What it's like being 4x vaccinated in March 2022

 I've been flirting with sharing this story for some time now, since every time I casually mention to anybody around me that I've already been vaccinated four times people tend to do a doubletake and then ask me if I'm crazy. I received four vaccine shots probably before most folks started getting their first booster shot (first dose received February 2021, fourth in July 2021). 

I learned today that Moderna requested the FDA (USA Food and Drug Administration, for non-Americans) to approve a second booster shot for adults (aged 65 and up for now), and I don't see why it won't be approved, but I also know that there are still lots of folks arguing about whether it's a good idea to even get their first shot, nevertheless four. 

I stand as a living testimony to the effectiveness of four Moderna shots and impervious to COVID-19 to date (knock on wood) despite living with - and spending Christmas with - a COVID-positive flatmate who had the highly contagious omicron variant, not to mention however many encounters with COVID-positive folks I've likely had over the past year and some.

So, I've told you the who and the what and the when of the story; here are the rest of the details:

Where? I received my first set of vaccinations in the States. While it was unfortunate that I got stuck in the US for the first half of my second semester of my masters program in Smart Cities and Communities instead of in Mons, Belgium, where I had a cute 300+ year-old flat with my classmate waiting for me to keep her company in the midst of the lockdown-like restrictions still in place at the time, I was fortunate enough to be able to get early access to the COVID-19 vaccines and receive both doses while waiting for my visa to be approved. At this time, in most places only those aged 65+ or at risk or frontline workers were eligible to be vaccinated; however, given that there were many situations of extra vaccines due to no-shows, etc., I got lucky enough to snag an extra vaccine that happened to be available. Once that was accomplished, it was just a matter of being scheduled in to receive the second dose one month down the road. 

The second set of vaccines (also Moderna, #ModernaGal) was obtained in Belgium. When the vaccines became more available throughout the country for the younger age groups, we received a letter from the health ministry inviting us to come in for vaccinations, which began around June for the Wallonie region.

Why? Why not? I love shots! Just kidding. While I was confident in the effectiveness of just two doses, I was not confident in the small white paper card that was provided a la CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) when I received my shots in the States. Given that the EU was in discussion about a Digital Green Certificate, and having already had paperwork problems which barred me from boarding a plane a few months back, I was wary that flashing my plain CDC card with the handwritten details of my vaccinations would fly (see what I did there?) with any boarding agent. I also figured that the Belgian records system for vaccinations had not be developed enough to somehow incorporate vaccinations from somewhere outside of Belgium. Hence, after consulting with a doctor to ensure that there weren't any risks of getting an extra round of shots (in addition to the vaccines, there was also the matter of how recently I'd had a needle stuck into my arm), I received my two shots at a health clinic in Mons, and also obtained a Digital COVID Certificate.  

So what was/is it like?

• Physically: the third and fourth shots were similar to getting my second shot. I was lucky and had relatively minor symptoms - low-grade fever, mostly felt really tired and out of it for a day with a very sore and itchy arm. I have not yet contracted COVID-19 (knock on wood again) that I'm aware of, even after having several close contacts and even being in the same flat with somebody who had the omicron variant. 
• Logistically: since folks in the US didn't really know (or accept the EU digital certificate) for a while -- Hawaii entry requirements in August 2021, I'm looking at you -- it was really nice to have a CDC card to wave around while in the States. Since everybody in Europe has a QR scanner and automatic recognition of the EU digital certificate documentation, it makes life really easy to just pull up my Belgian health app that has the copy of the QR code to my digital health certificate wherever I go (airports, establishments, etc.). The only hiccup is that now that some places are requiring a booster shot or a final vaccine dose older than 180 days (this expiration period varies by country), I don't know if this means that I will need to go back in for a 5th shot sometime soon if only to comply with bureaucratic requirements. The last doctor I brought this concern up with asked if I really liked getting vaccines and told me not to worry about it, so for now, that's where I'm at, although it's looking more like I'll probably end up getting another (read: 5th) booster sometime soon. If you'd like to accompany me on this saga, hit subscribe / leave a note in the comments letting me know!  

Moral of the story: if you haven't already and you can, go get vaccinated. 

Questions? Happy to share stories about how I got stuck in the States, or about my close calls with COVID, or about spending Christmas with my COVID-positive flatmate, or even about what it was like leaving my job and the US to start a master's degree in Europe that requires moving every 6 months in the middle of a global pandemic. Drop a comment with what you'd like to read about! 

on the concept of home

found this draft written on July 1, 2013, and thought it still feels relevant. better posting it later than never? 

re-reading this 9 years down the road, i have called so many more places home since that i don't know that i have a singular Home. i suppose that's why the adage "Home is where the heart is" still rings true for so many. i also recognize more now when a place has become Home, although it still takes a trip away and coming back to the comforts of my known environment and bed for me to savor the feeling of being in a place i can call home. maybe leaving and losing that feeling of Home so many times has taught me at this point in life to recognize it sooner?  

-------

how do you know when a place has become Home (with a capital H)?

in all the corners of the world where one might discover herself, what sets one nook apart from the other? is it measured by time? depth of immersion? number of relationships?

i think we all grow up with this concept of Home. for most people, Home is where they have grown up, where their parents live, or where their hometown is. Home

Home is that place where you always come back to, where you are always hating and loving and the same time, itching to leave but longing to return.

but Home is also moments frozen in time.

if you venture outside of the confines of your house, you discover a whole new world, and when you travel - be it to sleepaway camp, university, another country - you start experiencing new feelings that are nostalgic and meeting new people that feel like old friends, who become your brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers, and the streets that you walk over and over again to the point where you could walk blindfolded from the local favorite nightspot back home -- but you don't really think about it. you don't consider it, or recognize it, or know that that kind of familiarity is indicative of a great significance.

you know a place has become Home only after you're gone. once you are no longer there, something twists inside your heart every time you see something that invariably reminds you of Home. odds are, there will be many more reminders than less. this is how you recognize what Home has become.

you know a place has become Home when your next new home feels strange, alien, and even though it is beautiful, it is excruciatingly difficult to open up your heart again, to try to share it when it has already been given away to someplace else.

you know a place has become home when you are desperate to see those who have become your family, even as you try to build a new community around yourself. you meet lots of people, but very few really, and something feels hollow, and you constantly compare and think back to the family you've left behind, even if they are no longer there themselves. you hungrily scan through Facebook photos as if by seeing their faces they will be closer to you once more the way they were when you were cooking dinner together less than one week ago.

you know a place has become Home only after you have left.

post-elections reflections 2016

November 9, 2016

It’s 8:30 PM and I’m in bed. I feel like if I go to sleep now, when I wake up, it will again be November 9, but everything that has happened over the last 20-some hours will just have been a bad dream. It feels surreal, that Donald Trump has just become my President for the next four years. I’ve never been a particularly patriotic American citizen, but I have always loved what America stood for, that American dream which lured so many people (including my parents) to her shores. But now, everything just feels broken.

Last night I was in a bar watching the election results come in, and Trump was ahead. I turned to my boyfriend and asked, “What if Trump really does win?” He assured me that it wasn’t possible. He would have to win every swing state and then some. So later, I allowed myself to drift off to sleep while the counts were still coming in, assured that when I woke up Hillary would have won like everybody expected and that would be that. I woke up around 2 am and turned on my phone to check the results. And thought I was dreaming. I had to wake my boyfriend up, saying, “Hey... I think Trump won.” He woke up and checked the news on his phone. Then looked up the count results on Google, just to confirm. Then refreshed the page a few times. We tried to go back to sleep, but it was a long time in coming.

Getting to work felt surreal. I wondered if I were to not show up to the office, whether the election results could be used as a legitimate excuse for missing work. (I work for a foreign firm, so no.) I have one co-worker who is a foreign national with a green card. He is also gay. We just gave each other crazy faces and discussed for a few minutes about how we could not believe what had just happened. Another co-worker came in, an older, white Texan male, who expressed extreme relief at the election finally being over and done with, and that he was not unhappy with the results. A third co-worker came in - a white woman - and she was elated. She struck a victory stance and yelled, “wahoo!” as she expressed her joy that Trump had triumphed over Clinton. “He’s gonna get things done,” she said beamingly to my manager. My manager is a young man from another country who came to the States for his master’s degree and hasn’t left since. When the overjoyed co-worker left our room, we turned to each other. “I can’t believe that she actually supports and is happy for this kind of man to be your new president,” he said. “Doesn’t she realize the consequences of having someone like him…” 

“and for somebody like you…” 

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine, wherever I end up...” 

He would never admit it to me, but I can’t imagine how he, amongst countless other people, must have felt waking up today to the news that the new President elect in this country that they have called home for so many years, will make it so much more difficult for them to continue calling it their home.

At lunch with co-workers, I couldn’t focus on anything else, couldn’t talk about anything else. At the restaurant, my eyes kept on being drawing to the TV screens, with news anchors discussing the results, with the counts being replayed from the night before. My parents called. My mom asked if I had voted, to which I replied, “of course, did you?” to which she responded that they had. Then she remarked, “Well, looks like Trump is our new president.” 

“Looks like it.” 

“Well, God must have chosen him.” 

“No, we chose him. You chose him – we Americans chose him.” 

“Yeah, but it must have been God’s will and it was part of His plan.” 

“Uh…” 

“And God will guide him.” 

“I don’t think he believes in God, mom.” 

“Well, we have to pray that he will be led by God.” 

“But I don’t think he believes in God.” 

“Well, we have to pray that he will be moved by God. God chose him – just like He chose us, you know?” 

“Um….” 

I didn’t have the courage to ask who she had voted for. I was afraid of hearing her response.

All day long, my Facebook feed has been flooded by statuses by my friends – both American and international – expressing their fear, disbelief, anger, disgust that the man who is expected to be the leader of a nation that was founded on democracy, liberty, and equality should be a racist, misogynist, bigot, xenophobe, and fear-monger who was able to capitalize on people's frustrations and uneducated fears. I’m discouraged by how many people were angry enough that they would consider Donald Trump a more qualified option over Hillary Clinton, and I’m frustrated by those who thought that by voting for third-party candidates like Gary Johnson or Jill Stein they felt they were actually going to make a difference. I’m baffled by how Hillary Clinton could win the popular vote, but the Donald Trump would end up with the electoral votes - and with that, the presidency. I’m scared – not necessarily for myself – but for my friends, for my classmates, for my colleagues, who genuinely feel unsafe – because of those simmering feelings of resentment and hate that now have free reign to burst to the surface in the form of open discrimination, hurtful remarks and actual physical aggression against people whose only transgression happen to be the color of their skin, where their mother gave birth to them, or the person they fell in love with. I wonder how the description of what it means to be “American” will be defined over the next four years – or even over the next few months. I marvel how words like “nasty” and “disastrous” have become so engrained into even professional journalism’s common vocabulary. I feel ashamed to call myself an American and to be associated with what the Untied States of America has decided will be her image to the rest of the world. I’m trying to stay optimistic – or at the very least, pragmatic – but I’m finding it really, really difficult. Even now, I can’t help but hang on to the thought that tomorrow, or the day after, or next week, there will be a recount, or something will happen, that will make all this go away. I don’t believe that protesting will do anything, and I believe that we must continue to move forward, but I still can’t fully comprehend that this is the reality we live in. 

is this the real life

Dallas, TX

if i could describe my life this past year in airport codes, it would go like this, not including all the miscellaneous trips made during and in between:

pty-phl-atx-mad-dfw

it feels like forever, not 2 weeks ago, that i was sitting in plaza españa with my friend, reminiscing over takeout chinese from an underground restaurant and comparing to the last time we had sat there just a few months ago with takeout chinese and smuggled pear-flavored beers talking about how far we had come, how much we had been through, how much more lay ahead in wait for us.  

and now, i'm back in the states. and this time, there is no stop date. 

i've never traveled, or lived, anywhere in my entire life for an open ended period of time. 

to have stopped in a place that i never imagined myself, to a state that i never truly saw myself returning to, to be here without an end date is exciting when i don't think about it too hard at best, anxiety-attack inducing at worst. for the first time, i've come to place where i don't know how long i will stay. there is no limit. there is no time frame. there is no expiration date. to be honest, it is terrifying, bringing back that old fear of falling into complacency and/or slowly going crazy. i eloped with my wanderlust, and i had eloped hard. old habits are hard to kick. 

on the positive side, i may have had enough movement recently to pacify my errant tendencies for a while at least. 

the last two weeks have been a blur of packing, unpacking, retreading my favorite routes of a city i hesitantly fell in love with in order to imprint the sidewalks, the parks, the cafe-bars into my sandy memory, driving, driving, driving, moving from one place to another, constantly, never stopping until i finally arrived to dallas. staying out all night with my visiting friends at a dance club in madrid. flying all day. driving to princeton for a day to pick up a guitar smuggled over from spain. driving forever and a day to texas. and once in dallas, couchsurfing with total strangers - getting lost in the largest state fair in the nation trying to find my co-workers - driving from flat to flat in the search for a home - getting kicked out of my hotel - crashing at a friend's house - getting pulled over for the first time in my life for speeding (there's a story behind that one, i promise i'm not a reckless driver) - and all of the angels along the way that have ensured that i felt welcome, that i had a roof over my head at night, that fed me, that befriended me so that despite being brand new in an unfamiliar city, i am not alone.

the next few months will keep me busy learning more about my company and the roads that it maintains, driving between fort worth and dallas, learning new software, settling into my new home and meeting and making new friends. i never wanted to grow up but it seems that for now, this will be the real life.

ferris wheel at the state fair of texas

blood

sangre. 

i've had two especially memorable encounters regarding this word thus far during my time in spain.

primero. 
a typical situation, a variation of which occurs without fail every time i am abroad: shopping in a corner store that is run by a chinese family (chinos) and being mistaken for an employee. a spanish boy approaches me and asks, "sangre?" being the color-blind (i'm joking) american that i am, i have no idea why this boy is saying the word "blood" to me, or if i am even hearing him correctly. i look at him blankly. "sangre?" he repeats, pointing at his arm. "blood?" in an even worse accent. i look at him pointing at his arm, then look down at mine, half-expecting to see blood spurting out from an unnoticed cut. "sangre falso," he clarifies. fake blood. the boy is looking for fake blood for a costume. fortunately, an employee rounds the corner, and hustles over to take care of the customer's needs.

segundo. 
actually, i didn't see blood, fortunately, although i know that there was plenty of it spilled. san fermin. acclaimed spanish festival in the city of pamplona, where hordes of people come out in drives to the otherwise tranquil city in the north of the country to participate in the running (and eventual killing) of 6 bulls per day. the entire city turns out in a mass of white and red, and the streets are crammed full of families and children and performers and drunkards 24/7 for the weeklong duration of the festival. the revelers participate in relays of drunkenness: those who stay out all night long, and those who stay out all day long.
the day starts with my arrival to pamplona after a 4 hour drive. i dutifully change into my white tshirt and red scarf and sash and head into the city center. while waiting to meet my friends who are already in town, my host's father shows me the plaza de toros, a massive stadium filled with debris and drunken revelers showering each other with sangria, the fruit wine that unsurprisingly has the tint of blood. "all this," my friend's father tells me, "will be gone by tomorrow morning. the city municipality will be cleaning this all up so thoroughly so as to make sure that there is not a piece of trash in the arena when the bulls and the runners enter at 8 in the morning." the city waste management works around the clock during this week, continually cleaning up the hundreds of tons of waste that accumulates throughout the day and night.
i find my friends, and off we go to join the hundreds of other people gathered on a nearby field to watch the fireworks show as we mix and down giant solo cups of cheap red wine with coca-cola, a young spanish favorite known as kalimotxo. the fireworks are impressive: every night is a performance engineered by a different firm, all of which compete with each other in an annual international competition. once the fireworks are over, the crowds shamble over to the plaza de castillas to continue finishing the gallons of premixed kalimotxo and sangria before hitting the bars.
i have made the mistake of wearing sandals to san fermin. more than having people stepping on my feet (which did happen often enough through the night), the worst was the pool of alcohol, piss, vomit, and god knows what else that my feet stepped through and were soaked in throughout the night. by the time dawn broke and we emerged from that labyrinth of bars back into the open plaza, my ankles down were covered in a filth i did not, do not want to think about what it was comprised of.
classic night out scenario: cell phone completely dead. friends wasted/zombies on their feet/already in the beginnings of their hangovers. host disappeared in the last minute as we exited the last bar of the night. anxious friend who needs to get home in the morning but doesn't want to leave a foreign small asian girl alone in the city. the encierro in 20 minutes (it is 7:40 am). not much else to do but head over to the plaza de toros. the fences that comprise the encierro are already lined with people both sober and still drunk. with all the best positions for key views taken. even though it is so early, there are still so many people out to watch the running of the bulls.

"a san fermín pedimos, por ser nuestro patrón, nos guíe en el encierro dándonos su bendición. viva san fermín! viva! gora san fermín! gora!"

6 euros each, and we are settled in the third tier of the stands in the plaza de toros, eagerly watching the large screen that broadcasts live from the first shot indicating the release of the bulls to the moment the last of the bulls enters the ring. except in the end, the last bull doesn't. he turns around mid-run, uncertain, confused, dangerous, and is eventually herded back to the pen from whence he was released at 8 am.
4 runners down (one a man from philadelphia!). those "runners"that finish the run a full minute before the bulls are jeered as they enter the arena (the run lasts approximately 1.5 minutes in total, from the moment they are released to when they enter the arena). the bulls and runners swarm in, and the bulls are led into their corrals. it is time for the vaquillas, the little bulls, to be brought out. the entrance of each one into the ring is marked by bodies squeezing themselves on the ground in front of the entrance of the gate from which the animal exits, flying over their heads as it jumps out into an arena filled with a tens of human bodies in a stadium filled with the roars of hundreds of voices. then the jesting begins. the provocation. the daredevils run wildly at the vaquilla, waving their arms to get its attention so that it will charge at them as they sprint and attempt to duck its horns. most make it away; some don't, although most remain relatively unharmed. a few fall and do not get back up, and are quickly borne away by other fellow runners to the side of the ring where a team of medics await. one particularly foolish boy gets caught by the bull, and the crowd chants, "tonto! tonto!" serves you right for provoking the poor animal. another garners boos and jeers from the crowd when he gives the poor animal a resounding slap on its hind which echoes throughout the entire plaza, causing it to rear and swivel in fear and panic and pain.
eventually the vaquilla is corralled back into its enclosure and the next released. and so it continues. a glance around, and most people are still going strong, considering many have been out all night long. others are fast asleep, snoring in the stands even amidst the noise of the crowd. we decide to leave before the last vaquilla is released so as not to get caught up in the guaranteed mass exodus.
after walking around looking for an open (and not packed) cafe/bar, we finally find one where i can put my phone to charge. un beso, a hug, and a brief goodbye and i settle down to a pincho tortilla española and a café con leche as i wait for my battery to revive enough to dig up my friend's address.
i enter the house at 11 am, and stumble into bed, to recharge. as i sleep, i will miss the recortadores, the performers who flip and jump and dance around the bulls, and i will miss the various parades and performances in the many different plazas located throughout the city, and i will definitely miss the bull fight, but that is not my turn of the relay, and to be honest, i don't mind. i'm not sure how i would take the sight of real sangre dyeing the plaza de [muerte de] toros.
but come nightfall, i will be a sanferminer nevertheless, dressed in red and white and singing and dancing along the age-old streets and bars, and maybe, although i will have been several days back in the office in madrid by the time the festivities end, maybe, i will have internally raised my hand and mournfully chanted along on the 14th,
"pobre de mí, pobre de mí, que se han acabado las fiestas de san fermín"