My daughter-in-law is in the final stage of graduating from college. She's spent the last three terms finishing up online, since the university, BYU-Idaho, is in Eastern Idaho and she's been here with us and her family in Western Oregon.
It's been additionally stressful for her, beyond the fact that she has two children under the age of three to care for, because the degree she's trying to get in Health Administration is no longer offered at the school. That means she needs to get it completed within a certain period of time, as in now, or she risks losing the degree.
Not cool.
So, in order to finish on time, she took 20-plus credits this last term. Finals were this week.
Because of the requirements to graduate, she also needs to do an internship.
That also requires taking a one credit class which serves as a reporting mechanism for her and for the mentor/supervisor of her internship to communicate how she's doing. It took her awhile to secure the internship, and then to double and triple check that it would be approved, but as of the latest bit of information, everything was greenlighted.
As early as a couple terms out, she was concerned about how she was going to even do the internship. Since she would probably need to do something dealing with administration, that meant being available during normal office hours. Well, her husband, our younger son, works during most of that period of time. Back then, he was working as a bilingual assistant at a local middle school. Now, he's a high school teacher in a town 20 minutes away.
Originally, she was hoping to do the internship during the summer, so he would be off and available to look after the children while she was away during the day. It's not like a full-time job when she starts, but still, being away from home for even part-time would be tough considering their youngest is still nursing. To make up for that would mean some extra planning and preparation, adding another bit of stress into the mix.
Unfortunately, the scheduling didn't work out. With the term ending now and another beginning shortly, the end of the public school year would have been another two months or so to go. Thus, my younger son wouldn't be available. My wife and I would be working, too, so we wouldn't be able to watch the children either.
Needless to say, it was a cause for considerable concern. It's not easy trying to finish up a degree long distance with a young family.
I suppose we could get into a debate over life choices and their consequences, but since I'm okay with their decision to start a family while still going to school, I can't blame them at all for doing it. Still, that doesn't relieve them of the consequences. Life goes on, and everyone must find their way.
That was the situation as of the beginning days of March.
Then, a series of governor executive orders took place, one of the first to shutdown schools for at least three weeks, then two months, then for the rest of the school year, thanks to measures meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus here in Oregon.
Because of that, my son has been home from work since. Which means he's been around to help out with the children more so she can study, do homework and take tests with a little more time in the day to do it.
Since a teacher position is funded through the state, he's being paid to stay home (though within that last few weeks, as the closures became longer and then complete, he has been asked to work with his students online via video chats, etc.), so while they don't have any major living expenses, since they live with us, they are still able to meet their other obligations, and continue to save up for eventually moving out.
In addition to the day to day during her last term, he will now be available to watch the kids while she is doing her internship. But because of the statewide ban on work for non-essential services, she won't even have to leave the house. I'm not sure what her schedule will be, but it will be online. And to boot, she will be leading a team of other interns.
Now, I'm not saying that this coronavirus came about for the express purpose of helping her get through her last term of school and her internship. Far from it. What I am saying, though, is that even under the most trying of times and during the most extraordinary of circumstances, there are silver linings to be found.
If we can look at them in such a way.
I know her circumstances do not equate to those who have lost loved ones, find themselves in the ICU, or who have lost a job and are wondering how they're going to make ends meet. Even so, I would believe that even among some of those folks, there are at least a few tender mercies to be found.
The story doesn't end there.
A few days ago, my younger son sent me a text. He was upstairs in the house and I was out here in my office. He said he wanted to apologize ahead of time if we went over our monthly one terabyte allowance of Internet data usage. We have Xfinity through Comcast, and Oregon is a state where they don't automatically offer unlimited data. You can get it, for an extra $50 a month.
The reason for going over, he figured, was because he's been creating videos to teach his Spanish students. He was planning to ramp those up to five or six videos a week, then upload them to YouTube.
Well, I don't know if that would be enough to put us over or not, but it did make me curious, so I wanted to see where we were at in use for the month of April already, and compare it to the previous months.
When I got to the data usage page, I found this:
As you can see, for the very first part of the year, we weren't burning through even two-thirds of our data allowance. Essentially, our usage is what I do blogging and surfing the web, what everyone else does on their phones via the WiFi network, and then maybe streaming a movie for the granddaughter to watch once a day. Add in schoolwork in the evenings, my shows I might get around to streaming over the weekend (when they're not in hiatus like now) and that's pretty much it.
As you can see from the screenshot, though, the month of March was less than 200 GB and there was nothing counted for April.
That's when I managed to read the fine print.
Due to the COVID-19 virus and the measures to curb it, Xfinity decided to remove the monthly data cap for their customers from mid-March to mid-May because, they say, they know people are going to be working from home, hopefully as temporarily as possible, and they didn't want anyone potentially running into data issues because of it.
So, my son doesn't have to apologize—he can upload as much as he needs to—and I don't have to write a check for $50 more than normal for next month's bill.
Another silver lining.
Add those two stories to the fact that my wife and I have received our stimulus deposit the U.S. Government started sending out, and my unemployment benefits finally arrived—with the additional amount from the feds—for the interim, we don't have to worry about making ends meet.
We'll just all be paying for it down the road, later if not sooner.
I guess I can choose to feel the relief now, and steel myself to face what's to come later.
Fortunately, I dare to say, I'm also here on HIVE, trying to increase my stake as much as I can, because the worldwide situation is careening closer to a rock solid reckoning that when it hits, will bring about the most precarious of eras in most of our lifetimes. Some believe it has the potential to dwarf the last Great Depression in acceleration and in orders of magnitude.
In other words, what we're seeing now in even the worst hit areas because of the virus will only be the tip of the proverbial iceberg with what's looming just over the horizon.
There is only so much quantitative easing that can be done before there's nothing left to ease.
HIVE, and crypto in general, serves as a potential hedge against that oncoming financial mother of all tsunamis.
I'm hoping being here when that hits will be yet another silver lining.
In this time of global uncertainty, are there any experiences in your life where somehow it's 'just working out for you'? Any personal silver linings you'd like to let others know about?
Image sources—Pixabay and Xfinity