - I took on too many part time jobs and found that as I got move involved with them, they all began to ask more of me, escalating responsibilities towards the mid summer months, when I was working more than 15 hours a day, all in meetings on Zoom. <strong>I think the worst part wasn't necessarily the work - it was the time I had to spend on Zoom, and the fact that I had to bring my brightest personality to all of these calls</strong> whether it be tutoring and trying to sound excited about the SAT, or doing sales calls and doing my best to look on top of it and professional, when internally, <strong>I began to overwhelm and exhaust myself.</strong> I also had <strong>very, very poor internet through most of quarantine</strong> - well below average than what most of us have access to now in school (I hope!) and well below the national average. This meant that during Zoom calls, I was either awkwardly frozen, seeing frozen faces, or had to dial in via phone. This sometimes caused a lot of anxiety, like when a student got mad at me for the poor internet and wanted to reschedule their session entirely - which would've been a whole process for me since my schedule was so packed. I'm still continuing to work during the school semester, and <strong>while I've been trying really hard to create some boundaries, I still regularly get overwhelmed</strong> when I look at a <strong>particularly heavy schedule of social Zooming</strong> and <strong>having to maintain that face.</strong>
October 13, 2020