Firstly, thanks for all the messages in the comments--I've been trying to answer them all when I can.
Update re: my dad
He is still alive. That is about the best I can say. He is completely bed-ridden, looking forward to his life ending, and my mom is still taking care of all of his needs, with a little help from my little sister. My mom is feeling very very down--I have never heard her like this. I feel terrible that I'm not there to help. My brain is certainly still residing back at home.
My bags are packed for the impending phone call.
Update re: my PhD & scholarship/stipend
Good news: my stipend was reinstated, and was back-paid til August 1. It just came through. I managed to scrape through without dipping into savings, thank goodness. I even have enough left over from August to put a little into savings!
Bad news: they can only fund me for 6 more months. So now--unless I want to get a McDonald's or retail job--the rest of my PhD has to be finished in half the time I thought I had. Pre-pandemic, I guesstimated that I had enough work to fill a whole year and had planned to finish in May 2021.
Unfortunately, six months is an absolute impossibility. With most of my brain focused on my dad/home, the rest of my brain focused on the pandemic/navigating COVID19 fears, that leaves 0% for focusing on my PhD, which, to be frank, is lower on my priority list than it was before. I have been giving my ALL for all of August on my PhD, with weekly, hours-long zoom calls with collaborators, etc., staying up really late, putting in many many hours, and I've barely made even a dent in the work I have left to do. My concentration is shot, I'm slow at everything, and I can't seem to do anything correctly without redoing work 5 times. My estimate of a year is probably a minimum now.
Other news:
NZ went through another round of lockdown. In a way I am grateful because I'm still very wary about being in public and I was super uncomfortable with everyone acting like things were normal in NZ--not wearing masks, not being careful, etc. I thought, "If the virus *did* somehow jump the border, we wouldn't know until it was too late and spread had occurred, so why not be safe, wear masks, etc.?"
Lo and behold, that is exactly what happened about a week or two after I left the isolation hotel--the virus jumped the border and we have community spread in NZ. I'm very sad it happened, esp because covid has caused more deaths in NZ--but I'm glad that Kiwis & the NZ gov't seem to be woken up to the dangers again and are wearing masks now. I'm still really uncomfortable leaving the house, but I will adjust.
Also kind of making me sad:
I wanted to do a nice thing and thank the teacher that started my love for my profession--he recently popped up on Facebook. So I reached out to him. Back in the day, he not only taught the class that started it all, he was the one to award me several science fair 1st - 3rd place awards, and gave a speech about how talented I was and how I was going to do amazing things at our Senior's day award ceremony. I remember it so clearly because I got super embarrassed at the things he said. They were things like, "__(my name)__ has enormous potential as a scientist. She is the type of scientist who will cure AIDS." (AIDS was still a big, deadly thing in the early 1990s!) Everyone in my ENTIRE CLASS then turned to me in awe, like I had *already* cured AIDS, and I clearly was a 17 year old girl who had barely taken biology and had no plans to become a doctor. It was super flattering but also ridiculous to get credit and admiration for hypothetically curing a deadly virus in the far off future, so that is why I remember it so very clearly...!
Over the years that embarrassing moment transformed into a touchstone that someone I respected thought that I would do great things later in life. I've thought about what he said and his belief in me a lot over the years, and it has gotten me through some tough professional times.
My favorite high school teacher not only doesn't remember making the speech or my science fair awards, he didn't remember me *at all!* I asked around my classmates about him a little bit (they met up with him several times over the years at class reunions), and he's a healthy 66 year old with no cognitive difficulties, so I really must not have made an impression, even though I thought I remembered him saying nice things about me. I really just gaslit myself into thinking he thought I was talented all these years!! What a crazy thing.
I totally understand that teachers have hundreds of students a year and this was over 20 years ago, but I'm not gonna lie. Although it doesn't take away from all my accomplishments over the years, it was really deflating to realize he had no idea who I was and he was sure he never said those nice things to me. He was gracious about it all, but he really felt like he didn't deserve the credit so wanted me to transfer my gratitude to the *other* teacher that had really taught me and said those nice things. Of course, he was definitely the teacher so there is no one to transfer it to--there's only sort of dismay and bewilderment that I was completely forgotten! After telling him which class of his I was in and when and with which other students, he says he definitely taught that class but kept asking if I meant Mrs. X or Mr X, other teachers that could have said nice things about me (I never had any of those teachers so it wasn't even possible). He also didn't forget any of the other people that I know that were in my class, so... I'm trying to be really cool about it outwardly but I'm pretty disappointed inside. I struggle with thinking that I am 'forgettable' in the best of times so this really hits a deep insecurity.
It was a nice thing for me to try to do but ended up really hurting me. I will certainly think twice about doing this kind of thing in the future--anticipate how badly a good deed could go in terms of myself. I just wanted to give back and do something kind in a world that feels so awful right now.
