It's 8:30 at night and 34 degrees, though it feels much hotter. The humidity is through the roof. I should get used to it. I grew up in Georgia. I guess I am used to it, but that doesn't mean I enjoy it. Days are nearly unbearable. I'm almost glad that I ran out of money and so can't leave my apartment. I ran out of money about a week ago. Still, I guess I should rewind to the beginning of the story. On May 1st, May Day, International Labor Day, We had some time off work, and many people traveled. Some people travel internationally. Apparently, two Taiwanese businessmen flew to Danang. One of them was carrying one of the new covid strains, apparently. It quickly spread around the country, and Vietnam was in the grips of a covid wave that was much worse than what we had last year. For a few weeks, the country was under a soft lockdown. schools closed. cafes and restaurants stayed open. It seems as if they didn't expect the virus to spread all that fast, but it did by the end of May. Rather than easing the lockdown and returning to normal as everyone had expected, the government increased restrictions. cafes and restaurants could only offer take-out. All Bars were closed. everything was closed. Even public parks were roped off. which lasted for the majority of June. a few days ago, the lockdown was eased, and we returned to a soft lockdown. Unfortunately, I'm a teacher, and schools have not been open since the very beginning of all this. Since I'm not a regular employee of any school, I have not received a paycheck in 2 months. I will not receive one next month because I haven't been working, and there's no indication of when the lockdown will be over. all the publicly available data shows that the infection rate has not dropped. In fact, a couple of days ago, it went through the roof. Saturday was the highest number of new infections in a single day since this began. I would not be surprised if we actually return to a harsher lockdown, but I'm not sure that that's even doing any good. The new strains are so highly contagious that they seem to be spreading even with nothing open. I say this because we spent almost 2 months in some form of lockdown. There has been very little human interaction, and it's not slowing the virus down at all. It seems to be speeding up. I don't know what's going to happen with the lockdown. Still, I know I'm backed into a corner now with my personal finances since I expected the lockdown would only last a few weeks, like the first two. I didn't make much in the way of arrangements. I didn't find an online job. I don't know if I could've. I have not been pursuing that job in China for all the reasons I previously opted not to pursue. The primary of those reasons is that it will take me months to get there and requires money. I can't just wave a wand and be in China. There's still a 3-week quarantine I have to pay for. There's also at least a couple of months just to wait on the paperwork. I'm literally down to $15 after I pay rent this month. There's no paycheck coming at the beginning of next month. It's only a few days away now. This is stressful. I really don't know what the solution is except to ask for money from my father. He's already sent me some money multiple times for the past year and a half, and I don't really want to ask again. Still, I can't really see any other options. more than one relative, including him, has already mentioned that I ought to come back to the United States. Still, I can't imagine what they're thinking will happen. if I don't have enough money to go to China for a job that pays way more than I would ever make in the US What makes them think I have the money to go back to the US? I have no place to live in the U.S. I have no transportation in the US. We all know the US does not have any sort of public transportation system or cheap way to get around of any type. you have to go out and buy a car for several thousand dollars, and then you have to put in maintenance and gas and insurance. Where is this money coming from in their imaginings? do they think that I'm sitting on funds, and I just didn't tell anybody about it? it doesn't make any sense, but my fear in asking for help is that I'm going to get the response, "well, you know so-and-so is hiring up the street," which isn't even the point. Though it certainly will pay less money than I would make in China, the cost of living is through the roof in the US. I don't have any plans to go back to the United States, and I hope I never have to. it's just too costly to live there, and the reason it's costly is that that's the way the public wants it. Obviously, I could write a lot more on this issue, which deserves a discussion. but for now, the point is that the situation in the United States is not set to change. It's a place that pays low salaries and is outrageously expensive to live in. I don't understand how other people make it. I don't want to go back to trying this impossible task of making $7 an hour and paying $1,500 a month for a studio apartment. Well, I guess that's it. just the situation here right now. I had not planned to write about that tonight. I was hoping to and started off thinking I would write in more of a story format. I can't think of anything else. this is the most worried I've been since the pandemic started. I think because I don't see how this ends well, I guess I'm holding out hope. I'm not asking for help because I need to know the date I'll return to work to calculate how much it will take to get me through to the next paycheck. Maybe it will make sense to ask for help. right now, I have no idea how much to ask. that in itself is keeping me from progressing.
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