Featured Refresh
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
This is a bewildering time in the pandemic with conflicting, shifting messages from health authorities and governmental agencies. According to the state Department of Health, New Mexico is 65% fully vaccinated and had been re-opening steadily. Movie theaters, restaurants, bars, offices -- it was wonderful to feel like we were on the upswing. But with the increase in the infectiousness of the Delta variant of the virus, we're reinstating measures. Starting Monday everyone is instructed to wear masks again at my workplace, the University of New Mexico. These signs at the Frontier Restaurant on Central Avenue right across from the University illustrate the erratic feeling of this period. One says, hopefully, "Customers who are Fully Vaccinated may enter without a face mask." The other, larger sign says, "For Dine-In or Take-Out Orders Placed Inside We are REQUIRED to ask you for CONTACT TRACING INFORMATION". It's like they are from two different periods of the pandemic. It's challenging to sort out what rules and norms apply at the moment.
August 1, 2021
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Talk about how the events of recent months have affected either your work or your ability to work.
Do you know what affects my ability to work? Dishes. Every time I walk past the kitchen sink, there are dishes to either wash or put in the dishwasher. Or they are in the dish rack and need to be put away. Remember that Beatles lyric, "I look at the floor, and I see it needs sweeping?". Once of the challenges about working from home during this pandemic is ignoring all the chores while I'm supposed to be working. Or I'll take a break to toss some laundry in the machine, run the Roomba, mop, scoop the kitty litter, clean out the fireplace, tidy the living room, or think about dinner. Who can concentrate on work at home? There's a reason people came up with the concept of offices. In my office, I have a much more limited range, so I get more work done. After I get vaccinated, and we get the okay to return to work, I look forward to going back to my office.
March 17, 2021