Covid-19 Log: Day 76

It has been 76 days since the school closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic. And today is Idul Fitr day. One of the special days for Muslim in the whole world. It is always a big celebration after 30 days of Ramadhan. Unfortunately, it is not what happens today. 

It is true that this pandemic has transformed every aspect of human life, habits, daily routines, working, and studying. To survive the pandemic, human race needs to develop a new life style so called new normal, leaving home always wearing mask, approximate alert in public places, constantly washing hands, no hand shaking, and avoiding crowds. Now, the pandemic even has an impact on culture. Something which normally takes generations to transform.  

Let me tell you how it affects the way we, Muslim, celebrates Eid. I will tell you how people in my neighbourhood usually celebrate Idul Fitr, which generally is the same tradition in the whole country. A few days ahead, people will flood market ,the department store, shops, and grocery stores to buy all the things they need for the special day, such as clothes and food supplies for cooking special dish. This year, many people avoided to go shopping and did it online instead. Nevertheless, some people were so stupidly stubborn and ignored all the health protocol. They crowded the market, shops, department stores, and mall to get all things they want for Eid day amid the threat of the virus spread. This raise critics all over social media. We call this reckless action as irresponsible, stupid, and it is worthless. Though, it was not totally their fault. If the government has the guts to impose more strict quarantine policy, all this ridiculous euphoria would have never happened which can jeopardize the life of thousands of citizens.

On the Eid eve, we always have Takbiran. It is a tradition on the Eid eve when we recite takbir from the mosque and it is sounded all over the neighbourhood through a megaphone. Besides from the mosque, many people will recite takbir around the town on trucks. The Eid eve is always so festive that it brings joy and happiness to all Muslims in our region, and I believe in many other cities whenever such tradition is carried on. However, this tradition could not be carried on this year due to the pandemic. People are not allowed to recite takbir around the cities, though reciting takbir in the mosque and through megaphone is still allowed with limited participant in the mosque. This year Eid eve lost it festivities.

Eid day in my neighbourhood has been always a joyful and cheerful celebration every year ever since I was a little kid. Celebration is started in the morning by performing Eid prayer in the mosque. After Eid prayer, all the people will go around the village visiting each other houses. Special dish, cookies, and cakes will be served for the guests. The younger visit the elders in the neoghbourhood. We shake each other’s hands as a symbol of forgiving each other for every mistake that we might unconsciously made in the year ahead. The most joyous of all are the kids. When they visit from house to house, they are usually given some gift money by the hosts. Seeing cheers in the kids’ eyes whenever they receive small amount of money gives us joy as well. These are also the tradition that the pandemic has altered. We could only celebrate Eid with our own family in our own house. No visiting others, no neighbours coming to our house, and no kids cheerfully visit from house to house. Furthermore, this year, only some mosques are given permission to hold Eid prayer, those which are not in the red zone of pandemic. 

Idul Fitr is an annual moment when family or relatives who live far away will gather as one big family to celebrate. We cook special dish like chicken opor, rendang, ketupat, and many more. Then, we feast together. Moment like this is so valuable for every family. It radiates the feeling of joy, happiness, warm and closeness as a family. All in all, Idul Fitr is a family and community celebration.  Sadly, the pandemic has prevented this warm and joyful culture from happening too.

Covid-19 pandemic has changed every aspect of our life. Hopefully, this new normal is only temporary. I just cannot imagine not having freedom to leave house safely for the rest of my life, not being able to travel to beautiful places without being hunted by the virus, and the worst of all, letting go all the valuable cultures that has lived for generations. I believe that all this social chaos will come to an end. One day soon, Allah will lift this plague and brings back prosperous on Earth, for He is the Entirely Merciful and the Giver of Peace.

Covid-19 Log: Day 40

It's been 40 days since the school closure. When the government first announced the school closure, it was planned only for 2 weeks. Unfortunately, the situation wasn't getting better yet, so the closure is extended until, hopefully, May 20, 2020. I really wish things will have been better by that time. The curve showing the cases will hopefully be flatten. Those who are sick will be cured. And, there won't be more death. This is the expected condition when the school will reopen, and our life will resume to normal. But, I don't want the life to be just back to normal. I want it better. 

This week is the fifth week we, teachers, send lesson and assignment home. Students have been staying and studying at home for five weeks. Parents have been supervising their kids studying at home for five weeks. Uneasy of five weeks. Staying at home order has been imposed in some cities including ours. Government insists citizens to work, study, and perform prayers at home. Social, sport, entertainment, and religious assembly has been banned. People are insisted to stay at home unless it's urgent. 

Not being able to leave home for five weeks isn't easy. Students could get bored with this kind of studying. They can't meet their friends, can't play outside with their friends, can't meet their teachers. Parents might as well desperate, tired, and hopeless in supervising their kids learning at home. They began to demand more action from school such as changing the learning strategy, doing some improvisation, conducting classroom conference, and many more. 

It hasn't been easy for teacher as well. In my opinion, teaching online for five weeks can be very frustrating.  Teachers spend more time in front of computer screen, sending lesson, correcting them, and sending feedback. It's not fun at all. Still, it needs to be done. We all know that. The kids are entitled to education, no matter what. 

In a normal day, I always get up early in the morning and get ready for school. Riding motor cycle, dealing with traffic, catching the train, being crammed into the train car are routines, which at that time, quite annoying. But now, I would trade anything to be able to experience all those thing every morning, Monday to Friday. 

Arriving at school, I will see students hopping from the car and school bus, or entered the school gate escorted by their parents with smiles on their face, or even sleepy fac. Nevertheless, it's a nice spirit to see in the morning. Teaching a bunch of kids in the classroom can be tiresome sometimes. However, the kids' laughter and their diverting behavior can erase all those tiresome feeling. Unfortunately, we can't experience all this through online teaching and learning. I guess, dealing with troubling preteen who doesn't give a damn about school values and conducting a restitution with them over and over again can be more exciting than sitting in front of the computer screen everyday for the whole weekdays. 

I really really hope that this pandemic will be over soon. We all hope that. Hearing the kids laughter, watching them play, run and laugh with each other in the school playground is a wonderful scene I've really missed. I wish that no more than two weeks I'll hear a news that the school can be reopen. Let's send out prayer, may Allah answer our prayer sooner that we know it. May this be the blessing of Ramadhan. Amiin. 

Spotify Just Stopped Playing the Song in Playlist

About two months ago, I began having this trouble with Spotify application on mobile devices, either phone or tab. When I played the playlist that I've been downloaded for some times, it stopped suddenly, and the app was closed.

This didn't happen every time I played. Some other time, it played all the songs just fine. But, most of the time the trouble occurred. With times, it got more frequent. I'd been searching for the solution all over the internet. I even visited the Spotify Community to find if there had been the case as mine. There were many. 

I tried all of the solution they suggested. Started from clear the caches to force stop the application. I even followed the instruction to uninstall the application and installed it back. I did them all. Unfortunately, non of them worked for my devices. I thought that my devices were experiencing a different kind of trouble than common ones. 

Until one day, I read a short post in a forum, which I can't remember where, it suggested to try to log out of the app. Then log back in. I followed this advice. And like magic, it worked until today. Nevertheless, I don't think it is permanent. After I logged out and logged back in, I can play all my playlist without interruption. I was so happy that I finally found the solution. Then, I closed the app. But when I played the playlist, the trouble occurred again. I gathered that I need to log out and log back in when I want to play the playlist. Though it doesn't always have to be done all the time. Sometimes, I don't need to log out for a few days, and the songs in the playlist are played non-stoppable.

Well, even if it isn't permanent, I'm quite happy that now I can play all my songs in the playlist without interrupted or abruptly stopped. 

Covid-19 Log: Day 15

I started this log on day 15 because I didn't think this pandemic would be this long when the shutdown began. 

This is my journal, telling about my own experience during the response of pandemic covid-19. I'm not expecting people today will be interested to read this post because we all are experiencing the same thing. But, imagine when people in the next decades or centuries find this post. They will know how scary and horrible this pandemic was. Hopefully, they will learn from us, from our mistakes, how worst we have treated out planet.

I think these days will be recorded in human history as one of the deadly plagues in the world, just like Spanish flu in 1918, the Black Death in 1346, and some other pandemic ever recorded in the world history.

This is the crisis which my or even my grandparents' generation had never seen. A plagues that put all aspect of life in the world at hold. School, offices, even shopping center are shutdown. Public transportation are restricted. People are encouraged or in some area are even imposed to stay at home and apply physical distancing. Gathering event for any purpose is banded. Street, offices, school, shopping centers are vacant. Yeah, it is that bad.

I don't really understand how this pandemic started. What I remember is that around early January I watched a news on TV which broadcast a news about an outbreak of mysterious illness in a China province. The reporter said that people with pneumonia had swamped hospitals. The media called it mysterious disease. They did not have the name yet. At that time, I did not think this disease would concern me since it happened so far away from home. I just skipped the news, I think.

A few weeks later, more news on TV or online talked about this disease. Then, all of the sudden, it became the world's headline because it spreads so fast and took up the whole province named Wuhan. That day, They had the name for this disease, it is corona and caused by corona virus. The Chinese government locked down the city. Unfortunately, it seemed to be too late. Day by day, more countries reported more cases. Once a case in a country was identified, like a curse it began to spread so rapidly and massively, and soon it became out of hand.  

Nevertheless, when one by one every country in almost every continent reported cases, not a single case was detected in my country, Indonesia. Instead of feeling relieved, people were suspicious that something wasn't right. It couldn't be right. Public began to question if the zero case indicated that there was no case or we failed to detect the case. 

On the second week of Mach, our government eventually announced the first two cases. Only then, all the necessary actions were taken. My school took action before the government released a mandate. The director had decided to shutdown the school for 3 days for general cleaning. Students were expected to come back on March 16, 2020. Unluckily, the corona virus, then called covid-19, got worse. Governor had imposed schools shutdown. From 3 days, my school shutdown was extended for another two weeks. That is how I ended up staying at home for 15 days. And it is not confirmed yet if we can return to school next week. We are still waiting for the development of this crisis. Eventually, a horror that once I thought was far from home, so sudden it appeared in our back yard.

Amid the continuous spreading of covid-19, our government called for working and studying from home. Something almost the whole world have done. That is what I have been doing in the last 15 days. We, teachers, send the assignment home online. The next day students returned them online too, and the teacher check it, correct it, and send back the feedback. Now, online and distance learning is part of our routines. Teaching-learning must go on amid this pandemic. Children are entitled to education regardless any condition. Thus, we have to make sure that education stay available for them.

Every morning, started around 7 a.m. I'll prepare my laptop. I Open my email, chat and Drives to see how the teachers and students are working on the home learning. I'll coordinate with all the teachers to make sure that everything runs as smoothly as possible. Sometimes, we discussed when we experience a problem. It is not easy to conduct a distance learning, especially for young learners. We have to maintain communication with parents as well, so learning is running as we expect it to be. Holding a distance learning for your learners is not without challenge. However, the biggest challenge is not designing the lesson and creating the most suitable task. When it all started, our biggest obstacle comes from internet access. We experience connection disruption all the time. It makes sending, uploading, and downloading the materials we needs taking forever to complete. This situation requires a high quality of patience. We are trying the best we could, so the kids will keep studying during this pandemic. 

In the early school shutdown, I still went out to go grocery shopping. On the first week, I even took the commuter to have a meeting with the principal at school. I still had some courage left to do it that time. Until three days ago, I went cycling in the morning around the residents not far from my village. But now, I have to abandon it. The government has urged, if not imposed, to stay at home, encourage physical distancing, and has advised against Venturing out of our house, except in urgency. More people are infected by covid-19 every day. It has reached over 500 people in this country. That't why, it takes the whole country to control this pandemic. Everyone must concern about it and follow the government mandates. We are in this together. Otherwise, it would be hard to put this disease under control. We all have to work together to put this genie back in the bottle.

Let's all raise our hands and pray that this pandemic will be over soon and never come back. For the sake of our kids and their education, and for the sake of humanity. 

I'll continue this log next week to see if I'll have been able to go back to school, or still teach and learn from home. I really hope it is the previous. Amiin.

Stay clean, stay safe, stay at home!