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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
These are not real butterflies. Just stickers my daughter put on the window.
December 4, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
The dreams are back. When cases began to rise and we started isolating even more, the dreams came back. I can sleep well enough but I have these very vivid and unpleasant dreams that are with me when I wake up. This past night’s dream had me in a waiting room for hours. This year has been filled with death and loss. I am in my mid 40’s and so my parent’s generation is older. My friend’s parents are dying. Not of COVID but of cancer and other diseases.It’s a time when I think everyday we are living in a very special time. When all those we love are close.
December 4, 2020
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Describe an experience this week that made you happy.
I got to speak on a panel about progressive politics and religion. It was just such a great topic, and one that I don't think about enough -- although both areas are true to me. I never really thought about how or if they connected to one another. It was cool to think. The other panelists were also very interesting and well spoken. If only I could do more things like that, and more things like that paid me.
December 4, 2020
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Talk about about what it's like to use social media during this pandemic.
I stopped using Facebook 5 months ago, on my son's birthday. The day before, I started a bunch of arguments, and I didn't want to ruin his birthday by being sucked into my phone. After that, I just kind of dreaded logging on again, and the more time went by, the more I noticed the benefits to my mental health. And I noticed how much participating in social media had been making me get so angry at people - old friends, family, strangers, what have you. Since then, I spent a little time on Reddit under a pseudonym, but even there, after a while I found myself just getting so pissed at people that I'd come online to notifications and just not be willing to even look at them. I haven't gone back there for probably a couple months. I have a twitter account, but I never post. I just watch some people that I think are funny or interesting. It's nice to see what gossip is going around, and how people are reacting to the news. Yeah, we can all read the news, but if you want to see what people think about it, you have to go to some form of social media these days. Even twitter is starting to ruin my days and make it hard to sleep at night, though. I know there have been happiness studies that found that the most reliable way to increase your happiness is to stop paying attention to the news. What does that say about current events? What does it say about the pursuit of happiness? Of course social media sucks, and anyone can list the reasons why. But I think something about me has changed as the pandemic wears on as well, that has made me less tolerant of it. In normal times, I was already the kind of guy who, if I went to a party, I'd have trouble sleeping for a night or two. I've just always been sensitive socially, in the sense that I'm easily overstimulated. And it's not like I can't adapt to more social contact - I've performed on stage, I've taught classes, I go out to plenty of things. But it's a level of tolerance that has to be maintained - I adapt to the level of social contact I have in my everyday life. And now, my threshold has dropped, probably to an all-time low, to the point where even social media contact is a little overwhelming. The only really surprising thing to me is the aggression I feel in response to it. I just get absolutely, head-swimmingly furious with people. I suppose that has to do with the way interactions are mediated through these platforms, because that's just never happened in person for me. So, mostly I just stay away. I have a feed reader with all my favorite publications that I can scroll through whenever I feel the urge. I watch talks on Youtube, which can feel almost like a social gathering because everyone's in their house wearing sweats. Andddd that's basically it.
December 4, 2020
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Think about the people closest to you. Tell us about how the coronavirus has affected them, and their life.
With this journal topic, I instantly think of my mother. To give context, she is Chinese and immigrated to the US in the 90's, and now works as a software developer. During the pandemic, she is definitely the most stressed out about it, which has been hard for me to understand. Throughout my time at home, there have always been restrictions: not allowed to see anyone outside of the house, wipe everything down with Clorox wipes, grocery shop with gloves on, and the list continues. She works from home and walks outside a lot, but rarely talks to other people outside of our family. I think her stress is fueled by the Chinese news that she reads, where they talk about more things to prevent infection. It's understandable why she is afraid of getting COVID, but I think most of the time she takes it a little too far. Even when I came home from school after getting tested, she was still convinced that somehow I was infected and stayed away from me. I worry about the impact this stress will have on her health, but no matter how many times I talk to her to lower her anxiety, it doesn't seem to work. The rest of my family seems to be less worried about the pandemic, but in our house, we adhere to her guidelines. I believe that COVID restrictions are completely necessary, but there is also a balance to where you still enjoy life and mitigate stress. With the optimistic news of a vaccine down the line, I hope that this will decrease my mother's stress.
December 4, 2020
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Describe an experience this week that made you happy.
Oh, this is my favorite question. I love it when the PJ folks ask this because I am a firm believer that we set our own reality in terms of mood, that we choose what we want to focus on, and if we focus on the things that make us happy, it can really help us feel happy!. So many things made me happy, I can't keep it to just one: A colleague I really respect asked me to co-lead a writing group with her A friend asked if she could hire me to help push her book out into the world My daughter sent me three photos of her insanely adorable puppy My 21-year-old son agreed to the new safety rules we discussed, without a fight. I bought a new guitar that sounds beautiful. I wrote a few new songs on it. I had a birthday party on zoom (Last week) and 12 of my friends showed up! My family gathered by zoom for Thanksgiving and we played fun games A friend gave me super helpful feedback on a chapter I've written No one in my family tested positive for the virus Trump is on his way out. I reconnected with an old friend I have not talked to since seventh grade!!! My friends are all staying strong and healthy, reaching out to one another I got new bread making tools I finished a few writing projects. We celebrated my husband's birthday quietly, and he was really content with that. I made some very healthy lentil stew.
December 6, 2020
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Think about the people closest to you. Tell us about how the coronavirus has affected them, and their life.
Part of my family lives in Peru. Their lives and routines have changed drastically. I have relatives who have passed away. I see more closely the impact of health disparities in the US and in developing countries such as Peru.
December 6, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
My workplace decided to go fully remote for December, so I decided to spend the month with my mom and step dad. It's a welcome change from living entirely on my own while mostly working from home (I'd been doing two days in-person, the rest of the week remote). On the one hand, it's a big adjustment not to have any alone time. But on the other hand, it's much better than being entirely alone. When the pandemic started, I didn't have any problem working fully remotely and living by myself. I wouldn't leave the house for weeks on end and felt totally fine. Sometime around September, I started to feel Not Fine. I think this month living with them will help me cope with isolation in the spring, because it has made me appreciate the things I miss about living alone. I am scared, though. All three of us in this newly-combined household are being very careful and doing all the things we're supposed to be doing. And yet, it still feels like only a matter of time until we get sick. And then I'll feel guilty that maybe I'm the one who got it first, and I could have spared them by not staying with them. Or the opposite; what if I wouldn't have gotten sick if I'd just stayed home? It really feels inevitable that we'll all get sick, because I know a lot of people who've gotten sick who did everything they were supposed to do. I'm terrified, frankly.
December 7, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
The pandemic has affected my connections with friends and family members.I love traveling and this is also on hold. My work has increased and it is becoming more demanding. I am a clinician so there are a number of opportunities that have been available for my participation. I have a hard time saying no since I know that after all I am very blessed to be healthy and for my loved ones to be healthy, too. I want to help as much as I can but at times, this is difficult.
December 7, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
Well, It's starting to feel a little like a rabbit hole now. In we go, and in we stay. Every night now I'm having a similar dream, in that I'm somewhere in public, and I don't have a mask and no one else does either. I wake up in a panic. The dream takes place in multiple settings--concerts, school, work, socializing with friends. Overall, it says the same thing to me: I'm scared, and this is our new reality. This week my family made a decision to hunker down. We're getting food delivered and avoiding all indoor spaces as much as we can. The numbers are really frightening. I cannot get over the number of people who believe that it's their right to be "Free' to not wear a mask, even it makes others sick and overwhelms the health professionals. I feel like I say the same thing every week, but every morning the news reports the same thing. This week we even had a couple that got on a flight from SFO to Hawaii, knowing they had tested positive. It is enough to make a misanthrope out of anyone! I do feel lucky, though, My spouse has a steady job and we have savings. I have great, cheerful friends and we are keeping each other afloat via the phone. One thing I've had fun with this week. the NYT has a "Calculator" where you can put in your age, county, profession and health status and it will tell you approximately how many people are in front fo you for the vaccine. My 21 year old son and I both have 280 million people ahead of us for the vaccine. This made me laugh. We joked that he and I will be wearing masks for a LONG time. Meanwhile, my spouse, who works in the schools, only has 100 million people in front of him. And my daughter, who is graduating as a nurse, will be first in line as a health care worker. I laugh because honestly, it's all so absurd, how badly we humans have failed this test as a supposedly advanced society. And if I didn't work to constantly find humor, I'd be so depressed I wouldn't get out of bed. I choose not to live that way. We will get out of this. It's just going to take a while.
December 7, 2020
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Has the pandemic affected your religious or spiritual observance in any way? If so, talk about it.
I haven't been to a church service since things opened back up. There are still too many people in attendance. Since cases are surging, I am cautious about exposing myself to a large group of people. While I am grateful for Zoom and livestreaming, there is much that I miss about weekly worship. My small group changed the meeting time, and I can barely get home in time. I am not singing as much. I miss Communion. The communal aspect of my faith is a core component. This is the second Advent season that we haven't had daily reflections at work. I looked forward to how other workers integrated their faith and work with the readings from the Lectionary. There is a different feel to the week. I feel that just as m personal circle shrunk, so too has worship. I find that I have to turn to more solitary practices of faith.
December 8, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
This has been a week of relatively intense reflections about COVID-19 and its unveilings of not just the inequalities in society and the cruelties of the governments in the U.S., Brazil, India, and elsewhere (which are increasingly becoming pundit discourses), but of a grammar of the bio-social immune system under great stress from multiple insults. I take this language from an extraordinarily rich paper delivered at our Friday Morning Seminar by O. B., which began with a recitation of events in Iran culled from tweets, conversations with physicians and other friends in Iran, attention to official statements (often in conflict with other sources) as they have been unfolding since February, beginning with reports from a hospital in Qum and journalist tweets and the arrest of those who let out the information followed by an announcement of cessation of flights to China (although unofficially Mahan Air continued with some 55 more flights) -- it began like a deja vu not only of previous epidemics in Iran, but like Wuhan and China's attempts to deny and stonewall, and then the fast spread outside Qum to other cities and to surrounding countries -- Iran becoming the 2nd major hotspot of what would become a global pandemic. While the securitization of health data is long-standing in Iran, it begins to look not unlike the attacks on authoritative knowledge collected by medical scientists and epidemiologists by the U.S. government under Trump. Is there a new grammar of biosocial control, but also of (psychoanalytic and psychopolitical) fantasies of what is going on? In Iran, this year is spoken of as a dark year -- the airliner shot down by IRRGC which just happened to be full of young students returning to universities abroad; the thousands of working class people shot in quelling gasoline price hike protests; the insulin shortage due to the trafficking of insulin abroad as the value of the rial/toman drops, the use of health workers as human shields against the virus in weakened bodies, weakened by diabetes, heart disease, etc. Reading Octavia Butler's two books Sower of Seeds and Sower of Talents is one of those astonishing fiction premonitions from the 1990s of what we are going through today with a candidate who is going to make America Great Again [Reagan's slogan of course] bolstered by evangelical extremists, and the collpase of the environment and social structure in the aftermath of the great Pox. But reading Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad deepens the historical continuities of the post Reconstruction white supremacy regimes that the Republicans are attempting to re-install in naked form -- the new Biden-Harris Administration will push back with what look like a series of superb appointments -- but the Trump years and COVID-19 are a stark warning. To widen the range of the dystopia we inherit and inhabit I also just finished the trilogy by Zimbabwean Tsitsi Dangarembga of what colonization felt like and the rigors of de-colonialism, and Tommy Orange's "There There" (Gertrude Stein: there's no there there), both of which end in catacylsm. All different but in some ways part of the same complex grammar that OB described and that are parts of our interconnected worlds. All parts also of where my head has been as we wrap up the classes on Ethnographic Methods in Medical Anthropology for physicians from from Rwanda, West Africa, Peru, Myanmar, etc.; and on Colonial Encounters, Postcolonial Disorders with people from an equally wide range of background including two Native Americans, and which dealt with such discourses as white settler societies, historical trauma, decolonizing the mind, PTSD, hauntology, ceremony as healing and counter- or supplement to biomedicine's limitiations and incomprehensions. There is light and hope, but it will take work.
December 8, 2020
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Talk about what is most upsetting or scaring you right now about the coronavirus pandemic.
It scares me, and confuses me, that people are so much less cautious now, when the pandemic is worse than it's ever been, than they were in March, when one local case would cause people to panic. We need to be every bit as panicked as we all were in March. I know we're tired of it, and it no longer seems novel (no pun intended), but we need March energy right now, desperately. It doesn't make any sense that there has been an inverse relationship between number of cases and amount of caution people take. I don't get it at all. I'm also scared that people will drop their guard once the vaccines roll out. It will take some time to develop herd immunity even after many people have been vaccinated. I'm scared that people will start partying without masks and the like too soon, and it will be devastating. It scares me that by the time spring comes, it's pretty likely that almost everyone will know someone who got very sick, or died. I had my first personal connection to the disease. My cousin has it. We're not close; she's about ten or fifteen years older than I am, I can't remember exactly. I remember being a very little kid hanging out in her teenage bedroom. I've had very little contact with her since I was little. She hasn't been being careful; she's a Trump supporter who thinks all of this is a hoax. But now she's sick, mild at first but getting worse. I'm scared for her, for our family. I'm also scared that the economic fallout of this pandemic will only continue to get worse, and people will only continue to get more desperate. The rich will keep fortifying their shelters or whatever because they know the world is ending--they even seem to wish for it. The rest of us will continue getting poorer. The numbers support this, but even anecdotally, I know that actual hunger has penetrated my educated, middle-class bubble. I've only told one other person about this because I'm so embarrassed that it happened, but I got robbed recently. This is a situation I never, ever imagined growing up as a middle class kid in the 1990s. It's only going to get worse.
December 8, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
England has now officially come out of the one month lockdown it was in, but my county (Kent) is in the ‘Tier’ that denotes the highest level of precaution must still be taken - tier 3. This means that the last week of the semester, which was supposed to be in person classes, has to be online after all. I am going home in one week. The government has offered a travel window where university students were preferred to go home between the 3rd-9th of December but I am not going until the 11th as I had already booked a ticket that was non refundable and anyway if I had had to buy a ticket within this window of dates it would be £130 rather than £30 which is just too much of a difference. But even though I am going home a little bit after the window, it still leaves me two weeks to quarantine at home and then hopefully I will be fine to see my grandparents on Christmas as the one other family you can spend it with. Technically up to three households can unite for Christmas but this year for the first time in a decade we are keeping it small with just my parents, brother, me and my grandparents (who my parents are the carers for anyway). I am looking forward to a small Christmas. Last year we had a big one including a family friend who brought her very excitable and non-litter trained poodles. It nearly caused a big fight because my dad doesn’t like dogs and was furious the friend wouldn’t take them out enough to stop them excreting inside. Maybe it sounds bad but lockdown measures have been a convenient excuse to not be able to invite lots of people to Christmas as we would normally feel pressured to do. I think my dad in particular will have a lot happier of a time this year and get the Christmas he really wants.
December 9, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
I am really feeling the effect of the sustained pandemic right now. The area where I live is in so-called "lockdown" but it has become fairly political, with news breaking about policy differing from public health recommendations. It is very important for my work that I stay abreast of the news about COVID-19, but I do find it exhausting sometimes, and it can be hard to put it aside. In a general sense, nearly everything about my life feels like it is affected! I am lucky enough to work from home, but that means I don't leave my house very often, only prioritizing the really important interactions. I do all my grocery shopping through contact-less click and collect and only venture into public indoor spaces when absolutely necessary. This will be my first Christmas season ever not celebrating with my family of origin, which is really difficult. They are a four hour flight away, and I cannot justify the risk to myself and to my parents in their 60s, not to mention a family member with asthma. A small but very real thing: even though I'm home all the time, I find it much harder to keep my house clean! We eat here 3 meals a day now, and in general use the house constantly. It creates so much more work!
December 9, 2020
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¿De que manera el coronavirus le está afectando su vida en este momento? Cuéntenos sus experiencias, sensaciones/emociones, y pensamientos.
Esta semana eh estado incomunicada, vendi mi telefono y compre uno en internet sin considerar las demoras que origino la pandemia. Al parecer no se reestablecieron del todo los tiempos y algo q deberia llegar pronto esta tardando demasiado. Me invade la ansidad sin telefono y mas aun llegando estas fechas en las cuales toda mi juventud estuvo colmada de fiestas, despedidas, egresos, bailes... este año todo esto quedo reducido a la nada lo cual me genera cierto mal estar y a la vez incertidumbre... Por lo demas, la semana estuvo tranquila
December 9, 2020
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Think about your neighbors. How do you think they are doing right now?
We barely see our neighbors. I don’t know how they’re doing, if they are even still living there. I mean the old neighbors. The younger, I see them all the time. But the old, they almost never go out. Some evening, it was already dark, I saw the old lady from the first floor on a bench outside our building. I felt she was a bit surprised or even scared that I entered the building. I thought, maybe she forgot that other people are living in the building. Maybe I also forgot about her.
December 9, 2020
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¿De que manera el coronavirus le está afectando su vida en este momento? Cuéntenos sus experiencias, sensaciones/emociones, y pensamientos.
Luna llena de diciembre. Llegamos al final del año. ¿Cómo? Pues con esta sensación de que el tiempo se congeló y saltamos de un día de marzo al primer día de octubre, habiendo pasado por un confinamiento estricto, por falta de trabajo, por un gran miedo de contagiarnos y morir o peor: ver a nuestros seres queridos agonizar. Luna llena de diciembre y todo quisiera volver a la "normalidad": tener trabajo, salir al mercado, pensar que es posible viajar, intentar reunirnos con nuestros familiares... No sé, creer que el episodio fue eso, un episodio más de un mal sueño. Que la sobrevivencia en el país se impone, que hay (como siempre) más cosas por las cuales luchar que la simpleza de la pandemia, que los niños mueren más de hambre que de COVID-19. Luna llena de diciembre y me pellizco el brazo. ¿Cómo pude estar tanto tiempo encerrada? ¿Cómo pude sobrevivir sin trabajo? ¿Cómo me faltaron todos los que quería? Milagros, milagros.
December 9, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
I experienced a lot of changes in my life due to the COVID pandemic. I am a current senior at a university, and unfortunately have been entirely online since last spring. During this pandemic I applied to graduate school, and I was unable to visit any of the schools beforehand. All interviews were held online, and for a student with subpar internet, that was really stressful. Luckily a program took a chance on me! I am now left with finishing out my semester remotely before I move on to graduate school, hopefully in person. I cannot imagine learning medicine online, but at this point I have learned that adaptability is a necessity for surviving this pandemic. As COVID continues to worsen, I fear that my learning will continue to be fully online for many semesters to come and hinder my ability to practice medicine in the future. Financially, COVID has been a struggle for me among many others. I worked in nursing prior to the pandemic, but because of my other job in medical administration I was not able to continue due to the extremely high risk of contracting COVID and passing it to my other coworkers. Luckily, I stumbled across a new position as a COVID screener at a local museum, which as helped supplement my income. It has not been easy working two jobs and being a full-time student, but I am trying to count my blessings that I am able to attend a good university and have an income at all. I know that many others in the US and across the world are struggling severely due to this virus and all that I can do is be thankful for my blessed situation and continue moving along with life.
December 9, 2020
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Many of us have experienced restrictions on movement and social contact during the pandemic. Talk about any restrictions that have especially affected you.
Recently, Governor Dewine has issued another statewide lockdown across Ohio. This has affected the night life lately and where people are allowed to do late night workouts such as myself. No more clubs, gyms, late night food spots and hangouts. This year has truly been a movie and we’re in the last quarter of it.
December 9, 2020