Life After Shelter At Home: So Many Questions

Art for my heart

Return to normal is starting, and I am fascinated. Fascinated being the word of choice but I really can't think of another, better one. How we will all navigate this: including those who believe we will return to our old normal, and those who believe we will never return to our old normal. Chicago is starting to open up, as is the entire state. I am grateful for state and local leaders who act like leaders, and who believe in science. Healthcare experts inform the decisions, and that matters tremendously. I am not downplaying the economic impact, and there are recovery models out there that posit that some people will choose to take health risks because of the economic implications of not doing so. It is not something to be scoffed at, the recession that is coming could be catastrophic. Since I can sit and do my work at home, I don't think I have too much of a right to judge folks who may not have options. I won't lie, I am frustrated by people who have options but still choose to risk the lives of others.


What do you do when someone in close contact with you won't wear a mask? When it's a family member or a loved one? When it's someone you encounter during the course of your daily work? It's hard to have that conversation. It's harder to have that conversation when wearing a mask is seen as an infringement of personal liberties. That is not a discussion happening in countries in Asia or other parts of the world, where individual liberties are not valued in the same way (not that that is without it's problems). I don't particularly enjoy wearing a mask, and nor do the people I know. But it's really not about that.

My newsfeed yesterday led me to an article about people who are part of m i l i t i a, preparing, nay looking forward to armed confrontation. If you are interested look up Hawaiian shirts and other keywords. I can't bring myself to link to any of it, it can't lead to anything good. On one hand, knowing feels like being prepared for...something. But knowledge of this kind is also paralyzing. Take a look at this article, which lays out in detail how the current administration is looking to stop and decimate visa and immigration pathways. After I read this, I felt like I couldn't breathe for a while, despite being aware of this risk for years at this point. I try and make peace with the uncertainty, nay the specific targeting of the programs regularly. There is not much I can do as individual, and to be anxious about something so beyond my control robs me of precious days and happiness. I can't decide whether knowing helps me in this case or not. Let's look at the worst case scenario: I (we) have to pack up and start all over again somewhere. Is there really a way to prepare for that stress and worry? In my mid-thirties I feel the loss of today to worry about tomorrow a lot more keenly. A sense of mortality, completely contrary to the sense of invincibility in twenties, has started to grip me more and more. Things end, people die, and somehow life keeps moving even as people's worlds collapse. I'm a beacon of cheerfulness, I know.

There is also the (inevitable?) feeling of confronting not only one's mortality, but also one's mediocrity. Is this it? Have I peaked? Is my future path predetermined at this point, and all the choices I make, while feeling freewill, are actually from a narrowed set of options. I value productivity and constantly challenging myself, and slowing down and acceptance of what is. They feel contradictory but I am not sure that they are, or rather that they have to be. I am also aware of not being as hungry and driven as I used to be in my twenties. Of course, a lot of that was driven by pure insecurity and anxiety, and hardly healthy. But I still want to regain some of that motivation, and to be fair to myself, I have been able to in the last two months. The time I have saved on commuting, I have been able to put towards exercising (the sole aim right now is consistency, the rest can come later); cooking for myself (I believe that pretty much anything I make at home is healthier than takeout or delivery options available to me); and finally learning/studying. I wanted to take the project management exam, which is an extraordinarily tedious process: both the preparation, and the actual exam -- think four hours, one ten minute break, no water in the exam space etc. It's a test of mental and physical endurance, and I am not sure who the physical endurance piece serves.

Work From Home and Quarantined at Home

Note: there is humor in this, some of it is dark. I cope with humor but in no way am I trying to downplay the seriousness of the situation.

Prior to Day 1

Can't get eggs, potatoes or chicken for love or for money. We keep saying the shortages are artificial, but I can see that when the history books are written, the hoarders will probably have a section to themselves. On the other hand the guy that bought 17,000 hand sanitizers and had his face put in a newspaper, is likely to be the villain no one needed.

Day 1

It started at 8:30 and it felt like I worked more than I usually do at work ha! But it was a productive day, despite some audio hiccups. My WFH setup needs some redecorating but that's going to take a minute. My hypothesis is that week 1 is going to feel oddly intense because this is not business as usual in my world. Week 2 will be a lot more indicative. I can't see how this will end in 2 weeks. Flattening the curve is apparently at least an 8 week effort. Also my PMP exam got cancelled, so I have one less thing to worry about.

Did some grocery shopping at Patel's, which amazingly has a dedicated Coronavirus page. Apparently they are the victims of some false messaging on Whatsapp (?!). Trying to start a #whatsappandwine club. I am also feeling rather chatty because being at work fulfills the need to be social and suddenly it's not there. ]

Food habits have taken a hit the last few weeks, so used the evening to make some bharta in the Instant Pot. I love the Pot but it's become a lot more prone to beeping the Burn sign. Not cool Pot, not cool at all.

What will be key is the routine I develop and stick to. The absence of a routine and the presence of wfh is not a combination for a successful quarantine.

Day 2

Just as I was about to get on a call, electricity for the whole building went off. I definitely panicked, it felt apocalyptic. I went to the dank basement where our breakers live, and honestly it's like something from a scary movie I would never watch. It's so dark I bumped into a person also fixing his breaker, and screamed. So my brain was on high alert and panicked. I messaged way too many people, and asked for the go-ahead to go to work. I got it, and just as I was headed out the door, the electricity came back on. I have trust issues with most utility companies but if this is where our relationship is headed Comed, I am here for it.

I'm working on something I've never worked on before and it's complicated and I am learning a lot. I'm also feeling a little stupid, and am forgiving myself, because 1. I am learning as I go, and 2. There is no training. None. Ctc has been kind, and given me lessons and whatnot. But the covid response plan has taken over life for now. And I and most people I know are in the most privileged of life situations right now - wfh is not an option for everyone, getting paid in this time is not happening for everyone, being able to front expensive basic item purchases isn't to be taken lightly. Having a safe comfortable home. All of these are not small blessings (in their agnostic form).

It was a intense day, and at 6 pm I had to take an emergency nap (it's one of those where I just can't help falling asleep because of how stressed my body feels). My fight or flight response has been super activated since yesterday. 

On a lighter note, I've started watching Endeavour and it's pretty engrossing. With that, I'm heading back to tending to the Pot. 

Summer, where are you?

Random art spotted

Summer simply won't come to Chicago. There are a few days here and there, but no certainty that if you missed one of those days, there will be another one. It will be okay, it is not a serious problem, but after a long winter, summers help my mood. Summers this time around at least are also encouraging me to be more active and exercise more. I feel better for sure and it gives me a sense of control. Whenever I can now, I try and attend multiple classes. There is always something that comes up on certain days and so I'd rather do as much as I can when I have the time.

An Almost Decade of Work

In June of 2019, I will have spent a decade of my life working (with a two year gap for graduate school in the middle). I started work as a callow 20 year old; my first job was as a copy-editor for a firm that provided editorial services. In retrospect, I can only marvel at my reasoning in accepting this job, it was a little bit of a non-sequitur after completing an Economics degree. My next significant role was working in Corporate Citizenship for a consulting firm; it is this job (and the people) that was the most formative experience for me as a young professional in my early career.

Over the course of this almost decade at work, I’ve attended several orientations, worked with people in and from different countries, gone from being a newbie and absolutely terrified of being wrong to understanding that mistakes are inevitable. I’ve worked in three countries and multiple cities; I’ve worked a domestic job that had a big international component and I work an international job that is as domestic and local as it gets. Last year, I spent some time talking to a career coach and this prompted me to scribble a list of sorts, about what I have learned during all this time – not technical or job-specific things but transferable skills and approaches that have and will continue to help me. I’m sharing this list here as a reminder to myself and in the hopes that it is relevant to others.

1. Make notes of what you work on:
I am not talking about your resume (although keep updating that regularly as well, instead of waiting till when you don’t have a choice or the time). I’m talking about all the projects and events and big and little tasks and research and articles, which may be significant in the immediate moment but are easy to forget as you change roles and jobs. This is hardly original advice but I find that even a couple of quick lines every few weeks about what I got done is a great memory jogging tool. It doesn’t just help with resumes, but also with interviews and other professional conversations, applications for fellowships and pro bono work, for side hustles and more and at the end of the day, to remind yourself.

2. Know what organizational tools work for you:
At this moment in 2019, the options to get and stay organized feel infinite. They range from the Getting Things Done methodology to Marie Kondo-ing your life; from Trello to Smartsheets; from Google Calendars to Bullet Journaling and everything in between. All of these don’t work for all of us. Some of these will last and others will fall by the wayside. But what is unlikely to change is your natural organizational personality (if you think you don’t have one or haven’t identified it that is a conversation for a different day). I’ve learned that I must write things down, otherwise they don’t stick on my memory. I’ve also learned that putting events in physical notebooks will only lead me to double-booking myself. I’ve learned that a simple list in Google Keep can be an effective tool to work with another person; while a project plan in Smartsheet, while detailed can often seem daunting to folks. Some people just make notes on their phone. The sooner you figure this out, the more it will help you.

The Loneliness I Choose/ The Art of Traveling Without Ambition

(old piece)

I am finally convinced, after years of fighting it, that loneliness is part of our human experience. The people I like the best are the ones who can't, won't dim the discomfort of questions and doubt. I am never sure if I am my best, happiest self when living my life on my own terms. All I know is that I do not know how else to live it. Along the way I have learned that the adjective brave is awarded freely, even to actions that are steps away from cowardice. I think of my leaving home, I think of my time in graduate school, I think of moving and I know that there is more privilege and necessity in these periods than there is brave.

Survival tips 101 (from a second year perspective)

This really is Dear Young Me sort of note to myself when I started grad school. But perhaps others can benefit from it as well!

• Learn to say no. There is always an organization, an activity, a party, an event that you want to get involved with or go to. But there is only so much time and so much sanity. Learn to say no (here's an interesting perspective on why saying no is important)

• If you are the kind of person who schedules things in (I often tend to plan for every hour, if not minute, of the day), pencil/type/whatever you prefer time in for yourself. It is a good reminder that you need to pause and pay attention to yourself.

My two bits on the Delhi Metro

Source:
http://respectwomen.co.in/life-of-a-woman-in-delhi-metro/

I vividly remember my first encounter with the Delhi Metro. It had been recently set up and made functional (especially the blue line which I was using) and I decided to use it to visit a book fair at Pragati Maidan. On the way there or back, I can’t remember clearly now, I recall sitting in a busy coach. A man was uncomfortably close to me and coming closer. I was younger then, and perhaps rash, so I gave him a few swift kicks to remind him that this was not okay. In retrospect my behavior is not very commendable either, but I forgive myself because I have let things slide in such cases more than I wish I had. This man started yelling brazenly ‘this lady is hitting me’ and it did not seem like if things escalated, anyone would help me out (notice the word rescue purposely not being used).

After that I stopped using the metro during rush hours and then pretty much all. I was hardly alone in feeling that unwarranted touching and ‘accidental’ brushing was going on during busy hours and otherwise. Soon the Delhi Metro launched a ladies compartment and I think it changed the face of the metro. I don’t think of transport as necessarily gender neutral. Especially not in India, where gender issues are a big problem. Traveling in crowded spaces for women means dealing with not just the regular annoyances of being cramped or pushed or having to board and deboard moving vehicles risking your life but also dealing regularly with the gropers and molesters. You have to pick your battles especially if travel is part of your daily routine. I don’t think you can spend all your traveling time fighting and possibly screaming and shouting. Especially when you know help is not always forthcoming.

Back (to the real world)

I am back in Minneapolis. Nowhere close to being settled, still have to shift houses and giant mattress that is the stuff my nightmares are made of. But I am back. It was a long, arduous journey, with stopovers at Frankfurt (reasonable) and Newark (delayed by 2-3 hours in addition to the 3 hour wait time. I had no watch or access to time and couldn't really tell. Which I think was for the best). It was a miserable trip, full of being sick and itchy-twitchy, hacking my lungs out and sneezing, and hallucinating. But who wants to hear about that. Or the fact that I love the world a little less after being in transit for 40 hours. Let me tell you about some of the other fun highlights:

Scored lots of free Internet at the Delhi airport by using sibling and sibling's friends phone numbers. Feel little guilty about extra customer representative calls they will get but since I was checked-in 3 hours in advance, needed some entertainment.

***

Home (for now)

Leaving Vietnam was easier than I thought it would be. Leaving Hue city, not as much. By the end of my time there, I had a life, a routine I enjoyed and friends. Our work towards the end was chaotic but even so, the farewells felt difficult emotionally and were full of small kindnesses. Souvenirs and parties and gifts and trips and banana pancakes. We visited our ever-kind and gracious coffee lady (and maybe used an open window in her house to drop a gift when the coffee shop was shut), we said bye to people at the Indian restaurant, we had farewell parties with staff at CORENARM and with people at our hotel (Khach San Duong Sat). Spending time with a lovely three-year old Suri made everything a lot more fun.

On walking

Walking is my favorite way to explore a city. It is also my way to clear my head. Off late I have been feeling sick. It keeps coming and going and I can't figure what is going on. Earlier in the week, I eventually was very upset and annoyed with myself. For not feeling better, for not being able to work, for having no energy, for sleeping so much, for being so weak. I figured a walk would do me a world of good. In my head I had meant to explore the city on foot more and not being able to do that made me even antsier. My time in Hue and Vietnam is almost over and I feel sad about that. Being here has been good for me in so many ways. Coming back to topic, I went for a two hour walk-a-about in the city and it was lovely. I started by walking to reach the ATM that has the maximum withdrawal limit. To get there I walked close to the Imperial citadel and then turned into a busy shopping street, choc-a-bloc with boutiques, shoe shops, restaurants, groceries stores and more. I am usually very good at getting lost but in my head I mapped a parallel road to reach an end of the citadel, where these is a large courtyard space. Children roller blade here, people fly kites, there are coffee and snack vendors. It is full of people and yet not crowded. Imagine if you will, an old building, its majestic walls, crumbling ever so slightly, rising against the evening sky, sometimes lit by the moon as well as the orange streetlights. Enterprising vendors rent out roller blades, it is a popular evening sport here. It is one of the many things that has caught me by surprise, it is new. I wave at every toddler I spot on the way and it is a testimony to the general kindness of people that all their keepers smile at me and encourage them to say hello. The kite sellers have all left by the time I get there and this makes me sad. I thought they stayed out for longer. A few people are flying kites but the sky is more subdued than the last time I was here. Still nothing will ever beat the first time I saw those vibrant life-like kites of butterflies and dragons and airplanes soaring in the skies.

On skills and just doing things better

Both my work and being in graduate school have involved moving from project to project (of course with great variations in time frames and continuation). All these make for very interesting learning experiences, not necessarily easy. These are a list of things I have compiled as a reminder to myself to be able to work well on projects (fully knowing that having this list does not mean I adhere to it). I will state at the outset this is a lopsided list, you will notice the focus in mostly on the individual and not the group. This is intended that way. I think of it as lessons from my work in the past (and from the experience over this summer) for myself. Not all of it is right or right for everyone, but I find these useful. If you have any opinions to share, points to add, I would love to know. I like to think of this as a work in progress, just like life!

• The ability to plan: short, medium and long-term: I think of this as being able to see the big picture, plan for milestones to get there and then decide the small steps that everyone needs to take. Personally I prefer to go from having an idea of the final goal to identifying the smaller steps.

• The ability to implement and execute: to my mind this is a continuation of step one - planning and scheduling milestones and tasks, figuring out where things could fail,  being flexible about the small steps while being constant in the goal (as far as it makes sense to stay constant).

• The ability to manage information: I think it is an underrated skill and a very essential one. All of us are busy, often deluged by emails from listservs that are misused and sometimes less than professional, we have a lot to read, videos to watch, a mountain of information to get through. Being able to organize information, prioritize taking it in and responding (things I have learned the hard way: reading all my mails before responding to any emails, trying not to have an individual conversation while hitting the reply all button etc).

Old notes on moving cities, countries and continents

These are old notes I found on moving, mostly written during in my first semester of my Master's degree (aka the first time I actually moved away from home :) Needless to say they are emphatic, even a wee bit dramatic).

Moving is realizing that you will miss many milestones and occasions. You may not have been fully present even when you were there but you didn't realize absence is so hard.

Moving is the occasional burn with no ointment to deal with it.

Moving is learning to love Skype.

Grumpy updates

I know I am sick because:

a. Two cups of the best cold coffee I have ever had (after my mother's) still couldn't keep me awake and my naps have been going on through the night and the day

b. I can't stay awake to even watch television

I must be really sick :p. We leave early on Monday and I can't decide whether to work over the weekend but risk being too ill/exhausted to travel or to rest and be ready to leave and be engaged in the activities of next week. I have also decided to blame being sick on the stress of last week (most of which I see as unnecessary). This is not to worry anyone, I am mostly fine, eating, I have people to reach out to if needed. I feel bad about being sick and not being able to work, travel or do anything. Oh well, it isn't the worst thing that could happen.

Day 4 (also the day where we go sightseeing)

Group photo!

This is, if you haven't already figured out, a relatively light week for us. Our experience can vary between 8 - 10 weeks and we are choosing to spend 10 weeks here and thus I think we are using this week mostly the way we intended to. Rather I should say I think this is a justified and sensible use of our time. I have hit the ground running for different projects in different cities (in India) and I have known and been in favor of the motivation for that. That being said, it has been a really long time since I had the chance to slowly immerse myself into a new project. I think being in a new country, where I don't speak the language at all, where our work has relevance but not the pressing immediacy of say a disaster relief project (which I have worked on), I am grateful for the opportunity to explore the city, meet with different people and treat this like a marathon instead of a sprint.

Nina's Cafe

Dinner today was at Nina's cafe, which I would strongly recommend (here's their website http://ninascafe.jimdo.com). I had fried eggplant and even though it was green and I am used to purple it was really nice. For those of you thinking if we are working at all (friends and family :)), this is our orientation week and is meant to be lighter and get us acclimatized and settled in. We have been making slow but steady progress on pinning down our project.

Tintin poster at Nina's cafe
(followed a brief discussion about the racism in the books!)

Getting to Hue

Our trip to Hue was full of adventures. Adventures that began even before our flight took off. We had booked VietJet flights since it is comparatively inexpensive. I definitely had a ton of luggage and was worried about excess baggage but the website told us 32 kgs! Yay because the limit was 23 kgs when I flew from the States and boy did that get me into trouble even with planning. We went to the VietJet counter outside at the terminal to figure out baggage limits and turns it out it was 25 kgs per person and 7 kgs for hand baggage (which they weigh - this is the first time I saw that happening. I think I flew in almost 15 kgs from Minneapolis (at no point could I lift the suitcase I had on person, even with all my muscles and strength). The lady at the counter spoke little English and we, well, we speak no Vietnamese. She kept asking us how much our luggage weighs and we kept saying we need weighing scales and this went on for a while.