Text Only

Talk about any major life events, milestones, or other important things in life that have been disrupted by the pandemic.

<strong> I lost a lot of time on my dissertation this year,</strong> and it absolutely set me back in my progress. It terrifies me. I think I can still finish "on time," (i.e., before too much time has passed for me to finish). I know that if I were in danger of not finishing in that window, my advisor would warn me, and I'm reasonably confident that if I were in danger of not finishing on time, the university would take the pandemic into consideration, but it still terrifies me.<strong> I just couldn't bring myself to write</strong> during the pandemic because it felt so monumental and I really didn't know how long it was going to go on. I managed to complete one chapter draft during the pandemic; I really should have completed two. I was barely still managing to meet my obligations with my remote job. <strong> And at one point, the power company was doing some work and caused such an enormous power surge that it fried my desktop's hard drive,</strong> even plugged into a surge protector (several other less important appliances never worked again after that, too).<strong> Nothing from the power company,</strong> no acknowledgement of what happened, let alone an apology or some sort of compensation. So, while I<strong> couldn't set foot on campus to use a real computer due to the pandemic, I was trying to do my job and write my dissertation on the crappiest, tiniest old laptop</strong> that I'd been meaning to discard. I was just<strong> extremely lucky that none of my writing or archival research was only saved to that computer.</strong> I was supposed to teach a summer course last semester, which was cancelled. I was supposed to present my research at a conference, which was postponed and then cancelled. <strong> I'm an Irish dancer,</strong> a hobby I keep up because I enjoy it and it keeps me in shape.<strong> We abruptly lost St. Patrick's Day 2020.</strong> We had one performance, on March 8th, and everything after that was cancelled.<strong> I never in a million years would have guessed that we wouldn't have St. Patrick's Day 2021, either.</strong> <strong> It feels horrible to be upset about any of this when I have not lost my income and no one I am close to has been sick.</strong> And unlike most PhD students, I wasn't teaching or taking courses, so I never once had to deal with Zoom classes (except dance classes). I am lonely being single and living alone, but at least I am not responsible for a child's needs (especially educational) during this pandemic. <strong> I'm simultaneously totally broken from being all alone for nine months and feel like the biggest piece of shit for not having anything really bad happen to me or anyone I love.</strong>