Saturday, 24 October 2020. I attended the anticipated mass celebration because I will be traveling the following day thus I won't be able to attend the regular mass celebrations on the following Sunday.
It suddenly rained so hard few minutes after I got out of the church. That will take me sometime before I can go home and knowing that I don't have something for dinner at home, I ran inside a fastfood restaurant that I came across with. While nibbling on my dinner I was also writing for a Hive blog about the pandemic using my phone. Right when I was about to press the Post button, my phone rang.
It was my niece. Maybe she was tactless or I just suddenly became so sensitive of the news she broke. "Auntie, grandma is gone," in our local dialect. That is what I will be traveling for tomorrow. I am supposed be going home to see my mother. Now I am going home to a dead.
I didn't know how I felt until I got home. I kept calling my elder brother in New Zealand but to no avail. Ah, the timezone difference! I didn't sleep the whole night. At around 2:00 am he called me back. We both just cried.
My sight at dawn.
Fast forward to about three months ago, I suddenly appeared with that short blog using a different browser. I didn't know the relevance of using specific browser then. Today, our puppies woke me up at 2:30am and I am not getting my sleep back so here I am on Hive at pass 4:00am. I came to Brave browser on my phone and was surprised to see the draft of my blog almost two years ago, on 24 October 2020, to be exact. It is obviously outdated but why delete? Just post it!
Here it is...
🍀🌿🪴🎄🪴🌿🍀
Throwback From 24 October 2020
Maybe you have grown so tired of hearing or reading about how abnormal the world is because of the pandemic. Still, I would like to write about that and hope it will be the last.
Before I go further, I can hear questions out there. Where have I been? Oh yes, it has been months ago since I last wrote here on the blockchain. I have a lot to say but let's just say I have been so busy. Maybe I will be writing about those things that took my time away from here as I try to come back writing.
So, how have you been folks? I hope the ones I've known in here are still here and remember me. On top of that, I hope everyone is doing fine in spite of the pandemic.
Now back to this abnormal #newnormal that I detest... We are approaching the eighth month since we started the quarantine in mid-March. What happened since then? We had the strictest lockdown when we had around 300+ cases in a day. Now we have 2,000+ cases in a day and the businesses are coming back. The quarantine was way too relaxed in spite of the limitations being imposed which I think are weird. Let me give few examples.
People have to pre-register online to attend mass celebration in church. That is because the allowed participants inside is maximum of 50% of the church capacity. By the time people get there, they have to fall in line for temperature scanning, register again and get a seat number before getting inside.
Travel between cities or provinces are restricted and requires travel authorization from the national police department. Requirement to get travel authorization is a medical certificate from the government health center and the certificate must be a clearance stating that you are not a covid-19 virus carrier or not even a suspect. But guess what? They issue medical clearance certificate without doing any test, not even taking your body temperature!
Pathways and machine movers are marked where one should stand and keep distance from others.
- Wearing of face mask and face shield is required in public places. How cool is it to see everyone in that?
There are more but I don't want to stress myself counting them on.
If there is one thing I appreciate with the restrictions, it is the "lesser" of it. Lesser traffic, both vehicles and people, which make going out more convenient than before. Like, I used to almost elbow myself around going down here to the groceries section of the mall. How nice is it to have the lane on your own?
I was once in a conference call with our clients in Malaysia and Singapore when ww had a quick chat of each country's situation. They know that we have thousands of cases in a day and someone asked how is it outside.
"Is it really scary to go out? Like a ghost town?"
No, it is not scary outside. In fact, it looks like business as usual with the traffic jam except for the main public transportation (e.g. jeepneys and buses) that are not yet allowed to operate.