Enjoying (and taking advantage of) Shelter in Place

Where I live (in California), we are now into Week 5 (I believe?) of shelter in place due to COVID-19. While most people I know are struggling with the orders at this point, I’ve gone through the gamut of feeling relieved, to being elated, and excited, but also guilty.

I am very aware of the risks of not following the orders, as well as a potential 2nd wave of COVID-19 if people don’t take this seriously. I am also very aware of the health risk factors of the people around me (and potentially me! At no-longer-in-my-20s, I fall into an age category that is associated with higher numbers of sickness and a few deaths.

The fact is, as most people around the world are struggling with increased anxiety, it is actually the thought of businesses opening up and life going back to a new normal that makes me feel the most anxious.

I left grad school in the fall of 2018, and moved back home to Southern California to live with my parents. It felt weird moving back home to my parents’ house, especially after so many years away. At some moments, I felt like I had regressed to my high school-aged self.

In January 2019, I started a part-time teaching job. Due to many factors, I decided I wanted to change career paths. For the past year, I’ve been in a career change phase of my life. Read: Confusing and stressful. During the summer, I wasn’t working at all, choosing to focus on taking online classes only. Right before shelter in place, I had just started a new after-school part time job working with elementary school kids. Much better for my sanity than teaching unmotivated adult students.

This period of time staying at home has given me the time I otherwise wouldn’t have had to try to play “catch up” in a sense. At one point in the beginning of the year, I would’ve considered myself lucky to be on the job market come January 2021. Due to all the extra time that I have, I’ve been able to take online classes AND courses through Coursera, to help fill in some gaps in knowledge. At this point, it looks like I may start sending out resumes in July. What a change in course!

For most people, shelter in place and social distancing means not being able to see friends, having life disrupted, and financial instability. Which, totally makes sense. At the beginning, when I lost my (new) job, I was upset and angry. At this point, I could not be happier.

To me, the longer shelter in place continues on, the more prepared I am to go on the job market (yikes! I know, it doesn’t quite make sense when written down…). It means I’m inching closer to my first full-time job — a long-awaited milestone in my crazy, convoluted journey toward a career. At the end of the day, I don’t really feel the same anxiety and sadness about shelter in place that everyone else does, because this “stuck” feeling that everyone is currently experiencing is what I’ve been dealing with for quite a bit of time now.

I’ve also gotten back into long-ignored hobbies (baking, gardening, writing, reading) that I wouldn’t have had the chance to do, if not for shelter in place. At the end of the day, this seems to be a win-win situation for me.

I obviously don’t want to be sheltered in place forever… but for the time being, I’m taking advantage of this time I’ve been gifted, that I otherwise wouldn’t have had.

Finding Work-Life Balance

A Fun, Hectic End to (F)Unemployment
I spent the last week of December 2018 playing, having fun, and spending time with family and friends. December 31st, I was out the entire day with a good friend, and January 1st through 3rd, we had family over.

I received a phone call in the afternoon on January 2nd asking if I would be interested in a job that I had interviewed for a few weeks prior. I eagerly agreed to the position over the phone. Of course, I thought in my mind, that I would begin the following Monday. “Perfect,” I thought… “a nice end to the first week of the new year, and a relaxing weekend.” The director of the program asked if I could come in and pick up books that day. I was thinking…. Why on a Wednesday? Right after the new year??

The director replied: “We’re open early tomorrow morning if you would like to come in, but you start teaching tomorrow!” My jaw nearly dropped out of my mouth. So… there went unemployment.

Enter: Job Two
At the end of my second day of teaching, I received another phone call from a University ESL Extension Program that I had sent my resume to but completely forgot about. To be honest, to this day, I still don’t remember when I sent my resume in! Never mind about that… Day 2 of teaching and I had received another job offer to work longer hours at this university. Would I have to immediately leave the private ESL college? Would I ignore this interview opportunity?

Eventually, I decided to interview at the university. Luckily, after finding out about my availability, I don’t have to choose between the two jobs. I will actually be working part time at BOTH locations (private ESL college & at a formal university ESL setting) starting at the end of February…. WOW!

A Month of Working
It’s been a month now since I’ve been working at the private ESL college, and it’s been pretty good. I feel like I’ve gotten into a nice rhythm of lesson planning, waking up at a decent time in the morning, and staying on top of grading and other teacher related tasks.

The hardest part of teaching? Trying to stay on top of daily lesson planning. What I’m realizing works well (for now) is to have a big picture or idea of what I’m going to teach for the next two weeks, and write daily lesson plans around those big ideas. It helps to keep me from sinking in the black hole of planning each night for the next night.

Way too Eager?
Right around the same time as I had received an offer from the university ESL program, I was also given the opportunity to teach a third class at my current job (I am currently teaching 2 separate classes at the moment). Of course, I jumped on it right away.

I had to be knocked down to planet earth by the parents. (The benefit of living at home, I guess??). Had I taken this position, I would be leaving home everyday at around 8 am, and not get back until around 5 or 6 pm. A full day of work by most Americans’ standards.

But teacher work includes **even more** hours after the teaching day. It requires going home, lesson planning, preparing materials and handouts, and beginning all over again the next day. Not to mention the side tutoring positions that I still have.

Lessons Yet to Be Learned…
I guess regardless of whether I’m at school or being given work opportunities, the lesson I have yet to learn is the same. I assume I can handle all tasks given to me in the world, and yet when life hits, it will *really* hit. How much energy do I have to handle not only teaching-related work, but a class that I’m taking, and life demands (such as chores, and time to just “be”)? I never factor in the latter issues…

Turning down opportunities is difficult. Wanting to take on ALL the challenges and ALL the difficult tasks simultaneously seems like a noble task, but at the end of the day, I risk my sanity and my health when I want to take on the world and then some.

To say that the stresses that I endured a few months back were **all** caused by school would be overexaggerating. Really, learning to balance life demands with “work” will be a life-long lesson to be learned. But I guess turning down teaching a third class at my current workplace is a good place to start…