Family of Students During Lockdown:
[Dao Le Trang Anh] PhD student at Faculty of Agribusiness and Commerce, Lincoln University
All of our family members are students: my husband and I are PhD students at Lincoln University, and we have a four-year-old daughter. We planned to come back to our home country, Vietnam, for a family reunion in March, but then our trip was cancelled due to COVID-19. While staying in New Zealand during this unprecedented and chaotic time, how to continue our study and spend time together were very important. Here were our ways to eliminate anxiety and boredom at home.
Learning New Things
Managing Space: We learnt to share spaces and time. To maintain our PhD thesis, we agreed that we need to give family members enough space and time for our own duties. Finally, we decided that during the day, my husband and I helped each other to play with our kid while the other was working. Also, I kept working in the early morning, while my husband worked in the late night. Our tasks were manageable, finally.
Playing and Laughing Together
Sunbathing and Playing Outdoors: Needless to say, Baking: During the lockdown, I decided to learn baking a kid always needs movement. Therefore, we designed with my daughter. Previously, I never baked the cakes. several outdoor activities such as playing golf on grass In our home country, the popular square behind our house, doing desserts are fruits, sweet soups, everyday exercises (aerobics or boiled/steamed traditional and yoga), playing with sandpit We could not deny cakes. I realised that my daughter in the garden, and watering the the discomfort and and I were really interested in plants. Fortunately, there was a baking. My daughter tried to lot of sunshine during lockdown, difficulty during the imitate me and helped me to pat thus brought us full of energy to isolation period, but and mix flour. After six weeks of work out. we tried to change staying at home, we could bake Communicating: Zoom times several types we loved, such as our attitude to it. with family and friends, of coffee bean cookies, chocolate course, are indispensable in our mousse cakes, buttered bread, normal life. We kept chatting and raisin scones. We had a great with our parents, relatives, and time together, discovering our new ability and enjoying friends in Vietnam and New Zealand. We celebrated the cakes in the wonderful autumn afternoons. my father’s birthday online and sang birthday song Investing: My husband and I learnt to invest in Vietnam stock market in a chaotic time (yes, we made our investment online!). In COVID-19, almost the stocks in Vietnam securities market plummeted. We recognised there was a great chance to buy shares at a reasonable price. While my husband focused on stocks of banks and financial institutions, I paid more attention to nonfinancial corporations. Luckily we have chosen the right stocks as they increased prices later, thus established our confidence in our investments. 18
together. We called our close friend who had a newborn to congratulate her. Even though we did not physically contact, we still felt the atmosphere of family reunion and friend gathering. Six weeks of lockdown and social distancing passed very quickly. Our family members got closer as we had a great time together. We could not deny the discomfort and difficulty during the isolation period, but we tried to change our attitude to it. After all, this definitely is one of the most memorable experiences in our life.
