Week 9: COVID in Kinmen

I had hoped for a restful week after Taipei, but alas. Illness and injury hath struck.

On Tuesday, I had a pretty rough day. I managed to teach my classes, but I was definitely exhausted from the long weekend. My foot had also been hurting for a week, so I went to a clinic after school. I thought I'd stubbed my toe and it'd go away, but it hurt more as the week wore on. Fortunately, the doctor spoke some English and I spoke enough Mandarin to communicate about what was going on. Good news: Taiwanese healthcare's not only cheap but also quick and efficient!

Wednesday was a bit better. I was nauseous on Tuesday night, but on Wednesday, I just woke up with a sore throat and a persistent cough. I thought they were just due to the fact that I hadn't taken my allergy pills for a couple days, so I still went to school, then met up with the rest of the Kinmen cohort for our cultural visit.

Our cultural coordinators took us to a Kinmen military-themed adventure park for our cultural visit. We did a variety of team building activities, such as crossing a set of balance beams as a group or balancing everyone on a wooden platform, as well as laser tag. The last time I played laser tag was probably 2013 or 2014, back when almost every middle school birthday party was held at a laser tag arena. Admittedly, I think I probably only played as well as a middle schooler too, but I had fun!

The last activity was a laser maze, which we had to go through one by one as fast as we could. It wasn't a very long maze, but it was definitely tricky in certain spots. When it was my turn, I figured out how to get through the course pretty easily: run, slide along the floor like a penguin, then get up and step over the last laser. Just by sliding along the floor, I could clear 80% of the maze.

The first time I ran the course, I did it in eight seconds. No one expected me to get through the maze that fast, including me, so I ended up running it again. Final time: five seconds. Despite the fact that my throat and foot still hurt and I was coughing, I felt physically pretty good!

Photo credits to Emma Ratshin, 2022.

It was all downhill from there. The evening was pretty chill; I got dinner with some other ETAs, checked out Jincheng Old Street, called my sister back home, then went to bed. Thursday morning was when I started to really have problems. I woke up with a 102°F fever and stayed home from school. I didn't do much all day, just caught up on some productive things and watched some TV. Since both myself and one of my other roommates didn't feel great, we had someone else bring us some COVID tests to make sure it wasn't COVID.

As you can probably tell from the title of this blog post, dear reader, it was, in fact, COVID. I'd never gotten COVID before, so it didn't quite feel real to see the test line appear on the rapid test. Obviously, I panicked about it for a bit.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday have all blurred into one very long day. I ordered food on FoodPanda, laid in bed, played games on my laptop, and watched part of Ponyo with another ETA, among other things. My constant companion is the stuffed Shiba Inu another ETA won for me last month: Grayson. I've also had lots of calls with different people (mostly from back home) since I have so much more free time now. I miss my friends!

The local government sent me a COVID care package which included some crackers, teabags from Carrefour, and a COVID test. Apart from having to field a million calls in Mandarin from contact tracers and clinic workers, I've appreciated having people check up on me. The other ETAs have also been super sympathetic and offered to get both my roommate and I food or anything else we need, which I appreciate. I can't wait to get out of quarantine next week and see everyone again.

The most eventful development of the past couple of days has been the way COVID's impacted my brain. Beyond the typical brain fog, COVID seems to be impacting some of my brain's neurodivergent quirks, including my synesthesia. I can't tell what colors words are very clearly, and it's making using language a good bit harder than it needs to be. I'm hoping desperately that this is a temporary thing.

Emotionally, I think I've been going through it. I already felt isolated and distant from others going into this week, but being quarantined has only exacerbated how I feel. Being locked in a room has also made me feel even more in my head about everything—teaching, travel plans, staying in touch with friends, etc.

The good thing about taking a break though (even if it's against my will) is that I can finally rest! I definitely haven't been making enough space for myself to stay home and rest, and now I have eight days to make myself do just that. I've been rediscovering hobbies like writing and reading, which are nice. Overall, quarantine's been a little frustrating, but it could be worse—I like the alone time, but not the boredom.

I still have another five days of quarantine left, but I'm hoping they pass quickly enough. Until next week!