Love Is Blind, EDT, and Japanese encephalitis

As the sign in my house that usually tells us what day of Hanukkah it is has alerted me, it is now day 9 of shelter in place, which means that I’ve officially run out of things to do so here I am writing for the blog again. I mean, I actually am enjoying being stuck in my house. I am very grateful to have an awesome family to be stuck with. Oh don’t worry we most definitely fight and annoy each other to no end. We were getting on each other’s nerves even before we made it home from the airport. But overall, we are learning how to give each other space and also have some family fun time. 

Speaking of family fun time, my mom and I have started watching Love is Blind. I know, I know, I told you last blog post that I had to finish watching Nashville. Well, no matter how many times I beg her my mom will not watch with me. She’s not really on board with my whole country music thing and she says “I have many shows to watch before I would watch Nashville.” It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m over it. Well lucky for her, I convinced her to watch Love is Blind with me instead. I can officially say it is the dumbest show I have ever seen in my life, which trust me is saying a lot. For those of you who are culturally illiterate, Love Is Blind is a dating show in which men have to propose to women before ever seeing them in real life. They date behind a wall. It is especially appropriate for our current situation because it’s kind of like they’re dating in quarantine! Maybe I could find a husband during this whole shelter in place thing. That would be a very good use of my time. You know what’s not a good use of my time? Watching Love Is Blind. It’s frying my brain cells faster than my Zoom classes are restoring them. My mom and I (after about one episode) decided that whenever we watch the show we also have to be working on a puzzle just to keep that mind sharp. 

The guilt I feel while watching Love Is Blind is equivalent to the guilt I feel while scrolling through a new Facebook group I have found called MeetJew University. The premise is that you (or a friend) posts a paragraph or two about you along with some pictures and other people on the page can message you to set up a zoom date. There is also a survey where you can get matched with someone and go on a blind zoom date. It is truly one of the weirdest things the Jews have ever done. But honestly, I’m not upset about it. The only thing I want to do after a long day of staring at my computer doing homework (which is what I call all of my work now) is scroll through a page of NJBs and NJGs trying to find husbands and wives. See, I actually could find a husband while sheltering in place. It’s like real life Love Is Blind only it’s not at all blind. I use this page for the sole purpose of finding out which of my old classmates have broken up with their significant others. 

In case you are thinking “Wow is Shayna doing anything productive with her time?” Don’t worry the answer is yes. It’s just a lot less interesting than the incredibly unproductive things I have done with my time. Here’s something that will cancel out a few hours of brain cell loss watching Love Is Blind: Charlotte (you remember her, the second most rational one in the friend group) taught me that PST is different than PDT and that we are currently in PDT. Let me explain. I have been doing A LOT of scheduling of Zoom calls. This has been extremely challenging as pretty much all of my friends live on the East Coast and I am very bad at math. I know that all I have to do is subtract three hours but it’s hard for me okay? So I have been doing a lot of writing out PST and EST when making plans. Thank god for Charlotte who finally explained to me that since we are on daylights savings it is Eastern DAYLIGHT time, not Eastern standard time. Pretty crazy stuff. Get ready for me to get super annoyed if you mess this up. See? I told you I’m learning something. 

Speaking of learning something, yes I am still in all of my classes. Three of them are being taught via Zoom and two of them are asynchronous as they say these days. My favorite thing about zoom is the thumbs up and raise hand feature. Now instead of actually raising my hand or actually giving a thumbs up I can press a button that will tell everyone on the call that I’m raising my hand or giving a thumbs up. Technology has come so far my friends. 

I even taught my K-2 Hebrew School class over Zoom. It was actually amazing. That mute feature is a game changer. Scientists should invent something like that for real life. If a kid in class is talking too much you just press a button and mute them for awhile. That came out worse than it sounded in my head. Well, I taught them about Passover and made a pyramid out of q-tips. Yes, it has come to that. Next Sunday we’re going to talk about what it means to be free in times like these. I’m really looking forward to hearing what my students have to say. There, did that sound nicer? 

(Get ready for me to casually slip a total brag into a paragraph that is literally not at all related to the thing I’m bragging about). Today I learned that I won an award for best paper in Jewish Studies from Wesleyan. The prize for this award is $250 so I started thinking about what I wanted to spend my money on. Also I start a new job working at my local market on Sunday (wow look I fit another brag in there) which means I’ll start having more money in my bank account. My first thought was buying an elliptical because I used to go on the elliptical at the school gym everyday before class (look at that another brag I’m amazing) and I’ve been really trying to bring my school routines home. But then I remembered that I live in California and not Connecticut. I know, it’s crazy. I can just walk out my door and start running. I don’t have to worry about slipping on black ice or getting frost bite.  So I’ve been running a lot. That’s been really nice and a good way to escape my family when their chewing is getting a little bit too loud. 

Also remember how last blog I said I was going to start using that moisturizer that the dermatologist told me to buy a million years ago? Well guess what? I have! And it works so well. My hands have returned to their previous level of softness. If only somebody would have told me about this years ago. Oh wait… And on the subject of using things I’m supposed to be using that I’ve never actually used, I’ve started wearing my glasses again! “Shayna, you don’t have glasses,” is probably what you’re saying to yourself right now. Good point reader. And thank you for paying attention to my face. Well, I do have reading glasses due to my far sidedness. When the eye doctor gave them to me he said I really only need to wear them if I am spending more than six hours looking at a computer screen. “That will never happen” I said to him. Well I also never thought there would be a global pandemic that shut down all major establishments including my university and made everyone stay inside for an extended period of time and yet here we are. So yes, I’m finally getting to put my glasses to use. I’ve been spending every minute from when I wake up for my 7:20 am class (thanks time difference) until I go to sleep staring at my computer screen. If you want to see how cute I look in my glasses, just find yourself the link to one of the million Zoom calls I am on everyday. 

Another fun thing that I’ve got to spend a lot of time on is applying to study abroad. It’s crazy to imagine going abroad for a whole semester in just a few months but I decided to continue with my application and pray that the world will be healed by the Fall. I found out yesterday that I got into my program (yay!). It’s a multi-site program that goes to Chile, Nepal, and Jordan. In order for the university to approve my studying abroad, I have to read and sign forms, which include all of the risks of going abroad to these countries. I’ve decided that my new favorite pastime is reading about all the fun diseases I could contract in these countries. Nothing makes Corona Virus seem irrelevant like the thought of getting Japanese encephalitis and Dengue fever. Ima, if you’re reading this please still let me go abroad!!

Oh and I thought of something really funny that I forgot to put in my last blog post. The last day in Spain, we spent the morning at the Alhambra and then did a lot of shopping to try to use up some of our Euros. It was a crazy day of so many mixed emotions as we tried to enjoy our last day in Spain in such a beautiful place while also thinking about having to pack up our dorms and say goodbye to all our friends and the place that we love so much. And then a bird pooped on my head. And it got really in my hair. There is no world in which I deserved to have that happen to me at that moment. Like literally any other time would have been fine universe. And I couldn’t even take a shower because we had already checked out of our hostel. And we didn’t have towels but that’s a story for another day. Actually it’s a story in the vlog. Just watch the Vlog. The vlog explains everything. 

THE VLOG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrPXwzur4TE&fbclid=IwAR0xNarfTJogfIbW2V4JSficjXfKv5yfe4sJsKADYdESnlLlDotyr1OmuRI

Welcome

Hello friends (or internet randos). Welcome to my blog. I’m currently at 30,000 feet. Flying from Connecticut to California in the midst of a global pandemic. My grandma told me to keep a journal in this crazy time we’re living in and I thought that was a great idea so I’m taking her advice. But I’m putting it in blog form because we live in a world in which nothing happened unless it’s been posted on the internet. This is truly an unprecedented time in my life (not just because of the internet thing) and I’m pretty sure in all of history. Maybe it’s like the plague but I don’t know, I wasn’t alive for that. Luckily we’ve come a lot further since the plague in medicine and technology. Now we can all shut ourselves in our houses for weeks on end. I’m not sure what this will turn into but for now it will be place to record stories and thoughts. 

Why I Thought I Had Corona Virus

As many of you hopefully already know one of the symptoms of corona virus is shortness of breath. You know what else shortness of breath is a symptom of? Anxiety. So the more I have trouble breathing the more I think I have corona which makes me hyperventilate more which makes me even more sure that I have COVID 19. It’s truly a terrible cycle. Is it a cycle? I don’t know. Either way it’s terrible. So I’m writing here to calm some of those anxieties and to try to have some fun with the stress of the world we live in right now. Whether you’re bored at home with nothing to do or procrastinating doing work because now you work from home and nobody’s watching or you’re one of my parents friends that found this because I tagged them in it, this is for you. Enjoy :) since you’re hopefully in this for the long haul I thought I’d introduce you to some of the characters involved. 

My parents: Marc and Marci, the two best people I know and my rocks through this whole thing. 

Tessa: the most rational member of the friend group called Españamigas 

Charlotte: the second most rational member of the friend group 

Megan: just as irrational as I am. Perhaps even more. 

Lilly: The person who I stole two of these ideas/jokes from. You’ll never know which ones. 

Trying Not to Touch My Face (and Southwest Pretzels)

Oh no I just touched my face. At the beginning I was really good at not touching my face but it’s just gotten harder to keep it up. That’s a lie. I was never good at it. We tried a don’t touch your face for a week challenge. I could barely last ten minutes. If I’ve learned anything from this experience it’s how much I mindlessly touch my face. One thing I have been doing is washing my hands like a maniac. My hands are so dry, in so much pain, and literally bleeding. But it’s so worth it. Someone has to invent a moisturizing Purell. That probably already exists. And it’s probably already sold out in every store in the country. Maybe I’ll finally get to use the giant bucket of moisturizer the dermatologist told me to buy three years ago that is still untouched. 

The flight attendant just handed me a bag of pretzels. That got me thinking about all the leftover pretzels they’re going to have because nobody is flying anymore. Hopefully they can distribute the millions of bags of pretzels to people who are stuck in their homes and need food. They could just drop them out of the plane and hopefully some would land on doorsteps. Southwest pretzels could most definitely last me for months in isolation. God knows they’ve lasted longer in my mom’s purse. Anyways, our flight is so insanely empty. Megan and I have multiple rows to ourselves. Thank god they didn’t cancel this flight. I might have never made it back to California. And we just got an email from dean mike that said leave campus ASAP. Stay tuned to find out how I got here. Although all my readers are definitely people that already know how I got here (aka my parents, Megan, and Charlotte. Maybe just maybe my sister). Either way please read my next post. 

Spain! (In a nutshell)

Let me back up a bit. So my spring semester of sophomore years was going just dandy. I really liked all my classes, I had just bought a new magic bullet and was killing the smoothie game, and I finally got my roommate obsessed with country music. Even better I had plans to go to Spain with three friends for Spring Break. The week leading up to the trip was full of corona chatter as people in New York and California started testing positive. Tessa backed out of the trip which obviously made us sad at the time but looking back was such a valid, rational decision. But I was hell bent on going. Nothing would stop me. “It’s fine” I told myself “worst case scenario we get quarantined for two weeks when we get home” and my parents were on board too. Oh boy did my worst case become the best case scenario. But I’ll get there. So the three of us: me, Megan, and Charlotte got on a plane to Madrid. We had an amazing time in Madrid with Rick Steves leading us through the city. And nobody was worried about Corona or even talking about. Hell, people were still making out on the street. If I’ve learned anything through this experience it’s that Europeans are terrible at social distancing. We even participated in a women’s march. They were yelling chants in Spanish so as far as I knew they could have been saying “we want corona we want corona.” Which is basically what it meant to be walking through the streets of Madrid with thousands of other people chanting so loud that your spit lands on everyone around you. Oh boy did Spain regret that march. If you want to hear/see more of our Spain adventure stay tuned for our ridiculous vlog that I will be putting many hours into because I have nothing better to do in this time of self quarantining. Well actually Megan made a list of things to do in quarantine that are way better uses of time than making a vlog. They include learning Esperanto, learning how to harmonize, learning how to beat box, and learning American Sign language. But oh well. I will be spending two weeks on iMovie. So our last day in Madrid our friend who we were visiting told us that her school was shutting down for two weeks. And that’s when things got real bad real fast. Our god send parents back home bought us back up flights for a few days earlier than expected “just in case.” But Megan and I were set on staying the full two weeks. Charlotte (the second most rational one in the group) was content to go home early. Then we got on a train for Granada, a city in the only province in Spain without any recorded cases of Corona. A nice woman we met in the Zara Home store told us that Granada has a history of avoiding pandemics having avoided the plague. Legend has it that it’s because of all the beer they drink and weed they smoke. I don’t know if I buy it but you do you Granada. By then rumors were flying about Wesleyan getting shut down. Other liberal arts schools on the East Coast were doing so and many of my friends were convinced that Wesleyan would follow suit. Again, Megan Charlotte and I were sure that this would not happen. Worst case scenario, we said, we’ll stay at school but take classes on line for two weeks. They only need to protect the professors right? WRONG. We continued our Spain adventures and went for a walk to a beautiful view point with the wackiest rag tag group of hostel dwellers. As I watched the sun set over the Spanish mountains with two of my best friends in the world (and some other hostel randos) I was overwhelmed with joy and gratitude and awe at this incredible life I get to live. And then everything went to shit. When we got back to the hostel for 10 euro paella night we received the email from President Michael Roth that Wesleyan would be shutting down and that we had one weeks to move out. We tried to make it through paella night without crying in front of the hostel randos but that proved impossible so we said adios and went to sleep, after many calls to our parents of course. A fun part of this was that as all this was going on my incredible mother was at a nice spa in Arizona with some of her girlfriends. So every time I called with news like “corona is bad in Madrid” or “my school is shutting down” or “there’s a travel ban on everyone coming back from Europe” she would respond with a “off to cardio drumming” or “I have to go to my chocolate class. “ In one particular instance I was calling to tell her something important, I can’t  remember what it was right now but she convinced me she had to tell me her story first. “So I was going to my yoga class. And then I walked in and it was a Pilates class. So then I was like I don’t want to do Pilates that’s my worst nightmare so then I found someone else to do yoga with me and I had a two person yoga class!” Yes אמא that is the most important news of the day. But then again I don’t remember what I was calling to tell her but I do remember this little story so maybe the Pilates yoga mix up was truly the most important news for me to hear that day. But in all seriousness I am overwhelmingly grateful for my parents and how they have stayed so calm through this whole thing. What I most needed during all this was my mom’s humor and zen mode to rub off on me. And that it did. While some parents were freaking out mine were laying by the pool telling me to stay in Spain until the day I wouldn’t be let back into the United States. And boy did that day come sooner than expected. We woke up the morning after the paella night school closure nightmare to the news that trump had instituted a travel ban from Europe and we had to get home before Friday. It was Wednesday. Once again thank god for our parents back home. Charlotte’s dad got us on a flight home on Friday, train tickets to the airport, and an airport hotel to stay in the night before our flight. And all before we could even wake up. We would probably still be in Spain if it weren’t for Jeffrey Babbin. Luckily our tickets for the Alhambra were that morning so we got to enjoy one last day in Granada in one of the most beautiful places in the world. In an exciting turn of events when we got to our hotel room by the airport the power went out in our room only at one in the morning. Our collective Spanish could only tell the repair man “we cannot turn the lights on.” I bet he was thinking to himself, “are they really that dumb, you just press the light switch”. We got to the airport with an insane amount of time to spare. It was probably 90% full of college students who had been studying abroad in Madrid and needed to get home. Everyone must’ve thought that was the case for me Megan and Charlotte but we weren’t going to tell them we were frauds who had only been there for five days. Charlotte’s dad was only able to book us on three separate flights. And I was the lucky (or unlucky) one who got the flight with only one business class seat. Oh boy did I fill my bag with $5000 worth of snacks from the business lounge. And hopefully insurance will pay for that flight so basically it’s like I made money off this whole thing. Finally back in the US we trained it from New York to Connecticut which was definitely a bad idea but after flying in business class I could not fathom paying god knows how much for an Uber back to Wesleyan. I feel bad for the woman next to us who just wanted to commute home and had no idea she was sitting next to two teenagers who had just returned from a level 3 country. But alas we made it back. And I fell asleep at 8pm. Deepest night of sleep of my life. I spent the whole next day packing my dorm and probably got halfway through by the end of the day. My roommate, on the other hand, arrived at 1:30 and was packed up and ready to drive away by 4:00. I’m telling myself it’s because I had to put things in a storage unit but let’s be honest I have a lot more shit than she does and my shit is a lot less organized than hers. In any case after many trips to the storage unit with the trunk slightly ajar Megan and I  were all moved out. During all of this Charlotte returned home and remains self quarantined with her family. This corona virus thing is bringing staycation to a whole new level. 

My Car is Still in Connecticut

As many of you might know, last summer my mom and I drove my car across the country so I’d be able to have my car at school and be able to do things like drive to every pharmacy in Middletown to find a thermometer amidst a global pandemic. Thank you CVS for giving me the ability to take my temperature every ten minutes “just to make sure.” So far so good my friends. Anyways, we had this whole plan to drive my car back at the end of this year by way of the southern route. This was especially exciting for me as per my deep love for country music and my recent obsession with the tv show “Nashville.” No spoilers, I have a lot more episodes to watch whilst in quarantine. Well we decided that driving my car back to California right now is not the move. Probably not the best idea to tour the country under the circumstances. So we left it with Charlotte (thank you Charlotte!) who is going to give the key to a nice fella who will load it on a truck and drive it across the country as fast as possible. This meant driving my car (with Megan) (thanks Megan!) to Charlotte’s and then taking an Uber back to Wesleyan, which is a 35 minute ride on the rural roads of Connecticut. At 11:30. I ordered the Uber. And then I got the notification. Scott will be here soon in a pickup truck. He is known for friendly conversation. Let me tell you the last thing Megan and I wanted to do at 11:30 in rural Connecticut after a day of loading furniture and most of our belonging into a storage unit was get into a pickup truck and converse in a friendly manner. But alas we did and remain alive to tell the tale. This has truly been the craziest week of my life and I have no doubt that things will not calm down for a bit. But I’ll be in my room working on my vlog. Maybe even doing some zoom school. But the vlog comes first. The vlog always comes first.