Results
2775 entries
found
Page 44 of 116
Text Only
How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
I'm tired. I'm a special needs caregiver and I'm tired. No one could have prepared me for this. But here we are, almost 10 months in. I'm not sure what happens next... And really, that keeps me from drowning. Maybe tomorrow the virus mutates and it can't hurt us anymore. But maybe it doesn't. So... Perhaps this pandemic has forced me to be present more than ever. And that's something, right?
January 2, 2021
Text Only
What are the main things you’ve been doing to avoid COVID-19? Have you made any big changes in what you’re doing recently? If so, why?
In an attempt to avoid contracting COVID-19, my husband and I have more or less dropped all of our social activities and have remained at home since the end of March 2020 except for brief outings for groceries, drugstore items, library books and occasional home improvement materials. We have developed an appreciation for online shopping and are grateful for the delivery trucks that rumble down our road. We do not dine in-house at restaurants; instead, once a week, we order online or via cellphone and then pick up our selections. Throughout it all, we have always worn masks, used hand sanitizer liberally and washed our hands fanatically. Like other Americans, however, we sometimes suffer from coronavirus burnout and pandemic fatigue and are growing weary of following precautions. Thank goodness that the vaccines are now in distribution! We'll keep on hanging in there and look forward to rolling up our sleeves to receive doses of the vaccine
January 2, 2021
Text Only
How has the coronavirus pandemic affected how you feel about yourself, others, or the world?
As a researcher who is interested in how people understand health risks and make decisions about their own behavior, I'm fascinated by the parallels between Covid and the AIDS epidemic, particularly the stigma and the denialism. An acquaintance is a professional runner and Olympic hopeful who wrote an op-ed for Runner's World magazine about why she hasn't raced during the pandemic. She holds a master of public health degree and has felt that racing is too risky. A number of the comments on her article called her "paranoid" and "self-righteous," and these commenters felt she was giving into fear and propaganda. I remain extremely angry at the lack of presidential leadership that has sowed misinformation and distrust of scientists from the start of the pandemic. How many more thousands must die because of ignorance?
January 2, 2021
Text Only
Let's talk about exercise. Has the pandemic affected whether or how you exercise? If so, how?
Just around the winds The way the wind fragrance my skin Sweat coating my body But loving how life’s scent makes me feel good Inside myself struggling but finally relaxing In the heat of my own body Generated within myself executed as I Move forward Performing legs burning Lungs on fire Eyes watery from the wind And yet it’s so lovely To be a dearly beloved feeling Lighting up inside myself That no one can ever take away
January 2, 2021
Text Only
We hear a lot these days about the economic impact of the pandemic. Has this been on your mind? If so, tell us what you're thinking.
My productivity in general has declined. I am finding it hard to concentrate--not just on my work, but on pleasures-- serious reading, drawing, my piano lessons. I spend too much time staring out windows, not thinking of anything really--moping as my mother would say. So much death, suffering and I don't know how we can recover, including a belief in a US government that works for its citizens' best interests. I suppose I also no longer believe most people are decent.
January 2, 2021
Text Only
How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
January 1, 2021 Happy New Year! Today is the start of a new year. Too bad that it starts with the same problem that we had last year— a massive pandemic that is scheduled to get worse in the coming month. Last night was surreal. One would have expected all sorts of parties and fireworks. After all, the point of New Year’s Eve is to give the old year one last hurrah and start the new year off right. At the restaurant, we had fireworks all right. We churned out so many pizzas that our delivery response time was up to 2 1/2 hours. I had to answer the phone for call-in orders, and the first thing that I had to tell people was that their order would not be processed right away. Most were polite, even when they said no thanks to “Would you like to place your order now?” I also had to tell an old friend that I could not serve him until he at least showed me that he had a mask, since he entered the facilities without a mask despite the signs on the door noting that they are required. More fireworks came when I had to break up a large party and separate them into several tables because they had too many people. Our local guidelines for COVID-19 say that we can only have 10 people in a party. One vengeful Karina got mad and screamed discrimination. I ended up in the back of the kitchen making sauce cups. The other part of the celebrations that made everything surreal was the fireworks. Someone shot off some sky rockets perilously close to the gas station behind the restaurant. I guess they didn’t care if everything caught fire and we didn’t survive. They also shot off fireworks near the Gonzales stockyards. Since there were no cattle sales this week, there were no animals to spook. I wish that I knew whether or not my little town shot off any fireworks in the city park like they have in past years. It would have made the whole thing seem more normal.
January 2, 2021
Text Only
Do you have any concerns about the long-term impact of the pandemic on children, either in general or in your life? If so, talk about one or two of your biggest concerns.
I am so worried for children because of how long this has gone on. A year might not mean much to many adults. Sure, it has changed many of us, but for a child, a year is an eternity, especially developmentally. We're kind of frozen in time on a lot of things right now, but they can't be. I'm trying to imagine a year of my childhood like this--school over the computer, almost never seeing my friends, no sports, no dance classes, no vacations... What a profound impact that would have. I'm very concerned about the lifelong ramifications for children going through this pandemic.
January 2, 2021
Text & Image
How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
Feeling a bit deflated! The holiday is coming, and I’m woefully unprepared. I actually am not planning on doing anything...just another day as in the past it was always a table full of family and friends. My husband considers Christmas a commercial holiday and so planning pizza for two is not real festive. Yet the kindness of new found friends, and old ones popping up may stir some Christmas cheer after all. For most of 40 years I’d head back home and we’d bake hundreds of cookies to share with all those that stopped by. Taking trips to the garage to refill the plate (Wisconsin is good for cold storage) was not a chore but an honor, and a creative challenge. That memory flooded in on one of my few trips to the store and I found myself buying sugar, flour and butter. Let the merriment begin! I’m ready for eggnog spice balls! 12/15 entry
January 2, 2021
Text Only
Many of us have experienced restrictions on movement and social contact during the pandemic. Talk about any restrictions that have especially affected you.
I normally study medicine in Germany. Now I am locked down in Greece, in Athens with my parents. Theoretically I could go back to Germany, but there is no point since all my classes are online and mostly power points, plus I have sublet my room in Germany hoping I would go for an erasmus (I had everything ready until they locked down Prague). I don't leave the house. Every day is the same. I can't see my friends even though I miss them a lot since I am mostly away and now that I got the chance to come to Greece, we are locked in our houses unable to see each other. I can't even go for a walk alone to the center, which I love so much and I miss Athens so much. You see, I was not lucky enoigh to live close enough to the center and now I am not allowed to leave my house in a distance of a few blocks.
January 2, 2021
Text Only
How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
This past week was New Years. It was really annoying seeing everyone still getting together and having big parties knowing well enough this is extremely dangerous. Cases in my area are 1 in 4 people. The hospitals are being overwhelmed and yet here they are not caring one bit. This next month is going to be a big one because all the Holliday reunions are going to be the main cause of spreading. I’m just upset and done with telling others not to do it. You get so much ‘FOMO’ and feel like you’re the only one who’s going by and actually listening and staying home. Online helps because you see others who are actually staying home as well which is great. I actually counted down the New Years with Snoop Dogg as he was hosting on TV and FaceTiming others in. I enjoyed it and it was a fun memory. I just wish others would have stayed home..
January 3, 2021
Text Only
Would you describe yourself as someone who’s healthy at this point in your life? Why or why not? If this has changed due to the pandemic, talk about what’s changed.
This is a hard question to answer. I personally have been dealing with a neurological disorder for the last 5.5 years. I wouldn’t necessarily classify myself as someone who is healthy. Although 2020 was a breakthrough year for me. I was finally diagnosed one month before the US went on lock down. I was supposed to start my treatment in April but it got pushed back and now I’m finally starting it February of 2021. With the pandemic it brought out anger because I was finally getting the help I needed but it was put on pause. Because of the pandemic I actually took initiative to do stuff myself and see what I could accomplish. I came to conclusion that I can’t do much physical stuff at home with the lack of equipment but I can definitely work on my mental health well being. I took up different meditation methods, self help books and continued therapy. It was the year where I grew so much. I think the pandemic helped me with this since there was very little outside distractions. So I can say that at least I mentally feel the healthiest I’ve ever been.
January 3, 2021
Text Only
How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
I have thoroughly enjoyed working from Oregon this month -- working from "home" is so comfortable and versatile I got to spend the entire month of December here doing exactly what I would be doing in NYC but yet spending quality time with family that I don't get to see very often. I LOVED it. I love this quarantine lifestyle and the way it has made me more human and less like a machine.
January 3, 2021
Text Only
How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
Something very difficult happened to us nine days ago. My family wanted to circle around us and hug us. The short answer would be that they weren't able to do this because of COVID. Instead we had a family Zoom call on a Saturday night. My sister and daughter and nephew and their spouses and brother and son were all there! It felt like a virtual hug. My sister-in-law couldn't make it so a couple of days later she and my brother called and did some nice sharing. What is interesting about this event was that it wouldn't have been very different in the absence of COVID except that these close relatives could offer to come visit to support us if we needed the support. They are in different places, CA, DC, OH, VT, and it's not likely that they would have dropped everything to come and support us. But they would have been able to offer. It is even possible that if COVID had never happened my sister wouldn't have thought of having an organized family gathering via Zoom, though it would have been the best option anyway. We traveled to DC to see our daughter, son-in-law and grandson. We got COVID tests before we went and got tests when we were there as CT requires in order to return without quarantining. Our daughter also wanted us to get tested to be sure her baby wouldn't be bringing COVID back to daycare the next week. While we were there they got a night away and we watched the baby. I drove her to where they were staying. If it weren't for COVID they would have taken the Metro. We never drove to see them before COVID. WE always flew, except once when we took the train, with my in-laws for our grandson's bris. They are very careful about COVID and don't shop on weekends or holidays. Our daughter makes challah bread every other week. She made it last week and this week because we were visiting and Friday was a holiday they didn't go shopping so they had no challah bread, which was too bad. We went to see our son-in-law's mother, who is disabled. Because of COVID we walked around outside with her for 45 minutes. THe park was the highest place in DC and pretty windy, so it was quite cold.
January 3, 2021
Text Only
We hear a lot these days about the economic impact of the pandemic. Has this been on your mind? If so, tell us what you're thinking.
I don't know where the economic effects of the pandemic will lead us, and I try to live day by day. My immediate family is not too badly affected - many of those I love are retired, so they are all right; most of my cousins have been able to keep their jobs. My sister, who is at the low end of the economic spectrum, has been able to get retail work. The person I worry about the most is my daughter, who is two years out of a film degree. The pandemic has prevented her from making the projects she organized for this year, and for which she still has funding. The pandemic has prevented her from carrying out work she was hired for this year and for which she tentatively is still on board to do next year. In the meantime she's been doing video work, so her skills are definitely in use, but she feels that this is an entire year out of her life in which she ought to have been getting a foot up in the industry, and in which absolutely nothing has happened. And I think she lives day to day as well, because it's not obvious how the entertainment industry will recover - or if there will be any difference for her in 2021. This entry doesn't really address the economy. I think that the entertainment industry, AND the global economy, in general, will recover: things will be DIFFERENT. Perhaps we will become less of a consumer society. Tourism will change. I could have written an entire entry on the aviation industry, rather than entertainment: airlines folding, pilots and aviation workers furloughed with little hope for future work; like entertainment, aviation will be DIFFERENT. But I feel that developments within the next few years will assist recovery. We are all waiting for a chance to work again and we are willing to work.
January 3, 2021
Text & Image
Additional Material
This red is supposed to be happy this time of year. Red bows, red Santa suits, red candy canes, red Holly berries. Not something you want to see in your toilet bowl....my husband says he feels fine and yet we can’t deny this unexpected holiday hue. It will be weeks of test before we know anything...so sure let’s pile this on on top of Covid, and missed time with family, and economic struggles...I wonder if anyone has thought to ask God if he’d consider a ban on illness and death and strife for say two weeks in December? After all he knew to rest on the seventh day, surely some more time at year end is well deserved. Holidays are often tough enough, without additional tests of our mortality and one’s faith. Do we really need to tinker with free will as a test of humanness everyday? Would be nice if we all could just enjoy the calm, joy and peace of the season the carols hark unto us without having to prove anything for a few days....
January 3, 2021
Text Only
How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
The hope of a vaccine and the realization that it will take a long time to get it. The sadness of so many cases and deaths. The losses so many people have had. The overwhelming sadness that our government won't help people who are in need. The hope that things will return to normal.
January 3, 2021
Text & Image
How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
Last week a foot of snow, this week was rain. Standing by this stream reminds me of how powerful nature is, and yet how foolishly we often try and tame it. It’s the holidays and yet instead of addressing Christmas cards, I stand by the side of the road in awe of the roaring water and think how the power can be both friend and foe. As friend, there are opportunities to be harnessed to provide power to factories and schools or heat to our homes, or for drinking water in times of drought. And yet that same stream we think we can tame can become a damaging overflow ripping out foundations of houses, or loosening tree roots and unleashing mudslides. We must remember any, and every, partnership requires respect...just as each drop of water has little power by itself, together flowing in the same direction that dynamic can change. The one thing this pandemic has done has slowed things down and removed a lot of the day to day distractions many of us were caught in that kept us too busy to notice many things. And yet, the days continue to march on and we cannot stop time any more than I could march into this stream and stop it.
January 4, 2021
Text Only
How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
I have deliberately avoided journaling for the past few weeks. I just didn't want to think about what is happening. The surge is here. Our COVID ICU is full and some patients are in the overflow area now. The COVID floor, which only had part of it blocked off for COVID patients, has now been fully opened. I see the daily positive numbers for our county increase every day. We're back to that crazy, busy, hectic pace that leaves me exhausted and in a daze. The fact the people are still not wearing masks and keeping a safe distance boggles my mind. We are going on a year of dealing with this. What will it take for everyone to take it seriously?
January 4, 2021
Text Only
How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
I am about to begin teaching another course on Zoom, and the prospect of teaching in the near future, as well as mentoring and other aspects of my professional life, all occurring via Zoom, is daunting. Although I am very lucky, so grateful to have the networks and support, personal and professional, that I have, I am quite lonely and miss having the interstitial interactions that make up so much of social life, as well as the planned and more structured in-person social interactions associated with activities like teaching. I find my self missing the qualities of social interactions, the glimpses of other people and their worlds that can be difficult to perceive online. And just a sense of physical closeness. And I'm an introvert by nature! I've also been saddened by the recent death of yet another elderly person in my social world. So far this year I have had 2 friends and my sister-in-law lose a parent, and yesterday my father's aunt passed away as well. My sister-in-law's mother died of COVID-related complications. My neighbor's husband also died of COVID. That is a total of 5 elderly people in my social/familial circles who have died since July 2020. Two of these died of COVID-related complications. They were all impacted by COVID isolation and the challenges of not being able to see family during the pandemic prior to and during their illnesses. These are some of the aspects of COVID that are pressing on me this week, and I am surprised by how much I appreciate being able to write down some of these thoughts and share them!
January 5, 2021
Text & Image
How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
Only a few Christmas holidays have passed over the many years without our daughter in it. She's 28 and working in Hawaii - too far to come home, quarantine, spend the holiday, and return to her own house and work life. Her father and I have been so cautious about distancing that we did not feel comfortable with her coming either. So, I made a stocking, filled it, packed boxes with gifts and spent time on the phone, face time and zoom with her daily. That has become usual for us during this time, because she is living solo in an apartment and in a new community. I've been missing her a lot - but not nearly as much as when she left home for travels after last Christmas. In 2019, we spent nearly 6 weeks together - the longest stretch since she was in high school. I got used to her being part of our daily life. I've come to realize that missing my daughter is an ordinary part of life - not just during COVID times. But it seems a bit more pronounced these days because we don't have a "choice" to visit. I better understand as a middle aged adult what my mother felt when I moved away from home many years ago. We grew up in Alaska and I was the only child to "leave to the lower 48." While we visited often, Mom knew we'd never live close again. That must have meant a special kind of loss for her - a quiet form of grieving the passing of our regular time together. Zoom, texting, and cell phones have made the distance much smaller. But I cannot be there for Mom or my daughter to help when they do not feel well. Mom got COVID-19 five weeks ago - and while we were all afraid she may get pneumonia, she fared okay at home. Her main symptoms post-COVID are dizziness, shortness of breath, and tiredness. We are grateful it wasn't worse. And, we hope that there are not invisible effects that will appear later. This photo - to close - is of a patchwork stocking I made in the weeks before Christmas. Our daughter "zoomed" with us as she opened her gifts -- 2020 Christmas was one of a handful I'll never forget. One passed in Northwest China when she was a toddler and we had a paper tree with paper ornaments on the wall. Another where my father was very sick from cancer and yet he rode the snow machine out to get the tree. And another when I did not go home and my father would pass days later. Among those years which stand out were many beautiful holidays spent either in Alaska or our home in the Lower 48 with family and friends. This year's was sad and sweet and beautiful.
January 5, 2021