THE PANDEMIC

 2020’s global pandemic is a whole big story to tell, but certainly not a good one since it has meant a lot of difficulties for me to overcome.

Before COVID I worked and studied here in Santiago independently, regrettably one of the first things to happen was that I got fired from the one job that helped me to pay for my everyday life and studies.

Since I had no job and no way of surviving in the city I was forced to go back south, to my parents’ house, in Villarrica, while I sorted my personal problems. The next thing I know, I spent two whole years over there.

Difficulties were mounting, since I was far from everything, in the countryside, without a space to call my own (i had left the family home years ago). Telephone and internet signals were intermittent at best, and sometimes I couldn’t connect to my online classes, or the sound and video were stuttery, which prevented me from understanding my teachers or classmates. That way I missed a lot of knowledge, and I was only able to recuperate thanks to the class recordings, and the auxiliary texts being uploaded by teachers.

Another complication was the lack of space, because of it I had to connect to my classes using the dining room, I also had to do my homework and pretty much anything that required an internet connection. All of this compounded with the lack of privacy of working at the table and the constant noise meant that I was unable to concentrate the way I would have liked.

On the other hand Design, my major, and especially Industrial design, is a real practical line of work, and since we don’t have access to the materials,  tools, and space provided by the university it has proven a growing concern for me, it worries me because of the upcoming courses, and more so, it makes me feel uneasy with the quality of professional I’m going to be right after graduation.

It has been a really bleak time for me, and if I must choose one good thing the pandemic brought, I would say it was that I had a little more time and we got to study from home.