I constantly have to remind myself during these times that I do not have it bad, things are good. I feel very fortunate of the position I am currently in which makes it difficult to pick out negatives and complain about the current situation. As a US Army veteran I traded quite a few years of my life in order to be able to attend school, which being 99% paid for means I get a check every month for living expenses. I do not have to worry if I can pay my rent, I know I am good. I do not have to worry if I can buy food, I know I will eat. This pandemic has affected so many people in so many ways, and I do my absolute best to understand the position I am in and be grateful for it, to understand that it could always be worse.
I am also very fortunate that I have a wonderful wife who is currently active duty military, which among other things means a constant source of income and health care that further alleviates any stress during these worrisome times. She has had to spend very little time at work in the past few weeks allowing us to spend quite a bit of time together, something we did not get to do a whole lot of prior due to work/school commitments and commuting. Spending too much time together is possible, but we do our best to not drive each other crazy. We make time to go on walks or jogs, we have many shared interests that keep us sane together, and we are mindful of each others space and give it to each other when we have to accomplish things like school and work.
During my time in the military I worked in the medical field and even after getting out I continued to keep my EMT license in good standing until last year. Something that has been very conflicting to me since leaving the service has been a penchant to continue performing some kind of medical care to others. I have always felt the drive to serve those around me in a medical capacity, but being a full time student going to college for the first time at an older age has proven to be a difficult and time consuming endeavor that has not left me with I feel enough time to work a medical job on top of everything. This feeling of missing out has only become worse during the recent times, I feel like I could be out there helping others somehow, but I no longer have any medical license and I fear my skills have gone stagnant due to not using them for so long. It is also very easy to be worried about how working in healthcare could affect my own health. I do not want to get sick, I am not high risk but I have a wife and other loved ones who I care about and would be devastated to bring any harm to them by my own doing. I feel very torn, but I continue to tell myself I have to stay on my current path and do well so I can continue to provide for myself and my family.
What do I love most about school moving to online only? No. More. Traffic. No. More. Parking. Coming from the middle of island, I can easily spend 2 hours in traffic each way depending on my class times. It gets even worse when I get to campus and cannot find any street parking, ending up parking miles away and dripping sweat walking into class because I somehow always never line up with the shuttle schedule times. I consider myself a very calm and easy going person, but traffic and parking? I hate it. I hate it so much. I’ve been so fed up with spending time in traffic and commuting that I have gotten on the freeway and gotten right back off just going back home and calling the day a wash. Moving to online classes has relieved so much stress for me, on top of gaining back a few hours each day that I can use to be more productive, get homework done, study or take care of things at home. The commitments to using video chat for classes has been fairly minimal and very easy, although the quality of learning has taken a hit in some areas. Trying to self study for ICS 311 sucks.
Yay no more waking up early for school. I have all this extra time now! I’ll wake up when I want, do my homework when I want, I’ll eat cereal at 3 in the afternoon if I want! Too bad the online class life isn’t as sugar coated at that cereal. As much as I hate structure, I know its what keeps me in line and productive. I spent years of my life with rigid structure form the military, and I have continued to use that in my college life to help stay on track and get done what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Having less, no… different responsibilities now during this crisis I have found it very easy to slip out of normal productive routines. I find myself going to bed later, waking up later, eating meals at different times. And its not just me, my wife is feeling it right there with me and it’s caught both of us off guard. Our normal habits of waking up early, doing physical exercise, eating good meals and more are being thrown out of whack. We have to constantly remind ourselves that we cant get lazy! One good thing that has come from this however, is without the pressure of commuting and having more time available we have been cooking a ton. Trying out new recipes, not wasting food and eating healthier. If there’s one good habit we want to keep from all this, its to cook and eat better!