Life in a pandemic

 It has been years since I last posted in my blog. 

Too many things have happened since then. 

Of course, we didn't see that a pandemic would happen in 2020. I remember the weeks leading up to the lockdown in my city, where my son and I went to Santa Cruz at the beach. It was a cold February day but we had a great time. Fast forward a week or two later, we were at the museum as usual. I think the country due to it's rhetoric brushed off what we were seeing in China as something surreal and would not happen in the U.S.

But sadly, the worse of it did. Luckily, I lived in a city where we took it seriously. Our county health officer had a two week stay at home order for everyone. My principal on a Friday asked me to send home all my students' books and work related papers which I did. Then we later on learned that we were supposed to prepare work for them to do for the next 2 weeks. I went to school, made copies and then sent them home. We hunkered down for the next 2 weeks. Then the weeks became months and before you know it, we could only go outside to get groceries. We had to work from home. That's how the school year ended and the new school year started. 

It was difficult year learning how to use technology with my students. Trying to set work boundaries but it was also a year where my son and I spent a lot of time learning things together. From reading books, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Because of Winn-Dixie, etc. We took walks around the neighborhood and talked about a lot of things. 

There was also a lot of hate and racism rhetoric brought on by the president against Asians or anyone for that matter who wasn't blue-eyed and blonde. And that brought a great divide aside from the whole mask wearing or not. Then there was the anti-vaccine sentiment. As a foreign worker in this country, we had to be vaccinated for certain things. I couldn't even get a green card unless I went to see a doctor and showed all the immunizations that I had. I am guessing that many of these people have never travelled outside of the country, hence their very narrow view of the world...it's all about the "greatness of America." They have never heard of Europe, Asia and other continents of the world. I would never travel with my son even back to my own country if he wasn't vaccinated because many diseases are preventable with a vaccine. 

And now finally, back to school after a long time working from home.