Today is day 4700 of isolation - no actually day 30 but some days it feels like we have been stuck on the mouse wheel forever. Most days I feel very lucky and blessed to be safe at home. As the pandemic has unfolded around the world and we have watched family confront this evil virus in different locations I have mostly thanked the greater beings that I am fortunate enough to call Australia home. With our wide open streets, abundance of parks and water foreshores it is possible to safely escape the confines of home and walk. Most days my husband and I fit in a long walk usually between 6 and 10 km. Today's walk was to Cape Cabarita on the Parramatta River.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a long journey for me. I manage an International student program with the majority of the students coming from China. The last weeks of the January summer holidays were spent navigating the many government departments - both Federal and State who do not talk to each other and all decided to release different directives and advice. The most useful and sensible advice came from my grandson's preschool! Some students arrived, some were already here and some delayed. Decisions, decisions - 14 days quarantine for any student who arrived directly from China - the hilarious rumours that came from this about students locked in a basement! Other students worked around the problem and quarantined in a third country - Thailand for example. Then it hit Australia. The Boarding School needed to shut and homestay families needed to be found for the International students. As I am writing this there are approximately a dozen students with Australian homestay families and more with their Australian guardians. Some of these students have not been home since July 2019 and cannot see a trip home any time soon.
To complicate this role I have been trying to resolve some health issues that have included a shocking cough. If you want the world to abuse you, people to cross the road and work colleagues to panic just have a ripper of a cough that comes on randomly during a pandemic. I can laugh or cry. Mostly I laugh. After consultation with my doctor it was agree that I would need to take sick leave. Working from home began. Teaching online was the next step and this began on Thursday 2nd of April. This proved to be an absolute joy and included and online Easter Bonnet parade with Year 7. Who knew how hard it would be to explain the meaning/origins of Easter Bonnets to International Students!
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