Week Infinity: Everything Is A Mess

I can't even bother doing my weekly goal update. Everything has gone to the dogs.

About 2 weeks ago, I got a phone call from my mom.

My dad was rushed to the ER with symptoms of the virus, was sedated, intubated, and in the ICU. He couldn't breathe. If he was infected, so were my mom and sister.

I had two days to leave NZ before all of the flights out of NZ to the US stopped running.

Smart to fly halfway across the world during a pandemic, where you may get stuck in one of the worst countries to be in during the virus, for 12-18 months? No. Productive to leave NZ when your PhD program says you have to suspend indefinitely if you leave the country? Double no. Great timing to leave when your flatmates are moving out and a new one is moving in? Triple, quadruple NO. Did I do it anyway?

Of course I did.

Within 48 hours, I had:

• Bought the last seat on the last flight out of the country flying directly to the US, 
• Booked 2 weeks at a hotel near my destination airport & confirmed it was OK if I self-isolated there
• Packed two heaving suitcases, 
• Cleaned and packed up my room as best I could in case my friends had to move all my junk out for me in 3 months when my lease ends, 
• Disinfected my room and shared common spaces for the new flatmate, who is using my room while I'm away, until my old flatmates can move out,
• Ordered grocery delivery for the hotel I had booked,
• Booked an uber to the airport,
• Given my extra food away (I had just completed my stockpile and ordered groceries for the next two weeks),
• & notified my landlord, new and old flatmates, boss, PhD supervisors, & select others about the situation.

To be honest, I even impressed myself. I thought ...of everything. There hasn't been one thing I forgot to do or pack so far. I even thought ahead to the hotel situation, where I would only have a microwave and fridge for food. I packed silverware, napkins, a sharp knife and cutting board, some tupperwares to double as bowls, etc. I even packed bleach and hydrogen pyroxide diluted in spray bottles so I could wipe everything down as soon as I arrived. I had even stolen taken extra N95 masks and nitrile gloves from work (we use them for a different purpose than medical). Boy, was I glad to have the mask on during the first leg of the trip when the girl next to me was coughing!

All of those camping trips and travel paid off, in dividends.

The only thing I could have done much differently is book an AirBnB instead of a hotel, so I could have maybe a washer/dryer and more cooking facilities, but I looked after the fact and there isn't much available in my price range. And who knows what the state of it would have been.

I could write a book on what has happened since I got that phone call: the eeriness and terror of the journey, how I had the cops called on me and was kicked out of my first hotel, and other events.

But I'll stop here: my dad is out of the hospital and resting back home. He got tested and was cleared of the virus. So now I am here, in 14 day self-imposed quarantine, waiting to get to my family, and ready to take care of them for the duration of this horrible time.

Hope you all are doing as best you can right now. If my opinion has any sway, my advice would be this: I highly recommend adhering to NZ's lockdown rules rather than any of those in the US, and listening to our Prime Minister's daily briefings on Facebook for hope and encouragement. I am abiding by NZ's rules and only paying minimal attention to the US's nonsense. The US's uncoordinated, sloppy, misinformation-laden, wealth-centric clown show is going to get so many (more) people killed, while NZ seems to be getting ahead of this thing in a significant way.