Items

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  2020-03-18

  All Things Will Pass

  On this day, I recall watering my succulent and staring out the window with grave uncertainty of what was to come and utter confusion as to what exactly was happening. The stock market had just crashed andante pumped back up within minutes and the news was flooded with death and infection rates rising as people began clamoring for grocery stores to hoard supplies. The past two years living through COVID has felt somewhat like the process of the Calvin Cycle that kept my succulent in this photo nice and healthy. Although it is nearly impossible to articulate what life has been like or what was observed over the last two years, one great lesson I gained is the understanding that nothing is forever. It is all temporary. As I watered my plant with sheer emptiness and mentally checked-out due to the shock of the situation at the time, I began thinking about the Calvin Cycle process that my succulent or any plants outside would go through as my species was in dire panic. The world seemed to have stopped and sped up over night, but life itself remained to be what it was. Then the thought occurred to me. All things will pass. Living through COVID the last two years has seen work-from-home jobs rise to masses. I left one job to work at another and found that this was the worst comfort and behavior our species grew to become adapted to. For once, it has made us disconnected from reality and from each other. By being disconnected, it creates an issue of empathy and connection. The mantra of "connected while away," was shared everywhere when COVID first came about, but two years later, this has become the opposite. An example of this was observing many downplay the deaths of people from the virus, yet become very emotional once it was one of their family members. This could be viewed under a quick search on Google for the Reddit page of "Herman Cain Award." Bringing this page up primarily serves to show that both sides of the COVID discourse became contradictory as both sides were insensitive toward death. Was it due to being separated? I'll allow you to consider this. Another interesting point observed during COVID was the rise of irrational spending and mass speculation. Alan Greenspan once called the mass speculation a product of "Irrational Exuberance." The premise of this best serves that of investing as it describes the investor enthusiasm which drives asset prices higher than they are worth. However, the same could be viewed through the grocery hoarding of toilet paper or food where people became highly speculative of how long thee lockdowns would be. This was also indicative of the housing bubble 2.0 in which the Federal Reserve opened massive quantitative easing and opened cheap lines of credit for many. The result created more greed as people began hoarding one of the basic needs of our species in housing. How can a species feel righteous commoditizing shelter? The answer is irrational exuberance. Unfortunately, the result of the quantitative easing has created a massive issue where as the time I type this, the 1Q GDP results of the United States is at -1.4% and the inflation rate is at 8.5%. The Irrational Exuberance may be spelling the end of this decade's journey of cheap credit as it appears we are now headed for another Recession the next quarter. However, despite all of this irrational exuberance and the great stress these past two years have brought, I can no longer complain. I have adopted and accepted the Stoic philosophical belief that we must care for our neighbors as this will all pass. History has proven to be very biased when thinking in retrospect, but I hope my current peers use this to improve the future. ....... also, I never mentioned the protests, presidential change, food shortages in Sri Lanka and Peru, or how we have a dollar shortage crisis that nobody is talking about. All things will pass.
• 2022-04-29

  It's The Little Things

  The pandemic was full of many things that turned the world upside down: the loss of jobs, death, and the decline in mental health for many students. I remember when the semester was transferred to fully online, many students like myself celebrated for the extended Spring Break and the ability to attend Zoom classes in pajamas. However, months passed and the daily lack of contact with acquaintances and friends, isolation, and lack of activities turned the days quite mundane quickly. The drastic change in an active lifestyle to such a slow paced one definitely had a negative impact on conditions such as depressive symptoms, health anxiety, and an overall learning curve of the lifestyle. Digging deeper, I know many families whose breadwinner of the family lost their job because many places were letting their staff go due to the lack of demand of labor. When dealing with a global pandemic, death was also a central topic to deal with. Many countries did not have access to medical equipment such as ventilators and thousands of people were dying in my motherland. I personally lost some family members and many people I know have as well. While the pandemic introduced our lives to a dark state, there was a slight silver lining, and that was spending time with the loved ones. Over the years before the pandemic, I feel like the world moved at an unbearably fast pace. My days consisted of going to class and work, possibly spending some time with friends, doing homework, and sleeping for the most part. As the world started to slow down because of the COVID pandemic, my father was finally able to work from home, my sister had online classes, and my mother didn’t have to rush to pick my sister up from school. Often, our meals during dinner would be inconsistent and spent near the TV as everyone had their own schedules. However, when the pandemic hit, it was advised to not eat at restaurants and take out fast food. Such restrictions led to trying out new recipes and laughing in the kitchen. Little moments such as conversations at the dinner table are still some of my favorite memories. In addition to cherished time with my family, I was able to finally rediscovered some hobbies that I used to enjoy years ago. Before the pandemic, my life had begun to revolve only around academics and I had forgotten what it felt like to spend the evening painting or trying out a new dance. However, spending months at a time at home forced me to redirect myself to other forms of entertainment when there was no use of travelling to other places. This really helped me define myself as someone who has so many other interests rather than just a student who studied 24/7. I still try to carry these hobbies into my schedule now that the world is slowly coming back to its fast pace.
• 2022-04-29

  My Timewarp

  It started for me when I returned from a business trip in Europe in March 2020. I had to fly through Germany to get home. Early in the pandemic a new country got added to the no-fly list. When I got back home, I went to work for a few days and then was told from my manager that Germany just got put on the list that if you have been there, you had to quarantine, so I couldn't come to work even though I had already been there for 3 days. So, I worked from home the rest of the week. The next week was spring break and I had it off anyway. We had plans to go to Disneyland. We decided to go and had a two-day pass. We went to the park Thursday and were resting Friday and planned to use our second pass the next day when we got notified through the Disney App that the next day would be the last day the park would be open. Almost 10 minutes later our church sent an email that services would be cancelled for the foreseeable future. My husband and I decided it was best to go home even though we still had a day at Disney. It was sinking in that this wasn’t just a few days of inconvenience. It was serious and we should head home. The next few months were hectic, scary, annoying and lonely. My son was in kindergarten and had to miss a lot of first milestones. School at home for a Kindergartner was a joke, but the time we got to spend time together as a family was nice. My work was accommodating and provided everything I needed at home. Two years later I am still working from home. I gained 15 pounds but I am back to what I was when this all started. Things are getting back to normal now, but inflation is insane and the supply chain is a nightmare. I spent some of the evening today searching for formula for my sister-in-law in Utah. A formula shortage. Something as vital as feeding babies is hard to find. Additionally, Russia invaded Ukraine just over a month ago, so even though the pandemic has settled down, the world hasn’t. God bless us.
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  2022-04-29

  Navigating through the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020 (My Story) #Rel101

  In this story I share how life changed for all people. How the pandemic changed lives and how lots of people experienced loss in significant ways. In this contribution I shared a reflection on my experience at the start of the pandemic and how life is post the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.
• 
  10/13/2020

  Cynthia Lopez Oral History, 2020/10/13

  An interview with Cynthia Lopez, a St. Mary's University employee in the Blume Library
• 
  2020-09-06

  Jewish Melbourne: NCJWA (Vic) Fathers Day during Covid Facebook post

  The NCJWA (Vic) posted on facebook for Fathers Day, reflecting on how fathers have coped during lockdown.
• 
  2020-03-30

  Relocating to home office. 50 Lonsdale St. 30/03/20

  Staff are encouraged to work from home and are scrambling to get what they need to do that - for some unknown period of time. This woman has gathered her work needs and is sitting on her office chair waiting for transport to take it all home.