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2021-02-13
Six Key Advantages and Disadvantages of Working from Home in Europe during COVID-19
This article discusses an European study investigating individuals’ experience of working from home during the pandemic and the disadvantages and advantages of this work model. The advantages were a better work-life balance, improved work efficiency, and greater work control. The disadvantages were home office constraints, work uncertainties, and inadequate tools. -
2020
Pandemic Street Art: TVBoy and pop street art during the pandemic
TVBoy is the artist name of Salvatore Benintende, Italian graffiti artist from based in Barcelona, Spain. Through the months of the pandemic, TVBoy has put up several wheat paste murals incorporating imagery of the pandemic, social justice issues, Catholic imagery, and political topics: a school of fish wearing masks; former President Trump in a Superman costume; the Sacred Heart Jesus figure wearing a mask; imagery of Antonio Canova’s statue The Three Graces (the mythological three charities, daughters of Zeus — Euphrosyne, Aglaea and Thalia — said to represent youth/beauty, mirth, and elegance) wearing form-fitting scrubs, clogs, masks, and representing three well known vaccines (Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca); imagery of Leonardo da Vinci's painting The Last Supper but with Jesus wearing a mask and separating two sides of the table; and others. -
2020-11-15
New York, Bilbao, New York
In November 2020 I began reading Kirmen Uribe's novel Bilbao New York Bilbao while in Bilbao, Spain with my partner. We were there to care for his father who is suffering through the late stages of dementia and to spend time with his family who he had not seen in a year. Uribe's novel is important to my plague year for many reasons. He talks about the split mind being from Bilbao yet living in New York. My partner is from Bilbao, and the novel helps me understand his mindset. But Uribe also talks about the ways humans remember and carry pain and mark loss. Unlike trees who carry their growth in their rings or fish who mark time through their scales, humans mark time and pain through simply marking time. He notes that fish grow their entire lives, but humans start dying and shrinking from the moment we hit maturity. Growth, it seems is only for the fishes. My plague year was marked by my entire partner's family getting the virus, a story of gradual family loss, one of borders, and of course a presidential election. The pandemic closed not only schools and bars but also borders and our chances to move between Spain and the U.S. in any straightforward way. When we began planning the trip in the summer of 2020, we came up against all of the travel bans in place. My Spanish partner could get to Spain, but I could not. So, the research began, and I spent more time on Facebook groups than any person should be allowed to. We knew we weren't going to Spain just to have fun. We needed to take care of his father, but it felt like we were doing something wrong. Love, it turns out, knows no national borders, but border agencies certainly do. To get to Spain, he just hopped a plane to Madrid. I had to go through Lisbon, London, and Paris before arriving there. On the way back, I hopped on a plane flying directly to New York. He had to quarantine in Mexico for two weeks. Our stay there was marked by his father's continued decline but also moments of joy. The picture here captures one of those. As a U.S. citizen, his Spanish family and friends are always asking me about U.S. culture and practices. One of my tasks in Spain was to cook a big American Thanksgiving dinner, which I did with gusto. I made all the things: turkey, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pecan pie. I tried to explain the significance of each dish while realizing how insignificant and somewhat gross Thanksgiving foods are. But we had fun and spent the night after the meal singing "American" songs and discussing art--his cousins are all artists. That night, one of his friends recommended I read Uribe's novel. So, I ordered it that night. It is a lonely book of loss and thinking about how art marks that loss. I think that is how we marked our time in Spain contemplating everything we had lost in 2020 and everything we were gradually losing. We spent time at the Guggenheim and Fine Arts museums in Bilbao. In fact, we waited for my partner's COVID test while browsing the Fine Arts Museum. It turned out positive, and we separated at the point for two weeks. But the picture here represents a moment of joy as we said goodnight to my partner's cousins after the Thanksgiving weekend. I hope for all the clichés of going back to normalcy. And we probably will get back to the "before times" given humans' inability to learn from any of their experiences. But I am one of those humans and just want to sit at a bar and talk to strangers again. When that normalcy returns, I will look back at this picture and remember Uribe's words: "As with the growth rings of fishes, terrible events stay on in our memory, mark our life, until they become a measure of time. Happy days go fast, on the other hand--too fast--and we forget them quickly." Maybe Uribe is wrong, though. I will not be forgetting this day anytime soon. -
2020-02-29
Studying Abroad During the Pandemic & Feelings of Uncertainty
This is an email I sent St. Mary's study abroad coordinator, Raquel, at the end of February while I was studying abroad in Alcalá de Henares, Spain. Cases were increasing in surrounding cities and I was beginning to worry. Students from my international program at the Universidad de Alcalá were being sent home and I was unsure of what my options were at the time. Nobody knew how serious and widespread Coronavirus would become, but I feel grateful that I listened to my intuition and came home on March 12th before Trump decided to close the borders on March 13th. This experience is unforgettable to me and many others who were abroad at this time. -
2020-10-22
Spain and France Reach 1 Million Cases
Both Spain and France reached 1 million COVID-19 cases this week. Spain was the first country in Europe to reach a million and France followed only a day later. This came as a result of the spike in Europe's cases in the past few weeks. -
2020-07-06
Debating Herd Immunity
I am pretty sure that I had the coronavirus in December. Speaking with friends and family members, there are multiple instance of people feeling as though they have already been sick and feeling comfortable about heading back out into the world. As evidenced by the study discussed in the article, this may not prove to be as smart as we imagined. This item was added TAGS v6.1.9.1. I originally searched under the hashtag #herdimmunity. Within that search, I have chosen to add the following tweet because it shares an article discussing herd immunity, a recent hot button issue that has been thrown around in the reopening debate. Link to the CNN article: (https://twitter.com/Boyanbc/status/1280216226128633865) -
2020-07-05
Spain puts region into lockdown again as cases numbers rise
Spain has decided to put a region in Catalonia back into lockdown as case numbers rise. This area of Spain has a population of over 200,00 people. The decision comes as 60 new cases are recorded in a 24 hour span. This news comes as Spain begins to have a slight uptick in new cases. I entered this tweet into the archive for a few different reasons. The main reason was to highlight the drastic measures some nations are taking in order to fully defeat the virus. It only took 60 new cases in a day for an entire region in Spain to be re-locked down. On the other hand, thousands of new daily cases have yet to be enough for some states to full re-lockdown in the US. Spain has also seen a drastic reduction in daily new cases from their peak a few months ago, and actions like this may point to why they have been successful.