$100,000/year and still struggling - I can see why.

This article really angered me & made me think (hat tip to S-cubed, https://www.savespendsplurge.com/, for the link!). As I usually do when people describe their budgets, I spreadsheeted everyone's budgets out. 

My usual tactic is to see where I would cut and how I compared to these folks who make a LOT more than I do per year. I fully expected there to be tons of places where I could shake my head and go, WTF are you doing, spending that much on takeout/car payment/shopping/being frivolous?? 

But that didn't really happen here. Sure, there are a concerning number of people with credit card debt and car payments (I don't really see the point of those. I am decidedly NOT a new-car person...), but by and large it was the other stuff that angered me. And not because I was judging the people - because I was judging the US.

A $100,000 annual salary *should* be enough to live off off in the majority of the country. The budgets of many of these $100K folks uber-highlighted two of the MAJOR issues that are quite unique to the US, as big chunks of their money and their descriptions of why they are struggling can be attributed to them: 

1. health care debt payments and/or insurance premiums. Up to $1750 a month?! Being scared of health 'hits?' Holy crap.

2. student loan debt. Ay yi yi. Just forgive all the loans already, Biden.

Maybe I've now fully assimilated into the rest of the modern world's point of view, but I don't think there are any circumstances where either education or health care should be costing so much that you feel like you're struggling on a $100K salary. Sure, when I was in the US, I had this same viewpoint as well, but it was more of a general, abstract "wouldn't that be nice." I don't think I understood how utterly brainwashed I was into accepting that that is "just the way things are," and had to be, until I moved overseas. Now that I've experienced how *easy* it is to live somewhere where your healthcare isn't tied to your job, and how absolutely no one I have ever met is worried about student loan repayments...I can't believe I ever had to live any other way! I can't fathom how I wasn't super angry at having to live like that, and that I wasn't marching in the streets to get it changed. How did I endure that?

I wish everyone in the US could experience the freedom, the not-even-a-second-thought-ness (at least financially) at having to go to the doctor or the effect that changing jobs would have on my medical coverage, and how student loans aren't even really a thing to worry about too much. You'd all riot immediately upon returning to the US, I absolutely guarantee it.

Speaking from the other side of the world: YOU DESERVE BETTER.

I definitely think that if the US moved to a universal healthcare system and made higher education affordable, these $100K folks would feel like they were living pretty, instead of feeling like they are struggling or are "barely comfortable." What a shame that this backwardness still exists. As much as I love my family (and the food and shopping!), I'm seriously rethinking my plan of moving back to the US for a few years before retiring in NZ. The priorities are so phenomenally messed up there. I'm so ANGRY on behalf of my fellow US citizens. You're treated so disgustingly, and some don't even know it, being also brainwashed into thinking you're living in the best country in the world...what a dark, sick joke.

 

(Also, Bryan, if you're still single, hit me up! Your budget and dedication is pretty dang good.)

Losing the Sparkle

New monthly update (a few weeks late, oops)!

OK, I've well and truly feel like I've lost my sparkle and am just trying to keep head over water. I have so much happening but at the same time, nothing is happening, and as the same time as that, everything feels like it is getting a little bit worse. Let's do an update, making sure to end on a high note!

Finances

I had to suspend my PhD due to a bunch of boring reasons, but that means I lost half of my paycheck per month. I can now afford my rent plus about half of my usual grocery bill each month. This will change again soon, but for now, I'm subsisting on a bare bones budget, unsuccessfully.

My credit card bill from my US trip is astronomical! I didn't even buy anything substantial, like a phone or laptop (those are both due for an upgrade, eek). For the first time in decades, I am paying interest. I do not like this feeling but I cannot afford to pay the full amount right now, or rather, I refuse to transfer NZD to pay off my cc bills because I lose so much transferring currencies that I cannot stomach it. I do have a plan to pay it off in the next 4 months, but it is very uncomfortable.

On a brighter note, my flatmate issue got resolved and I am not responsible for the full amount of rent, which I was really afraid of. So that is a saving grace and blessing. 

PhD

This is going terribly. My supervisor didn't even show up to our meeting Friday.

Wonderfully, this will be done in a year whether I submit my thesis or not, so the pain has an end date! 

Family Health

My sister isn't taking care of herself. I call her every single morning to make sure she is doing what she is supposed to be doing, and she never is. She always promises to do better, but bar me flying home and monitoring her every intake of food and drink and making her exercise, I am at a loss for how to help more. In the meantime, she has gone into the mental hospital again and got out just in time for Thanksgiving.

Dad almost got arrested when he butt dialed 911 and then ushered in the sheriff to show her that everything in the house was fine, only for the sheriff to see his stash of CBD gummies he has been taking because his doctors now refuse to give him the morphine he has been on for a decade. He doesn't abuse morphine and tries not to take it unless his pain is excruciating. It has more to do with them trying to tackle "the opioid crisis" and not get in trouble as doctors. But excuse me, my dad has TERMINAL LEUKEMIA. Does it matter if he takes pain pills on his way out of this life, to help his comfort level?? I think not. At this stage, I don't get on him about eating badly or anything he wants to do that is "bad for your health." He should get to enjoy what he is able to enjoy at this stage of life. Sometimes I don't think doctors even think about what they are doing. 

Thankfully, no one is in the hospital right this very second. Blessings.

Friends

I have basically two friends in NZ that I hang out with weekly. One is about to leave for a month and the other is going to be gone for over a year!! This literally cuts my friend time to zero for the next month and in half until 2024, unless I make new friends. 

But that isn't really possible because there is still a pandemic happening, cases in NZ are doubling as we speak, and I just don't have the time or energy to put into a new friendship while also trying to finish a PhD and keep my family alive.

On a good note, a former friend that has caused me a LOT of stress and anguish is leaving NZ for good in a few months. It will be a relief to be able to go into the office and around the neighborhood (where we both work and live) knowing I won't run into them accidentally.  

Therapy

 I can't afford it right now (see 'Finances') and I have stopped taking the ADHD meds because they don't seem to be effective. Oh well. 

The good news was that at the very end of my last session with my therapist, she started to touch on something that I have been very interested in delving into. She and previous therapists have ignored this issue that I've brought up repeatedly in lieu of talking about dumb things like my sleep schedule, which I've told them I am no longer interested in talking about. So when I go back, I expect that we'll start getting into some nice, meaty issues that will actually help me process my deep-seated problems more.

Doing Good Deeds is a BAD IDEA

Gosh, good deeds never go unpunished, do they? It feels like I am always going out of my way to be kind, thoughtful, and give back to the people around me, but it seems to bite me in the butt afterward pretty regularly. Like the best of my intentions just boomerang around to smack me in the face. Even the little things. 

For example, recently my apartment building management changed the security system at my apartment complex and all the tenants were instructed to go across the city, only during certain hours, to pick up our new swipes, with only 3 days' notice before they changed all of the building locks. It was a pretty big inconvenience. I took time off of work to go pick them up for me and my flatmate, and while I was there, I realized some of the swipes were under my landlord's name. I quickly called her and asked her if I should pick up hers, too, in order to save her a trip (she lives about 3 hours away, one-way, on the North Island). She said, yes, please. 

So I did. I picked up all her swipes and told her I had them for her whenever it was convenient for her to come by and pick them up. I felt really really proud of myself for saving someone else a long trip, getting brownie points with my landlord, and just generally doing a good deed. Every time I looked at the envelopes, waiting for my landlord on the kitchen counter, it was like a nice mental pat on the back. I don't know, it sounds so silly, but I feel like I've been so selfish lately, focusing only on my family and helping them out and my own problems, and there, right there on the counter, was tangible proof that I could think of more than myself for once.

A few days later, the day they changed all of the locks, I had very important, career-advancing, back to back work meetings all day, and didn't even look at my phone until 5:30 pm. When I did, I realized I had 15 missed phone calls and texts from my landlord and someone who manages a different apartment in my complex for my landlord. Apparently, some of the swipes under my landlord's name were for the other apartment she owns in our complex, and those tenants had been stuck inside the building all day because I had their swipes. They were all frantic and the apartment manager was yelling at me because the people in the other apartment missed something important and I wasn't answering their texts or calls. 

I just felt like crying. I had tried to do a good thing, and felt so good about it, and I ended up punishing other people and causing major problems for them. All because I decided to do something I thought was kind and generous. It ended up being the exact opposite outcome. That goes against everything I want to be in the world - I want to make it a better place for other people, and leave it better than I found it. That is my motto. I want people to come back from interactions with me feeling better than at the start. Even if I'm at an airbnb or staying at a friend's place, I try to leave it cleaner than when I found it. That type of thing. The most awful feeling I can think of is for me to leave a place or someone worse off than before their interaction with me. And here I was, doing that very thing, despite my very best efforts.

I guess the good thing here is that I immediately came home and gave the other tenants the swipes so that they could get in and out of the building. They were super grateful to me and said they didn't blame me at all, so that was nice. I felt awful to have negatively affected their day and schedule so much, though, and I will certainly think twice about volunteering to do something for another person, especially if I'm not specifically asked.

Future

Blog friends, I am *really* looking forward to being done with my PhD. For better or worse, it will be over in 2024. I have no plans to do anything strenuous, and will be planning out a lot of fun trips, new work out routines, friend and family time, dating, and everything that I have been missing over the last DECADE of my life. That's right - I started in 2014, and will be done with it in 2024. Yikes and wowzers. Even if I spend a few years just taking care of my absolutely bonkers family afterward, it will be less stress than what I'm dealing with now. I. CANNOT. WAIT.

Monthly Update

I guess at this point I should just stick to a posting schedule that comes naturally - monthly updates!

To pick up where I left off in my last post, my sister had to wait nearly 3 days in the waiting room in the ER - they are just so slammed, short-staffed, etc. They gave her a chair that slightly reclined, surrounded by a curtain mounted on a PVC frame around two sides of her. There was no place for me or Mom to sit or be with her over night, so we had to leave her there alone each night, bring food when we could - no they didn't feed her or otherwise do anything to keep her alive while she was waiting - and hope no one stole her belongings or did anything bad to her while she was waiting.

I have long been disgusted by my home country, but this was...on another level, and deeply personal. I don't see how any of this is sustainable. People are literally dying in hospital hallways still because there are not enough beds or trained healthcare workers to look after all of the sick. It's tragedy on a massive scale, and I cannot comprehend the trauma that will come after all of this. 

When she finally got a bed, it was a temporary one within the ER area - meant to be for a short time while they did tests to figure out which medical unit to send the patient, e.g. the cardiac unit. It didn't have a bathroom and they gave her fluid pills. Do you know what those do??? They make you have to pee a LOT. All the while, she was hooked up to an IV and heartrate monitor. Not the best planning. She ended up peeing all over the floor a few times when I was there. Hardly anyone came in to check on her and they mostly didn't respond when she pressed the call button for help.

Another day of that, and they finally had a real room and bed for her in the cardiac unit. She ended up staying a week while they did all the tests and seriously prepped for and contemplated doing open heart surgery. Turns out her heart works at 10-20% of normal, she has congestive heart failure, and she probably has had a few heart attacks. Her heart is severely damaged. They couldn't find any blockages, though. So a month later, we still don't know why she's so sick. It may be all the smoking, junk food, high sugar, high weight and no exercise. She is under very strict instructions to monitor her weight (she had ~20 lb of fluid built up, which was caused by her heart not pumping well), her blood sugar (she's diabetic), her blood pressure, her O2, heart rate, and she can only have 2000 mL of fluid a day and 2,500 mg of sodium, and NO SMOKING. Even then, her prognosis is very bad in the short-term. Maybe a 3 year life expectancy on average. 

Her mental health all but makes following these protocols impossible. She can barely keep up with taking medications and showering regularly. Now she is supposed to 180 her entire lifestyle and existence, overnight? And my mom has another severely ill family member to take care of???? She is already 100% to the max stressed out taking care of my dad.

I'm pretty heart broken, even though I have long expected and dreaded this happening. Her habits and lifestyle are so unhealthy, I could see this coming from many many miles off. I guess it is different when something bad actually happens, even if you fully expect it.

...well, on that note, I don't feel like writing anymore right now. I'll continue describing the rest of my US trip another time.

Keeping Spirits Up in a Downward Spiral

Well, if life isn't just a mixed bag! 

The Good

I just returned to my family home late last night after going to a conference where I was the invited keynote speaker - I gave a 45 minute talk, my longest yet by far!! The experience was quite a high as I became a mini-celebratory after, with loads of people in my field, much more senior than me, jockeying for position to tell me they really enjoyed my talk and wanted to collaborate. This bodes pretty well for the job market after I finish my PhD. Yay!

And, so far, no covid. The conference was mandatory vaxxed and masked, and relatively small at ~115 people, but I am still nervous and being very careful, masking at home. Also, loads of people were coughing and sneezing and sniffling without covering their mouths/noses on my flight yesterday, including the guy behind me who sneezed right in my face! It is astonishing the number of people in the US just sniffling and wiping their noses with their hands then touching stuff, or coughing open mouthed or sneezing without Batman-ing. It's like no one learned anything the past few years. WTF. It gives me the willies.

Crossed fingers the no covid thing persists, but who knows. My aunt and cousins just got it last week, after avoiding it for 2.5 years. They have no choice but to work in crowded spaces, so it is no wonder. 

The Bad

"Like a leaf on the wind..."

So that is the good stuff - the bad is that my sister now has gone to the ER with congestive heart failure after having trouble breathing for a few weeks now and dad has some severe delirium sometimes and went to the ER because he couldn't breathe earlier in my trip (he's home now but had a really bad fungal infection and pneumonia). It is all really hard to deal with, but because I've previously made peace with the high likelihood of Bad Stuff Always Happening, esp to them, I don't really feel much. I've been expecting all of this for a long time now. Maybe not this *exact* stuff, but for my sister/dad, I've been thinking and feeling and processing their imminent demises for decades now. Mostly I'm just seeing the good and silver linings as much as I can. I'm enjoying the time I have with them and not focusing on anything negative, rolling with the punches as they come, and not expecting anything in particular.

Losing other people's credit cards & Almost burning down the rental house

My ADHD has gotten really bad as well. My dad gave me one of his credit cards to go buy food and items for the household, treat my sister when out, and buy gas for errands he sends me on, and I lost it!! Or I thought I did, I ended up finding it again...in my WALLET...a month after I had thought I had accidentally let it slip out of my phone wallet and threw it away with a wad of napkins in a 7-11 trash can. By that time, too late, cc's already cancelled. 

I also almost burned down the airbnb I was staying at last week at my work conference. How does that even HAPPEN??? Well, long story. The two grocery stores I went to didn't have half-dozen egg cartons, just whole dozen, and I didn't need that many for a week, so decided to hard-boil a bunch of eggs for my salads. I put the gas stove on high and put the eggs in, then turned the gas down to the lowest setting after it had reached boiling. I had meant to set a timer at this point, but got distracted while deciding whether or not to show up to the conference ice-breaker which was starting in 30 minutes. I decided to go, got in a rush getting ready, then left. the. house. WITHOUT turning off the stove. I *completely* forgot that I was making eggs. 

I got to the ice breaker, and ended up staying an extra 30 mins beyond the end of the event because I was enjoying talking to old and new colleagues after 2.5 years of missing conferences. One of the organisers - a senior person I was desperately trying to impress - starting talking about how hard it was to boil water at the elevation we were at. He mentioned the word eggs and somewhere in the back of my brain, a weird thought wriggled its way to the front. Had I turned off the stove? Wasn't *I* making eggs? 

And with that, I realized I had left the gas stove on for hours and hours in my AirBnB and likely had burned the place down. I just said suddenly, interrupting the very casual convo, that I had to go to a meeting I had completely forgotten about and leapt up from the table like an absolute weirdo. I turned around and apologized when I realized what I probably looked like, then RAN to my car. When I say I was freaking out on the 10 minute drive home...I was SCREAMING in the car, tears rolling down my face, with most of me just repeating OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD with intermittent screams and shaking and wondering how I could have been so stupid, and the other tiny % of me calmly telling myself to keep to the speed limit so I didn't get in a wreck or pulled over or hit a pedestrian, and that maybe it was OK, let's just go see what the damage was then deal with it. 

THANK GOD, the high elevation we were at also meant that the 'low' setting on the gas stove was not even strong enough to heat the saucepan and eggs and water in it past slightly above bathwater temp. Too hot to touch, but there was a FULL pot of water with gross eggs inside by the time I got home. All was OK.

But it very easily might not have been. 

What is going on?

...I don't know. There are several other much smaller examples of me being forgetful or distracted or...whatever lately, those are just the worst ones. None of this is LIKE ME. I don't know what is happening to make my symptoms so much worse! While on vacay, I'm not taking my meds, but I never did this type of stuff even pre-diagnosis. I absolutely do not make these types of mistakes. They are unheard of for me. I try so freaking hard all the time to avoid my ADHD from affecting other people, and here I am, just doing stuff that definitely impacts other people. I am getting to the point where I don't trust myself anymore.

***

In conclusion, I have a lot to talk about to my therapist when I get back to NZ!

Home Update: No COVID thus far

 Knock on wood! My Days 3, 7, and 10 RATs (covid tests) have all been negative.

My flights from NZ to the East Coast were ALL full to the brim with hacking, coughing, maskless people (well, the flight from NZ to the West Coast featured masked people, because of Air NZ policies), however, I wore my N95 masks nearly 100% of the time while on the flights.

I kept in mind the research and did the following:

1. Because I knew I'd be super dehydrated/hungry from wearing a mask a lot, I drank as much water as I could before my flights, and had a big meal before heading to the airport. I luckily had a whole super shuttle to the airport to myself, so that was great.
   
2. Because the highest risk time is when people are crowding at the gate, boarding, and before takeoff/after landing (when the plane ventilation system isn't switched on) I stayed as far away from my gate as possible, and waited until the last minute to go through security and board all of my flights. I even hung out outside of the airport after checking in and checking my luggage - mostly to drink a ton of water. I was within sight of a status board while outside, so I timed it carefully to give myself enough time to go through security and get to my gate. Waiting also meant giving up space in the overhead lockers near me, but that was OK. I planned ahead and kept all the things I needed during the flight with me in my backpack and stowed it away under the seat in front of me.
3. I refused the meal services while on my big 13 hour flight to the US from NZ. I had brought food, so waited a good 2 hours after everyone else had taken off their masks to eat before I pulled my food out, then scarfed my food down as fast as possible. I was going to try to not eat for the whole flight, but this quickly became impossible with the way that my blood sugar works. Plus I had to take my thyroid pills at a certain time.
   
4. I drank as much as I could while my mask was off, while eating. It was probably no more than 7 minutes, honestly. That was the only time I took it off on any of my flights. 
   
5. I booked a 24 hour layover once I arrived in the US. This just happened to be the cheapest option, INCLUDING the cost of a hotel for 1 night. This gave me a 24 hour period to rehydrate, eat, and have my mask off. I also ended up hanging out at an outdoor pool (no one was there!) during my layover. It was easily the smartest travel decision I've made in a very long time. While in the hotel room, I had the air blowing constantly, and I blocked off the crack under the door to the hallway with a towel. Whenever I left my room, I wore a mask. I took room service and all my meals into my hotel room.
   
6. For my next flight, I repeated #1 and #2, and made sure the overhead air vent blew directly on me the whole time. This is also recommended by the research. This flight was ~3 hours, so it was much easier to not eat, drink, etc.

 So far I've masked at home, ate all meals in my room, etc except for when I am in my own room. I also mask when I go in a store or inside anywhere. I don't bother masking when outside...plus it is 90+ F and very very humid here! Now that I am negative on Day 10, my family and I agree that I can go maskless in the rest of the house.

And so far, so good - no covid in our household (yet)!

I'm About to Get COVID...

Oh God. I'm resigned to getting covid now. Sadly enough, while I'm terrified of covid, I have started to succumb to the peer pressures of the mass delusion that covid is "inevitable" and loneliness of living under major restrictions for 2.5 years. Come what may, I guess. Sigh.

My Covid Risk Assessment and Response in 2020-2021

Until earlier this year, I have been quite trusting of the NZ governments' ability to keep us all safe with our alert levels and traffic light system, but still was more cautious than anyone I knew. For example, even when there were zero covid cases in NZ in 2020 and 2021, I was highly aware of how fast it could spread before we knew it was spreading, and chose to be extra cautious with my social life. I only ONCE took the chance of eating out at a restaurant, and only did it for the regular monthly pub quiz night some of my friends and I go to sometimes. Otherwise, since returning to NZ in July 2020, I have avoided all public places that require unmasking (i.e. while eating or drinking) or have large groups of people in attendance, even if masked (i.e. concerts). 

My social life diet instead has mainly consisted of seeing 1-2 people in their homes (or mine) at a time, about 1x every other week. Sometimes it's two visits a week, more often 0. Once I organised an outdoor picnic for 4 people, with lots of distancing, back when covid cases were much lower. These are all friends that I trust implicitly to keep me safe, because they are either very safe themselves, or they know how terrified I am of getting yet another chronic illness. 

While there were zero covid cases in NZ, I went to work in my office sometimes and, when the snap lockdowns occurred, I dutifully carried all my PhD materials to my home, and back to the office when it was allowed. Back and forth, back and forth. Since I don't have a car to transport ~50 lbs of books, notebooks, office equipment, etc easily, after about 3 of these transitions, I got tired of it and declared that I was working from home full-time no matter the alert level. That was in August 2021, during the last big lockdown. WFH has stuck since then, at least.

What I'm Actually Scared of

I am vaxxed with my 3rd shot (booster), but I received the booster in Feb of this year. I don't know that my vaxxed status actually matters anymore, since the immunity they provide wanes and the new variants don't seem to respond to the vaccination well. But even with that caveat, I'm not actually super concerned that I will have a severe reaction to covid. My sister got it, but not terribly badly, and if there is any consolation in that fact, it is that perhaps my genes will react to covid like hers did? 

What I'm WAY more concerned about is a) any interruptions at all to my PhD timeline, which I'm years and years behind on now, b) getting long covid, c) increasing my chances of getting long covid later with repeat infections -- by this logic, the longer I can hold off on getting covid the first time, the better, and d) getting it unknowingly and spreading it to others who are more vulnerable. 

My Risk Assessment and Response NOW

With the NZ covid response now almost as bad as the rest of the Western world, things are shifting for me. Yes, it is awesome that we require masking in grocery stores, planes, public transport, etc., and some places now have enacted ventilation protocols, but there are no other restrictions in place. Kids are in school, college kids are in classes. Conferences and workshops and meetings are held in person. Masking requirements are willy nilly. Everyone is banging on about how we need to stop WFH to rebuild 'team unity' at work and the need for everyone to start coming back into the office to 'make the hallways feel welcoming.' No one enforces or checks that the unmasked person in the grocery store has an exception or corrects the person wearing the mask under their chin. A dozen or more people are dying every single day, with barely a mention. 

The variants are never ending. The vaccinations don't seem to mean anything anymore.

We are on our own. Just as I was afraid of. It feels like being in the US in 2020 again! Helpless, with the only possible respite many, many months away, if that.

In NZ currently, we are experiencing a peak in cases from the BA.2 variant and rising BA.5. Not as high of a peak as initial Omicron this past Feb/Mar/April, but a peak nonetheless. WHILE flu cases are also at a high. 

We have FEWER PROTECTIONS in place WHILE DISEASE RISK IS A MILLION TIMES HIGHER. 

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.

Source

For now, I am still WFH, only going to the grocery store and shops (and even drive thru windows) with a mask, ordering takeaway when I don't want to cook, avoiding bars, restaurants, and crowded places. 

But that is about to change.

Giving Up, Taking Risks: A Birthday Party & Travel to COVID-Infested Waters

I've really started giving up, though. Case in point, the many risks I'm knowingly about to take:

1. My birthday was recently! And I desperately miss hanging out with my friends as a group. So this Friday for the first time in 2.5 years I've invited 3-4 people over to my apartment so we can play board games over drinks IRL. Several people are missing but 3-4 people are more than I've hung out with at one time in a very, very long time. Everyone is being careful this week, everyone is going to take a RAT, I'm turning on our new heat pump and opening all the windows and doors for ventilation, and we're going to play some games and celebrate my birthday together for the first time in several years. We will see how this plays out.
   
   
2. Part of the reason I've organised the birthday gathering is that I'm about to get on a plane to the US to see my family for the first time in 2 years, and my risk profile will take a massive jump, anyway. It is a risk I do not take lightly. My dad is declining and so is my mom. They really need my help and it is killing me not to be there. Also, I haven't had a real break from work in 2.5 years and my annual US trips are usually the time I recharge.
   
   While I'm home, extended family members want to see me. As do old friends. Also, my work is sending me to a conference on the other coast. And a cousin getting married on that same coast, at a different time of my trip.
   
   So lots of very risky environments are in my future:

1. Long international flight, layovers, and more long cross-country flights, with UNMASKED, COVID-RIDDLED AMERICANS
   
   
2. time with immediate family, who have to go to high covid risk places, like hospitals and doctors a lot
   
   
3. plans with extended family, who are not as careful as I am
   
   
4. plans with friends, who ARE as careful as me, and have promised me that we'll just hang by ourselves, test a lot, and not do anything risky while I'm visiting (I just love them so!)
   
   
5. Two flights and a layover to a conference location, again with some likely disgusting Americans
   
   
6. A week-long, 100 person science conference (more Americans, but a less gross lot). As far as I can tell there are zero covid precautions made as of right now, even though I have warned the conference organisers and my boss that I will not attend if they don't make any plans around keeping us safe. My boss will lose money unless she advocates for this, and I'm one of the invited speakers, so I would hope my voice/vote holds sway with the organising committee? Even if I go, I won't be eating out with folks or unmasked while at the conference (except to give my talk from the lectern).
   
   
7. Two more flights and a layover back home (blergh Americans)
   
   
8. Two more flights and a layover to my cousin's wedding location
   
   
9. My cousin's wedding! Small, but...we'll be expected to be unmasked for photos and to hang out and eat out with family unmasked of course. None of them are careful anymore.
   
   
10. plans with extended family (my aunt, mainly) who are AVID ANTI -AXXERS/MASKERS :( :( :( I do not know how I will be able to wear a mask around them/avoid restaurants etc without causing huge arguments, and I do NOT have the energy for that. So I will probably stay silent to keep the peace for my mom, who is really hanging by a thread and counting on this visit being a break from taking care of my dad. I'm so exhausted from fighting for my health/my dad when even those that need to be (e.g. my mom, my sister) refuse to. I give up.
    
    
11. plans with more extended family (my grandma's sister) who is over 90 and ALSO AN ANTI VAXXER/MASKER. WTAF, lady?! I have never met her before but she is the only living relative of my grandma's who knows what my ancestors went through in Nazi Germany. This visit happened by chance - she happens to live near (2.5 hour drive) where the cousin from the other side of my family is getting married. This will likely be the ONLY chance to meet her, as she is super super old and we have no plans to ever go to the area where she lives again.
    
    
12. An international flight back to NZ.
    
    

Yeah...I'm getting covid, aren't I?!? Wish me all the luck (not that I deserve it!)