My New Normal As A College Lecturer

by Yellowbelle Duaqui

Just like fellow teachers all over the Philippines and the world today, my new normal is sitting in front of my computer to conduct online classes. I’ve heard of newly coined phrases on social media like #zoomfail or #zoomfatigue and I know how that happens, and how that feels too, as I try to carry out my teaching duties each day. Doing remote teaching comes with challenges – from student resistance (sometimes even viewing teachers and schools as their antagonists in this pandemic) down to power outages and technical issues (i.e. poor Internet connection, costly Internet plan upgrades, among others). Most importantly, the socio-psychological and emotional impact of hearing people die of corona virus each day -- with some mortalities hitting very close to home – makes teaching difficult during a bleak period like this global pandemic. After all, teaching, just like singing or acting, is a performance. Doing it when your heart is too heavy with sadness, fear and anxiety can be too taxing.

But we must soldier on. There are students who want to move forward with life by doing their coursework and to somehow take control of their academic lives in these uncertain times. Even teachers try to cope by working remotely in order to get some semblance of normalcy in their daily lives. As they juggle multiple tasks inside the home, both students and teachers feel a new level of stress they have never experienced before. The blurring of home and study/work boundaries has resulted to a psychological toll on working professionals who are also moms and dads with babies or toddlers at home. This is a situation that many people all over the world face nowadays, in addition to caring for sick family members.

Even with these daily difficulties, I know that I am lucky to be alive and to be able to keep my job in this pandemic. Many of our kababayans at home and all over the world have lost their jobs to mass layoffs due to the closure of their companies brought about by the global economic meltdown produced by the pandemic. Some of the worst-hit industries are the airline, hotel and recreation, banking and finance, and entertainment industries. Small- and medium-sized businesses are also closing shop, while some are forced to cope by offering house delivery or pick-up only services of their product offerings. In the name of social distancing or sadly, due to an ailing business performance, many business establishments had to scale down their operations and close many of their branches. Many people are suffering not only due to the corona virus, but the economic impact of the pandemic as well on their livelihood.

For those who were given more time due to this pandemic, I hope that you are able to spend time wisely by making loved ones and family members feel your care by cooking for them and sharing the household chores, taking up self-care activities like meditation and exercise, and cultivating personal talents and hobbies like writing, singing, playing instruments or baking. This is the time to go back to your core self, which somehow got lost in the frenetic schedule you had during pre-COVID days. It is not too late to envision a new future, and each new day is a chance to set things right, to pursue things you’ve set aside in the back burner, and to ponder on what else in life you would want to accomplish before we face the Creator one day. To our health care professionals in the Philippines, Japan and all over the world today, I say thank you from the bottom of my heart, for taking up the challenge to face this health care crisis head on, even when your own lives are at stake. Many of your fellow health care professionals have faded into the night as this pandemic raged, but you still chose to work in the trenches to save lives, even if sometimes you risk losing your own while your own children worry about you at home. Like many of the

To you who is reading this, my fellow kababayan, I feel your stress and worries even from miles away. Know that I am praying for your strength and resilience in these difficult times. Nothing lasts forever – even the bad times. So hold on, and this too shall pass. We are all in this together, in spirit and in prayers. May you always be safe and well in your corner of the world today.

Yellowbelle Duaqui

Ms.Yellowbelle Duaqui is an Assistant Professorial Lecturer of Sociology with the Behavioral Sciences Department of De La Salle University, Manila. She was a Japanese government scholar from 2008 to 2011 and pursued a master’s degree in Global Studies from Sophia University, Tokyo. She was also a Japan Foundation Japanese Studies fellow from 2018 to 2019.