Self-isolation blogs: Carrie Tan
Carrie Tan
This is part of a series of self-isolation blogs written by students, staff and Fellows during the coronavirus pandemic so we can learn about their experiences over the coming weeks.
To view other blog entries, take a look at our main self-isolation blog page.
Carrie Tan is a second-year Economics student from Singapore. She is currently self-isolating in Singapore.
Week 11
Nearing the end of term, I found myself in a video call with a few coursemates and offerholders—the incoming freshers. The word ‘freshers’ seems so apt, with their fresh hope and expectancy.
Listening to my coursemates chipping in with anecdotes and advice, it reminded me how much of Cambridge there is to share with freshers. Much of what we love about Cambridge doesn’t disappear just because of a pandemic. So much of it has stood for hundreds of years anyway!
I was thinking, by the time we get back to college, it’ll be almost like we’re ‘fresh’ again. It might be different from what I envisioned my final year to be, but still something to look forward to.Another meeting I had recently was with a group from the Christian Union, as we’re planning events for next year (literally, 2021). It’s difficult dealing with all the uncertainty: we discuss scenarios of normality, lockdown or somewhere in between. Sometimes it feels disappointing—I’d much rather imagine that we can still host 300 people at a time and chat with friends all evening.
A great encouragement to me was a sharing from one of the staff from the national Christian Unions network. He said (paraphrased), “You may look at previous years and think, they had it so much better! But you guys get to be the first group to host these events in a pandemic. You get the opportunity to serve the CU and the university this way.”
That was a new perspective: seeing ourselves not as suffering and hindered, but as pioneers with a special task. A fresh idea, that we have been brought here especially for a time like this.
This thought makes sense because we know that our sovereign and caring God is guiding our decisions and plans. It’s not a mistake that we have been given this special (and yes, extra challenging) role. Knowing this makes us all the more eager to put our hearts into it, assured that God will see us through all the way to the finish line.
12 June 2020
Week 10
There’s something about receiving mail that is special nowadays. We rarely pen things to entrust into the hands of the postal service anymore, it seems. Compare that to ‘the old days’, when my parents once wrote letters to each other weekly, or even longer ago when my grandparents wrote to each other daily.
Now receiving post is much more of a novelty, and a treasured gesture. Someone had to put in the thought and time to write things down, to find a stamp, to get your address (in a non-stalker-ish way, of course), and to be organised enough in advance so that it doesn’t arrive terrifically late.
(Although sometimes plans are thwarted: last month I posted a card to my friend who lives relatively nearby, but it still took three weeks to arrive…)
And there’s something about handwriting that conveys more voice than Arial (or whatever fonts messaging apps / social media / emails use). You get to see the little blots and cancellations of oops, I can’t spell! And the little carrots ^ ^ that give you a glimpse into their train of thought, what they forgot and then remembered.
There’s personality to it. And funky stamps. And pretty postcards!
On that note, over the past week the John’s CU has been putting together some mail of our own, under the fun new initiative ‘Text-a-Postie’. Something we’d usually do in person would be to invite questions, deliver toasties and chat with those who texted in. Now we can only begin to have these conversations on the backs of (toastie-less) postcards, but it’s been really interesting nonetheless: to hear what’s on people’s minds, to have a good think about my own faith and world view, and to squeeze a meaningful reply into a tiny amount of space!
26 May 2020
Week 9
Sometime in the future…
* * *
The pages seem, well, dusty – if webpages could get dusty. There’s a nostalgic feel to them, simple print, and those old kind of photos (the best they could do back then). The earlier pages are a little worn, but the later ones seem more crisp, as if fewer cursors had run across the words and fewer scrolls had pulled them up and down.
It’s something of an artefact, hidden away in the folds of a website. Like no one would find it unless they were looking. It has an honest yet whimsical sound, with some references you don’t quite understand, and that particular writing style that seems kind of quaint now.
Why did she write? you wonder. Was it the irrational fear of the future, like the conspiracy theorists who thought the world would end in 2012, or 2000, or whichever year before that?
Or was it an Anne Frank way of passing the long hours separated from the outside world? Trying to bridge the quiet between the beginning of a crisis and its culmination; praying that it wouldn’t turn out like it did for Anne?
Perhaps she wrote to defy the storyline, to work reverse psychology on world history in hopes that it would one day be an inconsequential blip on a timeline. I’ll be the butt of the joke! she might be saying. If the world gets better and future generations laugh at the effort I put into this, so be it. I’d rather that than for the world to have to say, the joke was on us.
Perhaps she wrote because she believed in the storyline, that by making marks along the road she would one day see why the route had to take her there. Even if it was the long way round – she had trust enough in the paver of the path that she wanted just a chance to bring others with her.
The pages smell almost musty – if webpages could smell. There’s an incomplete feel to them, as if waiting for a finale, as if all pointing to something more to come. You wonder if that’s already happened, or if she’s still asking you to come along.
18 May 2020
Week 8
Here in Singapore we have three more weeks before the (supposed) end of our ‘Circuit Breaker’, so here we are, still at home. I’m thankful for the things that keep me entertained—one example is playing board games with my family.
We’re fortunate to have invested in a few board games over the years. Besides the classic Scrabble and Monopoly, we enjoy a range of settlement and route-building games (like Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride). Now that we’re all at home, we try to play something once every couple of weeks. Over the years we’ve mastered the art of not harming our familial bonds when playing competitively—I think we have a pretty good balance between listening to pleas of “NoOoooOoo don’t do that!” while still craftily raking in those points.
Common sights while we play are me stacking my pieces (whether post offices, train carriages, or barrels of corn) in very unstable structures until the fan or gravity brings them down. There’s sometimes my dad singing random song lyrics (often unrelated to reality whatsoever), or my sister telling us an anecdote until we have to remind her that actually, it IS your turn.
After the game there’s the habitual ‘debrief’ as we pack up, where everyone offers their opinion as to why they did or did not do well. “I shouldn’t have chosen that one to start with.” “I was unlucky with the cards I needed to collect.” “Well, I only won because you guys spent all your resources fighting with each other!”
Thinking back, I remember the poetic moment when some of my church friends, on the weekend before we left Cambridge, played the board game Pandemic together (I didn’t join, sadly). For those who aren’t familiar with it, Pandemic is a collaborative game where everyone works together to contain outbreaks of 4 different diseases across the globe. There’s a lot of teamwork and forward-planning needed, and a fair amount of stress.
Hopefully as a positive foreshadowing, they did beat the game and save the world! There is yet hope for us.
11 May 2020
Week 7
Wow I can’t believe I completely forgot to submit a blog post this week. Usually I send it in on Monday, and it became sort of a routine. In fact I was even brainstorming for it on Sunday! But evidently that did not turn out like it should have…
This is all due to my beloved Econometrics project. I believe there is no in-between: either you have not yet started at all, or it has consumed your days (and possibly nights too). I’m about 80% sure that I dreamt about the project last night – not because I love it so much, but more likely from the images branded into my mind of staring at a Stata file comprising tens of thousands of data points and nearly as many variables, all coded in unfathomable names like ‘AD2Y’ or ‘NF41A’. (I mean, what is that supposed to be?)
Of course I am not complaining (yet) about having something ‘productive’ to occupy my time, and I am thankful for the reduced stress of an extra 14 days of deadline-extension. (Yes, to be exact that is a 116.67% increase in the amount of time given to complete the project.)
What else have I been up to? I’ve experienced something which I cannot call anything other than Zoom Fatigue. Perhaps it is all the cumulative hours of staring at a screen. Perhaps it is the heightened alertness required to pick up on social cues when only having access to a shoulders-up view of people. Perhaps it is realising that there are still four more weeks of ‘Circuit Breaker’ (the Singapore government’s fancy name for lockdown) to go…
Other than that, I’ve been trying to keep up with all the other (better) bloggers and writers and article-sharers who now populate my newsfeed. Some of them are personal, some are quirky, some are pretty intriguing and insightful (would recommend the newly launched ZETEO magazine)!
Not sure what this blog is though. A reflection of close-to-reality, an overly-articulated existence, a 9pm-well-at-least-it’s-still-afternoon-in-the-UK hurried attempt to keep my promises… Thank you for caring enough to read this.
‘Til next week – hopefully I’ll remember!
6 May 2020
Week 6
This week I was suddenly inspired to write a poem. Something that sort of hits you as you’re falling asleep—what rhymes with chapel? Doesn’t First Court first caught sound great?—and so this is the product of that.
It’s very John’s-specific so for anyone else, pardon the contextual knowledge assumptions with the court names, the bridge, the Backs and so on. This is just a nod to bits and pieces of my life in College so far—to my first-year self (in North Court), my ‘buttery gang’, my course, the Chapel, and most recently having to leave in a hurry.
Missing College
Thinking back:
Back when First Court first caught
my eye, I took in the arches
before quick marches
had me needing to be speeding
through Second in a second
through Third without a word
turn my back on the Backs and
run ‘cross the Bridge down to Sidge.
Back when in the rain
(what a pain)
I took trips to Cripps
to washing machines sloshing
and the dryers and the tiredness
walking back and
forth from North Court
I thought, time’s too short.
Back when the buttery’s
my bread-and-butter, see
my cooking’s not looking
so good—think I would
rather meet with friends to eat
but when you see
the menu, then you start to be
a little ungrateful
but still grab a plateful
‘cause the company’s sweet.
Back to supervision intermissions
on the Fisher Building stairs
avoiding stares
trying not to care
waiting for the start with nervous heart
(no tick star), feeling scared
of the roast—
I think we’re toast.
Now I even long for Evensong
to be in the uneven throng
of the Chapel, sunset dappled
Stained glass, time passes
as the voices soar for us, the chorus.
I’m sure that Bridge heard my sighs
Hauled my suitcase over, over-sized
The river can’t give a way
for me to stay
The Cam carries on, Carrie’s on a plane.
I nearly forgot Forecourt—
I thought, time’s too short—
hobbles over cobbles
as I’d arrived that’s how I left
bereft, is it theft?
Stealing out the side
It’s lock-down, can’t even look up
to the words that once greeted
entreated me beneath them, discreetly
Think of me often,
Souvent me souvient.
25 April 2020
Week 5
Has the whole Easter break passed by already? Time sure flies when you’re having “fun”.
Now is probably a good time to summarise the things that I’ve been up to in the past weeks, just to paint a better picture of it:
- Reading books (see last week’s post).
- Eating meals with my family.
- Attempting to cook / bake occasionally because why not?
- Going out for grocery shopping or to buy takeaway (with a mandatory face mask).
- Exercising at home and taking walks with my family.
- Waiting every day for the number of new cases to be released on the news.
- Watching streamed church services and being reminded of the great certainties I can hold onto, even when everything else is shaken.
- Video calling friends to catch up, pray for and support each other during this time, or to try to motivate each other to study for the term ahead.
- Feeling a lack of drive to study despite my DoS wanting us to attempt the exams that were set…
- Randomly thinking of people I haven’t contacted in a while and then OVER-thinking whether or not to message them out of the blue.
- Trying to figure out (perhaps in vain) what I could possibly spend my time on when summer comes around.
- Cross-stitching.
- Wondering why it’s so so so so hot here (hint: we’re on the equator).
- Still being reluctant to do chores for my mum despite not having much else to do.
- Deliberating whether it’s worth investing the time and emotional energy into yet another Netflix show.
- Getting lost down rabbit-trails of Youtube videos.
- Wondering whether my short-sightedness will worsen after spending so many hours a day on my laptop/phone.
- Receiving ‘uplifting exchange’ chain mail from friends – you know who you are! haha
- Becoming very adept at calculating what time it is in the UK.
- Making lists of things I want to do or eat after we get out of lockdown. (emphasis on eat)
- Pushing away thoughts of ‘if not for the pandemic, right now I would be ___’
- Very much relating to the song from Tangled, ‘When Will My Life Begin?’
With that, welcome back to Easter Term everyone—although I’ll be missing our fond reunions in the buttery, bumping into people at the Second Court crossroads, and daily admiring the beauty of our college.
20 April 2020
Week 4
This week I’m thinking about books. Books feature prominently in my household. My mum is often seen with her e-book reader and cup of tea. My sister is an aspiring novelist, and my dad is an aspiring autobiographer (only recently). And we have shelves and shelves of books, some dustier than others.
During term time it’s difficult to find time to read, excluding Economics-related journal articles, of course. Even aside from friends, societies and studying, any free evening is usually taken up by watching a movie. The last time I read a significant number of books was over the summer. Now I find myself with more time to read again, which is definitely a plus point of staying at home.
The only sad thing is that public libraries are shut due to the stay-home order. The library near my home has always been a comforting place: it has a refreshing quietness and coolness, and the smell of paperbacks once I step inside. I’ve gone there to study before, but more often to browse the shelves and emerging with an armload of books. Now, unfortunately, only the e-book collection is still accessible.
Luckily my home has a lot of books! I’ve been reading biographies lately: first, one about a pastor who worked with gangs in New York City; now I’m reading one about a man who worked to reform the prisons in Singapore. After this I might move on to Everything is Illuminated, which I think is a biography too? An interesting trend, since I’m usually a fiction person.
When reading, I’ve noticed how short my attention span has gotten – probably because of all the internet usage, oops. But I’m trying to re-embrace the practice of sitting still for an extended period of time and getting properly absorbed in a story.
Maybe it’s become an even more attractive pastime since not much is going on here nowadays. Not surprisingly, I had something like writer’s block trying to write this blog. But hopefully this period will become an important chapter in a larger story, rather than ending up as nothing more than a line, ‘and several months passed…’
http://www.incidentalcomics.com/2020/04/stay-at-home-reading.html
Incidental Comics by Grant Snider is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
13 April 2020
Week 3
When in Cambridge, I almost always carried around my planner, because there were too many events to keep track of. When I arrived back in Singapore, I took out an eraser and cleaned off all the pencilled-in plans from March onward. I know it sounds terribly emo, but I’d rather not be reminded of my cancelled plans every time I open the book. The new thing I wrote in was “Stay Home Notice” and numbered the days 1 to 14.
But on Day 15 I found myself in watching the Prime Minister’s announcement outlining stricter rules about staying at home. Of course, this wasn’t unexpected at all, and I know it’s better for everyone. Still, to me it felt like my 14 days had just been extended by another 200% (or more).
In a large expanse of time, I need milestones and time-markers to feel a sense of progress. So here are some of the little differences between the first fourteen days and this next period, to make it not feel like just more of the same.
At home, I’ve sort of been ‘reinstated’: I moved back to my room and my bed! My mum no longer separates my food from the others’ when we eat dinner—for Chinese-style family meals this is important. I can go outside to exercise or buy takeaway now. I can sit on the sofa and watch TV with my family.
Back to the need for milestones, I’m also trying to segment these few months in my mind. The next two weeks are still ‘break’, then there will be ‘term time’. After that, something like ‘summer’, although it’s 30°C all year round here.
Plus, some time-markers can’t be moved even by a pandemic: like Easter, which is coming this Sunday! We might have to celebrate it differently, but it loses none of its beauty and hope for us. In fact, the knowledge that our broken, sickly, unequal world will be one day be made peaceful, healthy and restored is all the more precious to me in these times.
6 April 2020
Week 2
Hey everyone! Just some musings from the week: Friends, video-calling and so on.
There used to be clear ‘Home // Uni // Other’ divisions when I thought about my friends, but now the divides have seemingly dissolved. Everyone is equidistant—a single category of ‘Friends Who I Can Only Contact Through The Internet’!
So I’m having to rethink how I keep in touch with friends. Now I need to be really intentional about all my friends, regardless of proximity, because there aren’t ‘natural’ spheres of interaction anymore. Which is why I am really grateful for technology like video calls, live-streaming, messaging apps and social media. (In fact, I’ve used 6 different video-calling platforms this past week, so I feel almost like an expert.)
On Sunday I now watch a live-stream service from my church. It feels pretty different joining in from home, not knowing whether I should stand or sit, not being able to hear the whole congregation singing together. But it’s great to see some familiar faces on screen.
We’ve also switched our small group meetings to group calls. It’s an unexpected bonus, because my small group in Cambridge doesn’t usually meet over the breaks, but now we are. I hadn’t been expecting to join my small group in Singapore until summer, but now I can.
Still, there’s just some flavor that’s lost when we’re not face to face. Some of my friends were saying how awkward silences in group calls just seem so much more awkward. And silent. (Except for that one friend who breathes really loudly into the mic and doesn’t realize it.)
We also can’t make eye contact, which is so bad for inside jokes, or giving someone a look, or pointedly raising my eyebrows at them. In the end there’s only one camera I can stare into, and if someone starts laughing who can tell why? All these little things that we once took for granted...
Another phenomenon a friend noticed is that, despite not actually needing to go anywhere, people are as late to Skype meetings as they would be in person. Truly puzzling.
Now I’m just looking forward to the many ‘technical difficulties’ there will be when supervisions start happening via video calls!
31 March 2020
Week 1
On the morning of the 14th, I was still set on staying in Cambridge until June. The idea was first shaken when I heard many friends were booking flights back home.
The news and rumours began pouring in: The situation in the UK is escalating. Singapore might impose travel bans. Easter Term might be cancelled. The College might shut down and ask us to leave.
I called my parents. They said: “Come home, before it’s too late.”
By the next morning, my flight was booked. I packed up my room, leaving it nearly as empty as the day I moved in in Michaelmas. I was fortunate to have some time to come to terms with leaving – walking through Jesus Green, watching the sunset on Castle Mound, lying down on the Backs. I tried to shake off the sadness and remember that it’s alright not to be in control.
The hardest were the goodbyes, especially for those who won’t be in Cambridge next year. Even to those who will, it just seems so long… How can a goodbye meant for six weeks do justice to six months?
Before long I was on the plane, seeing others decked out in masks, raincoats, goggles and shower-caps. While somewhat amusing, they felt like a constant reminder of the invisible danger around us. It was a great relief when I finally reached home—but not everything is the same here either.
Now I’m staying in the spare room instead of sharing the bunkbed with my sister. I still eat meals with my family, but mostly I stay in here. All travellers from the UK were issued a 14-day stay-home notice, so I can’t leave the apartment till then. It’s been only a few days so far, and I’ve been revisiting some hobbies: reading books (for fun! imagine that), playing the ukulele, cross-stitching.
Self-isolation presents a lot of time for thinking, which could be good or bad. I try to bring to mind songs, verses, or other things that keep a healthy perspective on everything. Here’s one that means a lot to me:
When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul.
27 March 2020