So I hit 45 last month. No big differences physically say compared to 5-10 years ago except for the extra weight, grey hair and probably aching back and knees at times. But looking back, my life in the last 20-25 years was nothing but colourful. Lots of ups and downs but pretty exciting and adventurous too. Anyway, just in case the older me comes back to this post for a walk on memory lane a decade or two from now, just to remind you, we are currently in a global pandemic! Who would have thought, huh.
Anyway, that number at the top was the number of COVID-19 cases on the day I hit 45. It was the highest number of cases since the pandemic started way back in September (or was it December?) 2019 but of course, the numbers increased further a few days later. Just putting it here as a record.
A lot of people said that because of the pandemic and that everybody stayed at home for almost 3/4 of the year, 2020 came and went in a blink of an eye. But looking back, 2020 wasn't too bad for me. For a start, I got to publish 3 papers and one of it as the first author, which may not be achieved if it weren't for the working from home policy. Work was crazy though especially at the beginning of MCO 1.0 in March 2020 because apart from switching to online classes almost immediately, we had to switch from physical clinical attachment to virtual clinical cases and ward rounds too. Hours and hours were spent to prepare the virtual cases and the simulation structures so that it could mimic and achieve the same learning outcomes as the real clinical clerkships. And that was for both the undergrad and postgrad programmes! So that was crazy.
But being in-charged of student affairs at the time, I too had new challenges to face. One, we had a number of students exposed to COVID-19 cases particularly from earlier hospital exposures and the most stigmatised cluster at the time, the Bangi wedding cluster. I almost went to the wedding anyway, if not for a bout of diarrhoea. It was in the early days where SOPs for exposed students/PUIs were abit blurry, so that was quite a stressful period. We even had a pregnant postgrad student being picked-up as a PUI by a racing ambulance - what an experience for her! Thank god she and the kids (twins by the way) were and are well. Then with the prolonged lockdown, came flare ups of mental disorders among high-risk students. We even had cases of suicide attempts. Even though by then I already had a couple of years of experience handling these students, with limited movement and every non-essential services closed, it was a tricky period too. I am glad all these students are getting the treatment they need and back with their parents now. Came July & August, we had a lot of changes at work and I am now in charged of academic affairs instead. Structuring, planning and conducting teaching and learning activities as a first-timer DDAA and during a global pandemic was and still is not a walk in the park. A lot of sleepless nights but InshaAllah, I am getting the hang of it now.
On the home front, although my working hours were crazy during the MCOs, we got to spend more time together especially for daily solat jemaah which is really great. We were supposed to go to UK and Europe in 2020 as my graduation gift (hey did I tell that I finally got my PhD in 2019?) and to attend my sister's wedding but that's a bust now. Hopefully we will be able to do that in 2022. If 2022, it will be exactly 20 years since I left the UK so that will surely be great. But for now, I am longing for a day (or 10!) on a beach. Missing the islands!
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