Category:

Pandemic Tales

Trading airports for AirPods

by Trevor Popoff May 4, 2021

written by Trevor Popoff

How the pandemic has altered student exchange trips

A Zoom event for incoming virtual exchange students at Ryerson. (Courtesy Sadia Kamran/FCAD)

Roy Luo enters the glorified hallway that is his Toronto basement for what feels like the millionth time. The claustrophobic space in his family home is to replace the spacious Kerr Hall classrooms filled with the industry-standard equipment that he’s become accustomed to. As a result, fabric of all shades pile on his piano bench, elliptical machine and other basement miscellany. Needing an area to draft, he takes to the living room floor upstairs. This design student, finishing his third year at Ryerson University’s fashion program, is on a deadline. He needs to get the tanned bodice piece he’s currently dying with organic red cabbage to the post office for shipping to group member Katie Morgan in Edinburgh, Scotland.

This transatlantic shipment is necessary because, midway through his exchange trip to the Amsterdam Fashion Institute (AMFI) last winter, a string of emails hit Luo’s inbox. COVID-19 was about to bring the world to its knees. He had to come home.

Roy Luo in the process of experimenting with a homegrown solution for dying garments. Pictured is fabric dyed with onion skins. (Courtesy Roy Luo)

With in-person classes now impossible, Luo, Ryerson and AMFI could have left the exchange. Other schools certainly did. One of Luo’s group members from South Korea, Seojin Kim, saw her institution decertify the program, when it determined a move online wouldn’t give students the requisite experience. She had no choice but to drop out.

Ryerson and AMFI, however, navigated the logistical minefield and moved the exchange online, marking the birth of a new era in international study.

“We have a much closer relationship with our international partners because of this shared experience,” says Sadia Kamran, Ryerson Faculty of Communication and Design’s manager of international development. “We see it as an opportunity to rethink what’s possible.”

In Luo’s case, this rethinking meant finding a way to continue with the seminal group project that he started in Amsterdam. Consisting of five physical outfits, four looks comprising five “blank canvas” garments meant for customization by the end buyer and five outfits made digitally on a fashion design software called CLO, the project would culminate in a complete collection featured on AMFI’s website. To complete the five physical looks, a sort of international assembly line formed between Luo and his four fellow group members — Yongju Jun, Kiki van der Weerd, Gabriela Syzdek and Morgan. Boxes containing partially constructed garments sent by Luo’s partners in Scotland or the Netherlands would arrive on his doorstep throughout what remained of the semester. Each one held a different garment. Luo would add a pink bodice here or a flowing off-white pant there and then ship it off to the next person, sometimes including national snacks or a postcard with the shipment.

Luo said the group incorporated the excitement that the unknown brings into their collection. He likened what happened to an exquisite corpse, the process of creation invented by the Surrealists whereby each artist contributes one part of a piece, and then the entire thing is revealed. “As we were working on our components, we wouldn’t share our process with the other designers,” Luo said. “It wasn’t until we shipped the garments that we could see what other people were working on.”

Luo and his partners’ work resulted in a complete collection of 15 custom looks, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing. “There was a point in the semester where I was just tired of it all,” he said. “I wanted to quit exchange because I was like, ‘What’s the point of doing this? I’m not getting the same physical experience.’” The different time zones also wreaked havoc on his semester. “Sometimes I didn’t even sleep,” he said. “I had to wake up at 5 a.m., and that would be the end of their day, but the start of mine.”

But when it got challenging for Luo, he discovered he could rely on his newfound friends in Utrecht, Amsterdam and Edinburgh. As the end of the semester drew near, meetings morphed into intercontinental game nights. “It was nice to be able to have those moments where we were able to bond and connect despite being so far away,” he said.

Roy Luo fabricated the pink top for this outfit at home in Toronto using biodegradable fabric. (Courtesy Amsterdam Fashion Institute)

Sandra Chung, who works with Kamran as FCAD’s international co-ordinator, acknowledges there are drawbacks to virtual exchange. “Because students in the past have only been able to do in-person exchanges, it’s a really small number of students that have been able to take part in a very enriching intercultural experience,” Chung said. “What virtual exchange can provide now is more students being able to take part…and get that exposure that not only helps them for their personal growth, but also their professional growth.”

That’s because this unique take on student movement is much cheaper than a full-on exchange trip, as it eliminates airfare and housing costs. Virtual exchanges open to Ryerson students can be found here.

Ryerson is also hosting virtual exchange students. Fifty students from around the world have taken courses at Ryerson since the pandemic began.

While, at first glance, a virtual exchange looks like something far removed from a truly international experience, some professionals believe that it provides cultural enrichment. “In some ways, with a face-to-face exchange, students don’t come back with that much of an intercultural experience because they don’t interact that much with the locals,” said Allison Broadbent, the University of Guelph’s study abroad manager. “The guided aspect that’s possible with a virtual exchange…helps students delve deeper into cultural differences and perspectives than maybe they would even get on a physical exchange.” Broadbent helped organize a virtual exchange for Guelph students with Farm Radio International in Africa.

Across Canada, students have swapped studying abroad for studying in bed. Even post-pandemic, however, expect virtual exchanges to remain an option. “Virtual exchange is a model to continue to explore and expand beyond COVID,” Kamran says. “The traditional exchange model will always exist, but virtual exchange as an alternative will continue to develop and enhance.”

May 4, 2021

Features Food & Health Health Pandemic Tales Students

The therapeutic space

by Georgia Mills April 23, 2021

written by Georgia Mills

How young people are navigating therapy to help themselves – and their relationships

Catherine Abes, 23, sets her laptop on her bed, facing the wall. It’s time for her online therapy session and she doesn’t want her therapist to see the mess in her room. During the session, she hears a baby cooing in the background from her therapist’s mic. At times, Abes looks at the wall, avoiding eye contact. An hour later, at 5 p.m., she closes her laptop and rests for an hour processing her thoughts after the counselling session.

As the editor-in-chief at The Eyeopener, Abes was encouraged to seek therapy by her roommate, in order to support her own mental health and the well-being of her staff. “How are you going to look after other people if you’re not looking after yourself?” her roommate asked. “You need to have your own space to offload all of that stuff.”

In a therapeutic relationship, you aren’t expected to share the conversation equally; you have full permission to speak, to unload, to unpack your emotional worries.

Abes is one of a growing number of young people navigating therapy during a pandemic. The last year has shone a spotlight on the complexities of mental health issues, particularly for young people, whose mental health has taken the most significant toll due to the pandemic, according to Statistics Canada.

It’s important to seek support for your mental health from a trained professional who “knows how to listen to you, and knows how to pull certain things out,” Abes says. “If you go to your friends or family, it’s hard for people to not be like – well, when this happened to me… Your therapist won’t do that to you.”

But this doesn’t mean it’s self-serving — by helping yourself, you’re helping others — your friends, your family, your colleagues. While therapy isn’t taking place in person during the pandemic, it’s still intimate — and effective.

According to Abes, it’s unfair that therapy is so beneficial, yet difficult to obtain for many people. If you have the privilege of accessing therapy, it can be on a computer screen in your apartment, over the phone on a walk in your neighbourhood. Or what Abes calls a place in between — observing that she and her therapist create a third space together where the mess of her room disappears and the world falls away. This allows her to focus on the session, where she learns about why she is the way that she is, and through understanding herself, she works toward solutions to feel better.

Stefanie Rico, a Toronto-based registered psychotherapist and social worker, says that the therapeutic process is collaborative. “Asking the client, ‘Is there anything that worked really well for you this session?’ ‘Is there anything that didn’t?’ ‘Did you really hate that mindful exercise?’ That’s OK!” she says with a laugh.

There’s a level of professionalism that therapists have to retain in session, responding appropriately to best serve the client. But therapists are human, and often see a therapist of their own.

“To be a good therapist, you need to be a good patient,” says Milly Feliz, a Toronto-based registered psychotherapist. Therapists witness clients sharing deep trauma and pain — Feliz describes the effects of supporting this, day in, day out, as compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma, causing stress that requires another professional’s perspective.

There’s a misconception that therapists are a blank slate, devoid of emotion, Rico says. While that’s not true, when therapists do express emotion in session, it can be for the client’s benefit.

“You’re telling me something sad, so maybe my face is sad — what does it feel like, to have that reflected back at you? When perhaps you shared something sad with someone else, and their face was not mirroring that,” she says.

When a client has a breakthrough, it’s not always necessary for a therapist to contain their joy.

“It just really lights me up,” Rico says, beaming over Zoom. “A lot of times I hear, ‘I’ve never told anyone this before,’ and wow. Thank you for trusting me. I could tear up right now, thinking about all of the wonderful breakthroughs.”

Breakthroughs, however, might not feel joyous in the moment.

Valentina Gastaldo, a fourth-year media production student at Ryerson University, has worked with the same therapist for four years. When she was 10, her father immigrated to Ontario from Brazil, and in 2016 she started university in Toronto. She sought out a therapist to cope with depression.

In therapy, Gastaldo says she had to explore a tangle of losses: Leaving her country and mother, moving to a new country, having to redo high school in Canada for a year and a half, difficult family dynamics — the process of working through these changes wasn’t easy.

During a session before the pandemic, her therapist hit a nerve by posing a question. “I started getting very angry at her — I started saying so many mean things,” she said. “She looked at me, and she was like — ‘you’re getting angry at me, but know that you don’t have to stay here, you can leave anytime you want.’”

She left the session early, but she returned the following week. For her, this was a lesson that therapy is a safe space she can always come back to.

“When you go to therapy, you are investing in yourself, but you’re also investing in learning how to have a healthy relationship with someone who can hear you and trust you,” Gastaldo says. Therapy, she says, is a model for the other relationships in her life.

There are times when progress can be difficult to measure in therapy. Some therapists set specific goals with their clients and some assign homework, but there’s no clear finish line. Even with regular sessions, therapy isn’t a magic fix — it’s a practice.

“I don’t actually really know if anybody has their shit together, but some people have really good therapists, and that’s a good start,” Abes says.

April 23, 2021

Arts & Life Features Film & Television Pandemic Tales Students

Still Rolling

by Annemarie Cutruzzola April 21, 2021

written by Annemarie Cutruzzola

After a year of remote learning, Ryerson film students continue to struggle with limited hands-on opportunities

With hours of pandemic safety preparation behind her, Gloria Burke was ready to shoot Yellow Tangerines, the thesis film she’d been looking forward to since starting at Ryerson University’s film studies program nearly four years ago. She had the five-page COVID-19 safety plan she’d written in hand — it outlined plans for daily temperature checks, quarantining gear and individually wrapped meals. Burke’s team had raised $2,300, purchased personal protective equipment, and completed an online COVID-19 safety course.

But in mid-January, about two weeks before the film’s scheduled start date, everything came to a halt when Ontario went into lockdown again. The School of Image Arts informed students they could have only five people on set at a time. That was just impossible for Yellow Tangerines with its six-person cast and 15-person crew. Burke and her team postponed their shoot until late March, hoping the COVID-19 situation would improve.

Delayed shoots, disjointed collaboration and limited access to equipment are just some of the issues Ryerson film students are facing during the pandemic. Many feel concerned about the opportunities they’re missing, frustrated with the limitations of online learning and disappointed by the year they’ve spent isolated from campus and their peers.

“The notion of it being online was really disheartening,” says Burke. “I’ve worked my ass off for the last three years just to have it be dwindled down to this experience.”

The Yellow Tangerines Kickstarter page says the short film aims to “capture what it is like to be in your 20s right now.” The film follows a young woman who, after a fluke encounter caused by a runaway peach, spends the day with three older women at their bakery. Eventually, she’s able to open up about her struggles and let others in.

As the producer, Burke is responsible for co-ordinating all of the COVID-19 safety measures for Yellow Tangerines. With three actors in their 60s or 70s on set, they can’t take any chances. “Half of our work was going into COVID protocol,” she says. “You’re liable for everyone’s health to a much greater degree.”

COVID-19 has not only affected Burke’s thesis, but her graduation too. She has deferred until December 2021 in hopes of finishing her degree on the campus she holds dear to her heart. The Ryerson Image Centre, she says, is its own kind of community. The array of brightly coloured lights that line the top of the building, illuminating the corner of Gould and Bond Streets, act as a beacon for the rest of campus at night. In better times, visitors on the daily 2:30 p.m. drop-in tours roam around the galleries and exhibitions. Elsewhere in the building, editing suites and production studios bustle with the sheer energy of collaboration. This is where crews are made. Directors find producers, cinematographers find screenwriters, and editors find sound mixers.

Now, the Image Centre is closed, except for pre-arranged appointments. There is limited access to production spaces and professional-grade equipment. Neon “Up Only” and “Down Only” arrows line the staircases. The only unmasked faces are the ones printed on a large yellow sign at the entrance, depicting a fever, a runny nose, and other symptoms that visitors cannot have.

To have that space taken away? “Heartbreaking,” says Burke.

Nakita Johnson chose the film studies program at Ryerson because of its focus on hands-on learning and the resources available to students. “I’m in my second year, and I can’t use any of that. It kind of makes me feel like I made a mistake,” she says of her pandemic experience.

Now, instead of hands-on classes, some professors pre-record videos demonstrating how to use equipment that most students don’t have immediate access to. The only equipment film studies student Fatemeh Saba Forouzan has besides her cellphone is her mirrorless camera. “Even then, I’m one of the lucky students,” she says.

Forouzan and other film students would normally have access to a foley room at Ryerson. The soundproof room is equipped with materials needed to create everyday sound effects, like wooden planks that mimic the click of high heels. Now, if Forouzan needs to record audio, she pulls the duvet off her bed, goes into her closet, and places the duvet over her head. The technique eliminates some echoes, but the sound quality still doesn’t compare.

She also struggles to complete assignments on a four-year-old computer that can’t run editing software. “I have projects now that I have to do on After Effects with a computer that refuses to run After Effects. That’s an impossible scenario,” she says.

This frustration expressed by Johnson and Forouzan is about more than just inconvenience. “I feel like this was a year wasted,” Johnson says.

“I feel like I didn’t learn anything at all this past year,” echoes Forouzan. “I feel like I didn’t get anything out of my education.”

The themes of isolation in Yellow Tangerines reflect the experiences of not only Burke and her team, but many film students struggling with a lack of social interaction. The film studies program thrives on collaboration. “In film especially, the people that you’re with make your experience,” says Burke. She says that virtual classes have made networking more challenging, while others have encountered issues with group work.

“It still works, but it’s not enjoyable at all,” says Johnson. She opted out of in-person filming for her group projects, not wanting to put herself or her roommates at risk. But she laments the opportunities and connections she knows she’s missing out on. “I’m at my prime. I should be meeting so many people. I should be making all these contacts. And I feel lonelier than I ever have,” she says.

Others are finding creative ways around the restrictions. Forouzan enjoyed working on a self-portrait film in the fall semester, and another project using existing footage of American presidents.

Burke shot Yellow Tangerines in late March as Ontario cautiously began to reopen. Before the shoot, she said she was sad that filming was “going to feel very clinical.” As she anticipated, the atmosphere on set didn’t feel the same — everyone had to keep their distance physically, there was no catering spread to pick at throughout the day, and as the actors’ masks came off, the crew’s face shields went down.

But watching screenings of her classmates’ recent work left Burke feeling optimistic. “The hope has come from everybody else just trucking on and going through this,” she says. “People are still pulling this thing off.”

April 21, 2021

COVID-19 Features Media Pandemic Tales Podcasts

COVID-19 can’t stop tech-savvy journalists

by V Merianos April 21, 2021

written by V Merianos

Reporters and producers forced to come up with ‘creative solutions’

Amanda Cupido, a podcast producer and a Ryerson School of Journalism instructor, sits in her Toronto apartment, using her yoga ball as a chair. Cupido is no longer able to go to in-person events and interviews due to the pandemic, so she listens back to some of her previous episodes, thinking about the best way to replicate the auditory experience — all while living and working remotely.

“I’ve created stories in ways that I had never been pulled to before,” she says, adding that it’s given her work a wider range.

Last August, Cupido produced a podcast episode for Ryerson’s virtual Pow Wow. Pre-pandemic, when Cupido could record sound bites and interviews in-person, she says she felt more in control of what her work could look like. For the 2020 live-streamed event, she was sent a YouTube link instead, where she snipped parts of the audio and layered it throughout the episode, attempting to bridge the gap restrictions caused in production.

“I’m being forced to come up with creative solutions,” she says, adding that she considers the challenges an opportunity for growth. “I’ve become a better producer because of the pandemic.”

***

The world seemed to stop moving in 2020: schools Zoomed, businesses closed and quarantines ensued. We were faced with gripping fear and uncertainty as we were thrown into a swift and indefinite lockdown. For journalists, there were no more in-person networking events where you can shake hands with fellow reporters, no more colleague collaborations in the editing suite before going live, and no more quick check-ins to flesh out new ideas while you pass by your editor’s office. All of these changes affect journalists, Ryerson students and staff, every day.

***

CBC education reporter Deana Sumanac-Johnson also had to find alternatives to the way she’d been doing her job for years. She says she misses collaborating with her colleagues, landing in a new city, doing her hair and makeup in the airport bathroom and going live. Now she sits alone, with her iPad on the dining room table in her townhouse. There is no cameraperson to help direct her, nor colleagues just down the hall. Now she has to light, frame and shoot her setup shots alone. Back when she was in the field, Sumanac-Johnson always received direction from the cameraperson. As she puts it: “In terms of providing you with the shots you need, really getting a feel of the scene and of what something is like, our camera people are absolute heroes.”

She says Google Meet and Zoom cannot replace the feeling of being in her element at the studio and on the job. “I think for most reporters who are such people, who love leaving their house, and love meeting new people and feeling the environment…(the isolation) is tough,” says Sumanac-Johnson. Sitting alone, waiting for the right light to come streaming through the windows of her home for her to do her standup, if anything, makes her appreciate every member of her CBC team more.

As with Sumanac-Johnson, these technologies cannot replace in-person collaboration for Anand Ram, a producer for CBC. Ram even had to teach some of his colleagues how to record their guests on Zoom and Google Meet. The bustling CBC newsroom has been reduced to a lone webcam on his desktop in his basement. At the end of the day, “It’s not just what you file — it’s how you help people do their jobs,” Ram says. “It’s who you connected with that day; it’s how you helped other people be able to succeed and put some journalism up.”

Cupido teaches the Advanced Podcasting and Radio Documentary course at Ryerson and says being able to report both remotely and in-person will make her students assets in the workplace. “I predict that they will be going into interviews where they might even know more than their employer.”

Third-year journalism student Masih Khalatbari says he thinks about the lost ride-alongs he planned with Toronto’s police force, as part of his freelance reporting. He laments how the pandemic has affected his journalism program, including lost networking opportunities, as isolation creates barriers for student journalists to find each other and themselves. “This is the stage where we’re supposed to kind of find ourselves and where people say it’s gonna be the best years of your life. And we’re experiencing something completely different than other generations are,” says Khalatbari.

For Julia Sacco, a second-year Ryerson journalism student, the flood of pandemic headlines can be inescapable. “I do think there’s limitations on both the quality we can produce and the quality that we can consume,” she says, though she admits reaching out to editors online about writing opportunities is easier than in person.

Khalatbari says he worries that online classes leave out the best part of Ryerson’s journalism program. “It’s pretty much all application and putting you into the field, and we’re just blatantly missing out on that,” Khalatbari says. “All these programs are learning to kind of compensate for it; this might not be the most helpful thing for the industry once we get out of the pandemic.”

***

Last winter, Cupido stood in the cool Canadian breeze interviewing a subject. This would be the last in-person interview she would do for the foreseeable future. Mask and mic on, she slipped a small mesh cover over the microphone for sanitation — something she only started doing in the last year. She interviewed the subject outdoors, disposing of the mesh afterwards. In this way, Cupido has found that there are feasible solutions to the technical problems brought on by the pandemic. “You have to be creative to work around obstacles,” she says. “You’re not going to approach the story in the same way, but the journalistic integrity is not any different.”

With files from Pia Araneta

April 21, 2021

Entrepreneurship Food Food & Health Pandemic Tales

Hungry for change: The story of Alec Thomas

by William Dixon April 20, 2021

written by William Dixon

Chef navigates COVID-19’s disruption of the restaurant industry with street smarts

It’s New Year’s Eve 2020 and two small children play around an old, black, wooden dining table as their family look at old photo albums. Traditional Russian songs play softly in the background, as they reminisce and talk about how the children have grown since they were all together last.

Down a long hallway and into the kitchen, a 25-year-old, laser-focused chef named Alec Thomas puts the final touches on the signature dish of the night — duck à l’orange. Hours of preparation have boiled down to mere minutes. Execution and timing are everything. First, he gently ladles the creamy mascarpone risotto. Then, he fans out the sliced duck breast, cooked to perfection with golden, crisp skin. Next comes the fragrant à l’orange sauce, dashed generously over the duck. Lastly, he garnishes the outside of the plates with candied apricots.

The dining room in customer Tony Tikhomirov’s Toronto-area home falls silent as chef Thomas enters with dinner, a trail of steam and the sweet smell of citrus following him into the room. Murmured “oohs” and “aahs” build as he places a plate in front of each guest.

Thomas says, “ladies and gentlemen, enjoy!”

Now 26, Thomas has combined survival instinct with street smarts and business savvy to navigate the COVID-19 wreckage of Toronto’s restaurant industry. After they were both laid off from their restaurant jobs due to the pandemic, Thomas and his coworker-turned-business-partner Arya Hamedani launched a gourmet, home-catering business called Arya Hungry?

Thomas, a serial adapter, has seemingly found opportunity in the pandemic.

Last summer and fall, before winter lockdown, Arya Hungry?’s services were booked solid every weekend. They got great feedback from clients, and word spread — they’ve amassed more than 4,000 followers on Instagram at the time of press. The chefs’ abilities to quickly adapt allowed them to survive, which is increasingly rare in the struggling food industry. The Fifteen Group, a hospitality consulting agency, conducted a Canada-wide survey of its clients in December 2020. The outlook was bleak. The survey found that 98 per cent of the company’s clients have had their revenues negatively impacted since the start of the pandemic, with three-quarters of those reporting a decline in revenue of more than 50 per cent. Half of those surveyed were unsure they would survive the winter, and 93 per cent of restaurants laid off or terminated employees.

With many local food businesses closing, Thomas and Hamedani saw an opening. People still wanted to eat great food, they realized, but didn’t want to cook it themselves.

What sets Arya Hungry? apart from other restaurants and catering businesses isn’t just the high-quality dishes they cook, but the care they show their clients and time they spend on the experience, says Hamedani.

“When a client sets up an event with us, they are speaking with the two chefs that will be cooking in their home,” says Hamedani, “and I think that really means something to people.”

Tikhomirov, the CEO and founder of a digital marketing agency, says the food Thomas created on New Year’s Eve was beyond any of his expectations. “He transported us back to our times in France, to a place we loved and to the cafés we used to go before the pandemic,” he says. “It was like a small miracle.”

Thomas’s success is a far cry from his turbulent beginnings. After ongoing conflict with his father led to his banishment from the family home at age 17, he scrounged enough money to rent a tiny bedroom in a shared house in Bolton, Ont. It felt just a few square feet larger than a prison cell. Then, he burned through his money — buying weed, booze and cocaine — until he only had only $6 to his name. Thomas says will always remember the number six. He was verging on homelessness, had nowhere to go and no one to turn to.

He called up three different dealers who each spotted him half a pound of weed. In the span of roughly two weeks, Thomas had sold it, repaid his loans and delivered his rent. He soon had enough money to rent an apartment in downtown Toronto. Then, after roughly three years in the city, the course of his life changed in a few days. In April 2017, he got a job at Scaddabush, an Italian restaurant chain, at Front Street West and Simcoe Street. Within 48 hours, he was also accepted into culinary school at George Brown College and completed a one-year program.

Thomas’s longtime friend Justin Bailey, who’s also an employee at Arya Hungry?, watched his transformation: “It was like a switch just flipped.” He says Thomas went from “cutting up coke in our washroom,” to cooking up carbonara in the kitchen.

The late nights in clubs turned to late nights at the dish pit or at the sauté station, where Thomas worked closing shifts ending anywhere from 2:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. Once he got back from the restaurant, Thomas continued honing his culinary skills. He worked on school assignments or pulled a random cookbook from a pile beside his stove to try a new recipe. Around 6 a.m. he would pass out wherever his beat-up office was — either in his bedroom or in the living room. Thomas usually slept in his chef’s whites so at 7 a.m., he could wake up, go to class, and repeat it all again the next day. He also stopped using or selling drugs.

His rediscovered passion for food drove the frenzy. He’d always loved cooking; his fondest childhood memories are kitchen moments. On Christmas Day his entire Italian family would go to his grandparents’ house in Mississauga, Ont. There was an unwritten rule that his mother, aunt and nonna were the only ones allowed to cook, but they had to shoo him from the kitchen almost every other minute because he wanted to join. As he got older, however, his mother began sharing her cooking secrets. By age 10, he could make a béchamel sauce, a cheese sauce, and eggplant parmigiana.

If Thomas’s long, winding road from being that little kid in the kitchen to catering sophisticated events proved anything, it was that he could adapt. And that became important yet again this winter, when COVID-19 caused more disruption.

January’s stay-at-home order and evolving circumstances during the pandemic forced Thomas and Hamedani to adapt yet again. Arya Hungry? was put on the back burner, amidst rising case numbers and escalating provincial restrictions. And so, the duo pivoted again. Their next venture, ChickMagnet, is a fried chicken sandwich shop on Queen Street West, operating out of the Beverley Hotel. They have been consistently selling out since opening day on Feb. 2, 2021.

While Arya Hungry? and ChickMagnet have been Hamedani’s concepts, Thomas is also working on his own brand: Covassi and Co., named for his maternal grandparents’ last name. The plan within the next five years is to open a café of the same name, with farm-to-table, northern-Italian-inspired cuisine.

Much like the days when he was sharpening his culinary skills at Scaddabush and in school, Thomas is still up until all hours creating recipes, developing menus and refining his palate.

“I have an opportunity to seize my dream and make it a reality,” says Thomas, “and I am not going to miss my chance.”

April 20, 2021

Pandemic Tales Science & Technology Sports Students

A virtual race to the finish line

by Devon Harvey April 20, 2021

written by Devon Harvey

Ryerson racing student groups move their clubs and cars online

Ryerson University Baja team members Ariel Gil (left) and Marc Buono perform pre-race inspections of the powertrain components during the 2019 Baja SAE competition in Rochester, N.Y. (Courtesy Marek Serwin, Philip Martins)

The whirring of power tools, the screech of metal on metal, and rumbles of laughter contribute to the chaotic symphony reverberating through the workshop. The banter among teammates brings the loud, busy space to life. Sitting in the middle of it all, the project on everyone’s mind, is the car. A metaphoric sun, the centre of this small universe, pulling everyone together.

Now, the shop is empty. All the noise abruptly stopped last March. And more than a year later, all that is left is dusty equipment and abandoned, but not forgotten, car parts.

The new and disappointing reality for the Ryerson University Baja and Ryerson Formula Racing teams involves sitting at desks, attending Zoom meetings and working in solitude. The pandemic forced them out of their usual workspace in the affectionately nicknamed “dungeon” of Kerr Hall North and has kept them away for over a year.

In a regular year, members of the Ryerson University Baja team would be building an off-road-ready car from the ground up, painstakingly designing, manufacturing and constructing it for a high-stakes international competition. This year there is no physical manufacturing, no testing, and no in-person competition.

Instead, Philip Martins, captain of the team, had to move the traditionally hands-on group entirely online over a few short weeks.

“Everything’s turned upside down…we had no idea what was going to happen. All the work we put in over the last year is sort of up in the air,” says Martins, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student.

Transitioning the club online meant hosting meetings over Zoom, using email as a primary mode of communication, and letting go of the project that meant the most to them — the car.

“Everybody’s on the team because they want to build it; they want to drive it,” says Martins. “So, it was kind of shitty.”

Any other year, the team would be putting the final touches on their car for the Baja SAE competition, a highly anticipated event in which racers from across North America compete and push their vehicles to the limit.

Team member Marc Buono drives the Baja vehicle during the four-hour endurance race at the 2019 Baja SAE Competition in Rochester, N.Y. (Courtesy Marek Serwin, Philip Martins)

This year, however, the teams will be competing online through presentations about their car and its capabilities.

The focus now is modelling their cars in 3D. As there is no in-person competition, detailed images of these models will be the stars of the show. Using design software from SolidWorks, they are creating highly detailed renderings, but the enormous file sizes make editing and collaborating a gruelling task.

“It was definitely a difficult process to figure out,” says Martins. “What’s the best way to engage my team, what’s the best way to make sure I’m getting responses from everybody, or what’s the best way to make sure that the team knows what’s going on?”

Martins and his team started working on their car around the start of the 2020 fall semester. They have logged more than 200 hours of work to complete about 70 per cent of their designs, some of which still need work. Now, they spend hours on end working remotely, with their eyes trained on their screens, bodies huddled over their keyboards, painstakingly designing — and redesigning — more than 150 parts for their vehicle.

Back in the dark, dusty basement of Kerr Hall North, the Ryerson Formula Racing team’s section of the workshop, which once saw countless hours of machining and designing, is also a deserted museum of abandoned power tools and car parts.

The team, forced to adapt quickly to their online task, is treating the pandemic as an opportunity to do something different.

“We’re actually working towards the design and eventual manufacturing of our first-ever electric vehicle,” says Erica Attard, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student and captain of the team. “It actually came about only because of the COVID situation.”

A rendering of RF-20, the Ryerson Formula Racing team’s most recent combustion car, from their virtual unveiling (Courtesy George Stoyanov, Erica Attard)

According to Attard, designing and building an electric vehicle requires plenty of funds, resources and time. Since their in-person competition was cancelled, the group now has the necessary time and resources for what’s become a two-year project.

While students aren’t getting hands-on experience building their vehicles, virtual co-operation still offers them a learning opportunity.

The club has implemented a “ready-to-race” program designed to teach incoming members everything they need to know about the car and the team. “We really tried to make learning virtual and not miss the opportunity to teach both our new members and current leads,” Attard says.

Similarly, the Ryerson University Baja team is also focused on providing a learning experience for its members: “One thing I focus on is teaching them and helping them learn; helping them understand how a team works,” says Zyam Dewan, the powertrain lead for the team. Students learn the value of teamwork, the importance of deadlines, and vital communication skills.

It may be a virtual creation, but both teams have still managed to focus on what is dearest to them – the car.

“As easy as it would be to just stop and use COVID as an excuse, I think we’ve all taken it really well,” Martins says. “I’m really happy with this team, really proud of this team.”

The author of this article was the social media and marketing lead for the Ryerson Formula Racing team from June 2020 to October 2020.

April 20, 2021

COVID-19 Features News Pandemic Tales Relationships

Loved ones struggle with virtual hospital visits during pandemic

by Mariam Kasem April 17, 2021

written by Mariam Kasem

‘It’s not a replacement for the real thing, being there in person, holding their hand, them hearing your voice’

Oshawa resident Valerie Prendergast, 58, almost never went to bed without putting on her husband’s Old Spice deodorant. She sometimes started her mornings by applying it. The smell, (cloves and citrus) made her feel as if he was right beside her. Except he wasn’t. Henry Dillon, 61, was in a hospital bed that seemed to be an entire universe away — just like his mind seemed to be those days. He was in Lakeridge Health Oshawa for 78 days and his wife was only allowed to see him on occasions when it seemed like he wouldn’t survive the ravages of congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

What Prendergast dealt with is the same difficult reality many others are now having to face. They have a sick parent, spouse, child, elderly relative or dear friend in the hospital, but cannot see them as a result of COVID-19. There’s the pain of not being there to comfort them when they are at their most vulnerable. And there’s the frustration and struggle of keeping in touch and dealing with seemingly overburdened hospital personnel to find out about the patient’s condition. It’s a battle and shots are fired from every direction, with no sign of victory in sight.

“It’s like the worst thing anyone can imagine. Someone they love is really sick in the hospital, on the ventilator and also battling a medical condition,” says Diana Brecher, a clinical psychologist, as well as a scholar-in-residence for positive psychology at Ryerson University.

“This sounds like a place where you want to find some hope and it’s probably very difficult to do that,” she says.

I know what Brecher means because my father was in the critical care unit of Lakeridge Health Oshawa for just over two months before he passed away, in February, from Stage 4 lung cancer. During his hospital stay, life became more difficult than it ever was before. It was a constant struggle to be by his side, virtually, in his last days. It was a mission every day to connect with him electronically. Chat links didn’t work, video wouldn’t connect and Wi-Fi would go down.

Even then, as I was writing this, my connection with him on the iPad disconnected two minutes into the call my family had been trying to make work all day. The nurse looking after him told me she was too busy to deal with the call not working, so we wouldn’t be able to see him for the rest of the night. The thought that he may not understand what’s going on and conclude that we don’t want to talk to him was all that was on my mind.

Prendergast faced similar problems — each day posing a new uphill battle.

“It’s a complete roller-coaster. One day, you’re down at the very bottom and the next day, you’re at the very top,” Prendergast says. “You cannot see what’s coming at all.”

The roller-coaster is dependent on who the health-care workers are, not just his health, Prendergast says.

“Every time the doctors change, I don’t know if they try to be the hero to solve the problem, or whatever, but it feels like they start back at square two, instead of square 12 where we already were,” she says.

On the rare occasions when Prendergast got to visit her husband, she made her home beside him, in the often windowless room, for the one hour she could be with him.

On an early visit, she brought along three printed laminated posters: one is a picture of the two of them together, another is a photo of their five kids, and the last one shows images of their grandchildren. She taped the pictures onto the wall in front of him, so he could see, and told him about who each person was, as he often couldn’t remember due to COPD. She held his hand, which had new bruises on it, and tried to remind him of his bearings because, after over a month on a ventilator, delirium was taking hold. It felt like he was not there with her — even when he was.

“It was like he was off in some other land, staring at the ceiling, and his eyes darting back and forth, scared half the time,” she says.

It didn’t help that he was alone, touch-deprived and unable to see his family beyond an iPad screen every day.

Research shows the benefits of healing through touch. Human touch helps in recovery for many types of patients.

“It’s very different having that tactile experience, being able to hold and touch a relative. You don’t have that with a device,” says Paul Taylor, who, until November 2020, was a patient navigation adviser at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

“It’s not a replacement for the real thing, being there in person, holding their hand, them hearing your voice,” he says.

Katherine Boudreau, a creative industries student at Ryerson, went through the painful experience of having a sick loved one in the hospital when her grandfather was hospitalized for 72 hours. Her grandfather, who is 92, was taken to a hospital in Ottawa for breathing problems in December 2020 and was alone for his entire stay. Boudreau says her family was unable to contact her grandfather to know what was wrong. Once he was discharged, the hospital still did not tell the family what was wrong with Boudreau’s grandfather.

“There was no way that I could see a positive side of things if I didn’t know what was happening,” she says about her grandfather’s stay in the hospital.

Just like Boudreau, many people in a similar situation feel hopeless and find it hard to imagine the glass half full.

Brecher says self-care should be a priority for those going through this.

“There’s a choice. You can focus on all the things that aren’t going well or you can focus on the glimmers of light that are, so even when it’s really dark, there might be some pockets of hope,” she says.

For her part, Prendergast found hope in thinking about something her husband said.

“My husband made a promise to my granddaughter that he was gonna dance at her wedding. And I believe in that,” she says.

Thankfully, Prendergast’s husband survived his hospital ordeal, and is now recovering at home with his wife. During his absence, Prendergast says it was memories of her husband, surrounding her everywhere and making her feel as if he was there — even when he wasn’t — that gave her comfort, though she couldn’t be with him.

While her husband was in the hospital, Prendergast would run her robot vacuum and laugh because her husband was convinced it was after him. When she was cooking a hearty shepherd’s pie or chicken quesadilla in her snug kitchen, she would think, “he will be pissed when he finds out I made that.”

April 17, 2021

COVID-19 Features News Pandemic Tales Students

Poor internet is affecting education

by Kayla Empey April 15, 2021

written by Kayla Empey

Two out of five households in Toronto have insufficient internet speeds — and some Ryerson students are paying the price

Isabelle Chong sits in her swivel chair, the one she used to love before the upholstery began peeling and the cushion wore down. Pulling herself into her desk, her knees scrape against the sides as she hunches over her laptop. It’s silent. Her bedroom is the one place where she can focus without being distracted by family members listening to music, watching television, or clanking dishes in the kitchen. But that doesn’t mean her online classes are smooth sailing.

Chong logs onto her Zoom lecture, hoping this time will be different. But it isn’t. The little message that pops up on her screen is one she’s seen many times before: “Your connection is unstable.” The professor begins speaking, but Chong struggles to make out any words. Then her screen completely freezes. Being a fourth-year nursing student at Ryerson University, this is not content she can afford to miss. So, until recently, she would grab her phone and quickly switch on her limited cellular data to tether it to her computer. But now, she no longer wishes to use her data for the computer.

Since the beginning of the pandemic Chong has been forced to complete most of her education online from her home in North York, sharing her internet with other family members also trying to work from home. Her internet connection is often unstable, and there is seemingly no solution. When her family of six tried a different internet provider, it only made the situation worse. Recently, they switched back to their original provider. Although the audio is now mostly clear, and she doesn’t face some of the issues she used to before, her video still freezes and her internet is still frequently unstable.

“It’s also not just an issue of missing out on something a professor says in lecture,” Chong says. “It also makes participating in discussions a lot more difficult, and taking tests or exams much more stressful because I’m always worried my internet’s going to cut out while I’m saying something, or before I can submit a test.”

Chong is not alone in her frustration. A recent study conducted by Ryerson University’s Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship found that 38 per cent of households in Toronto report download speeds below the national target of 50 megabits per second set by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

“Low internet speed is an issue across all demographics, therefore it wouldn’t be surprising to find some students not completely satisfied with their levels of internet speed,” says Joe Masoodi, a co-author of the study and the policy analyst at the Ryerson Leadership Lab.

Masoodi says it is important to look at who does not have internet access across Toronto because we are becoming so reliant on computers and the internet for everyday routines. Without the internet, he says, tasks such as school become challenging. “The digital divide existed before the COVID-19 pandemic; the COVID-19 pandemic has only made those divisions more visible.”

Anish Panday is an example of how difficult it can be to properly get an education when internet service is below standards. The third-year urban and regional planning student at Ryerson says he recently began experiencing problems with his home Wi-Fi. Panday recalled one day in particular, while logged on to Zoom for his class on planning law, when his internet dropped. The video and screen-sharing functions required to participate in class wouldn’t stop freezing, which caused him to lose his train of thought.

“It’s frustrating because you cannot hear the professor clearly, and you are unable to take clear and concise notes,” he says. “Most of my professors are forgiving, but in this instance, the professor does not post any lecture slides or Zoom recordings.”

What are these students’ options? Before the pandemic, Chong never studied at home. She says she always found spaces on campus to do her school work because they were way more functional and she could rely on Ryerson’s stable internet. Now during the pandemic, gaining access to the library or a study space is much more complicated.

Ryerson’s Student Learning Centre (SLC) does provide space for any students with essential needs, such as poor or no internet connection. Jaleesa Peters, the SLC’s creative and communications co-ordinator, says that students with insufficient internet have the option to book an on-campus study time. During a two-week period from late January to early February, 88 students booked a session.

“We trust that students understand their unique needs, and are able to identify when study space at the SLC is necessary to their academic continuation and success,” says Peters.

While this is a start, the reality is that a lot of students don’t live in the downtown Toronto area, so the SLC space isn’t a great option for them. Panday, who lives in Ajax, says he has never considered booking an on-campus study time.

“The commute to Ryerson is over an hour by transit and driving down means paying hefty parking prices,” he says. “Travelling the distance does not make much sense.”

On Feb. 5, 2021, Toronto city council approved a program called ConnectTO. The initiative is designed to increase digital equity by developing affordable, high-speed internet across Toronto through existing fibre assets around the city. The city’s broadband internet will be offered to service providers at a fair price, and the revenue will go directly back into communities to further expand internet access and help lower costs.

“I think the initiative the city has proposed is a step in the right direction,” Chong says. “My one worry is whether the internet will truly be accessible for marginalized and vulnerable people.”

If the initiative really does deliver affordable, high-speed internet, Chong believes it will be beneficial to a lot of people in Toronto. But, for now, her internet connection continues to frustrate her.

“That just seems to be how it is at my house, and, at this point, I’ve gotten used to it because there’s not much else to do.”

April 15, 2021

COVID-19 Features News Pandemic Tales Students

Learning is a whole new challenge when siblings interrupt and parents won’t stay quiet

by Tasnime Skafi April 15, 2021

written by Tasnime Skafi

‘When you’re at home, and everyone is doing their day-to-day stuff, it’s a big distraction’

As the clock strikes 7 a.m. Namariq Abdalsed walks out of her room towards the kitchen, where she prepares her breakfast every morning, before moving towards the living room where she studies. Abdalsed begins to read over her notes for the calculus exam before her siblings, aged 3, 11, and 16, wake up and start their online classes. She logs into her laptop, frantically watches the time, and rushes to get as much work done as she can. By 8 a.m., all she hears is footsteps rushing through the two-bedroom apartment towards the living room. It’s going to be a long day.

While her mom studies for her college courses, her youngest sister is running in and out of her room. The other two sisters, who have their classes in the living room, go on lunch break just past noon. With the living room being next to the kitchen, all the noise just becomes louder.

Abdalsed, a second-year civil-engineering student at Ryerson University, says: “It’s not easy staying focused at home. There are too many distractions.”

She is one of many post-secondary students who are struggling with distance learning, which has blurred the line between home and classroom. There’s often a lot going on in the background during those Zoom meetings that have replaced in-person learning. With a big family, it can be hard to find a quiet space. Some students have family obligations aside from their studies, while others simply cannot focus in a home environment.

In November 2020, a poll released by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) revealed that 62 per cent of student respondents and 76 per cent of faculty and academic librarians believe that online learning harms students’ education quality.

The poll, conducted by Navigator Inc., surveyed 2,700 people.

There are no easy solutions for students whose homes don’t measure up.

Since the pandemic, Ryerson University’s Student Learning Centre (SLC) has taken precautions and only allows some students with a OneCard to enter the building.

When the first lockdown happened, in March 2020, the SLC had to be shut down. “We realized there are students who need the space, and their academic success hinges on having a dedicated study space because not all students have a home environment that’s conducive to good studying,” Christopher Visser, the strategic projects liaison at the SLC says.

So when the second lockdown began, on Nov. 23, 2020, SLC staff decided to open the building to those who could show a need to study on campus. Those who apply and are approved receive either a reserved study space at SLC or Wi-Fi-hotspot, depending on what they requested.

“We have about 55 to 60 students that have filled out that attestation-of-need form,” Visser says.

The number of students reserving spots at the SLC has increased since the lockdown. “When we reopened in January, we were only getting very low numbers per day. Now, 20-25 per day and more every time,” says Visser.

For some students, however, heading off to the SLC isn’t an option.

“I have six siblings, with three living with me and an older sister that brings over her kids for us to babysit,” says Rukayyah Abdus-Samad, a second-year Ryerson student studying food and nutrition.

Her description of one incident illustrates how that can affect her studies.

She started her quantity food management lab at 1 p.m. She needed to keep her microphone on, so she made sure the door was shut. But as time passed, all she could hear was her niece crawling up the stairs in her house, making her presence known to everyone. She quickly scrambled to mute her laptop before the professor could hear.

“My prof was like, ‘Can you turn on your mic?’ And I was like, ‘No…’”

Jaafar Chalhoub, a second-year global management student at Ryerson, also says family murmurs are a problem.

“At home, you don’t get the best privacy, and everyone around me gets loud,” says Chalhoub, who lives in Scarborough with his parents and sister.

He describes beginning a class, only to hear his parents in the background, talking to their families on the phone loud and clear, and having to ask them to stop being so loud. Since his family lives in a three-bedroom condominium, he adds, it isn’t as simple as “going to the basement.

“It’s not the same in a class where it is pin-drop silent for the professor and no one’s going to distract you. Rather, when you’re at home, and everyone is doing their day-to-day stuff, it’s a big distraction,” Chalhoub says.

As the clock strikes noon, Abdalsed has to remind her siblings to stay inside their rooms until after her exam is complete, since she has to keep her microphone and camera on. She does some final preparation by studying a bit more, then clears up her surroundings, turns on her camera and begins to write her calculus exam.

Her siblings keep trying to walk back into the living room.

The two-bedroom apartment feels more closed-in than ever.

“Who knows when things will get better?” Abdalsed says. “I’m just taking it day by day.”

April 15, 2021

Arts & Life Features News Pandemic Tales Students

Online school: The anxiety that comes with learning at home

by Yasmeen Aslam April 11, 2021

written by Yasmeen Aslam

When a student’s bedroom and computer turn into the classroom, it creates new challenges

Isa Marin-Hernandez’s home workspace. (Courtesy Isa Marin-Hernandez)

The white glow of a MacBook screen shines in Isa Marin-Hernandez’s face as she starts her criminology test. Her hands are shaking, her palms are sweaty. The click of her fingers hitting the keypad is the only sound in her room. Reading the same question at least five times, she cannot shake the fact that she cannot return to this question once she submits the answer.

Time is running out and there’s another question in front of her, but Marin-Hernandez’s mind drifts back to a previous question. Was the answer A? No, it had to be C. She’d read it thoroughly. Her heart feels like it will beat right out of her chest. She’s on the verge of having a panic attack.

The anxiety that Marin-Hernandez feels is not uncommon. Transferring from the University of Toronto to Ryerson University to do a double major in criminology and politics and governance, her first semester online at Ryerson was stress-inducing. While some students prefer online learning, for others it is non-stop stressful. In a survey conducted by Core Spaces last June, 75 per cent of 2,500 student respondents said they felt more anxious and stressed with the coronavirus outbreak and campus closures. According to the survey, the top three causes of students’ stress and anxiety are uncertainty about the future of their education, falling behind in their coursework and struggling with remote learning.

Diana Brecher, a clinical psychologist who developed the ThriveRU program at Ryerson, says the causes of online anxiety vary from student to student. “Most (students) don’t associate their computer with a classroom,” Brecher says. “Most do better when they’re in a room full of people, which provides an atmosphere and sense of community that is conducive to learning.”

Isa Marin-Hernandez says she has had a tough time adjusting to studying from home.

(Photo courtesy Isa Marin-Hernandez)

That change is lost through asynchronous courses. Marin-Hernandez’s first semester of university was filled with asynchronous courses and she could not concentrate most of the time. These days, she’s still spending most waking hours at her desk. Laptop open, she presses play on the latest pre-recorded lecture. Her mind drifts after a couple of minutes and she leans back in her chair, looking up at the Albert Einstein poster above her desk. She focuses on the scientist’s green sweater as the voice of her criminology instructor echoes throughout her bedroom. She regains focus, but then her right leg starts shaking. It’s an old, anxious habit. Clicking on the play bar, she drags the icon back a couple of minutes to re-watch what she missed. She already knows she will have to watch the full lecture again. Marin-Hernandez is just like one of those students Brecher talks about: She misses being in a physical lecture. “That interactive factor was so much more useful as opposed to now, where everything is so impersonal and it feels as if everything is just in pieces,” says Marin-Hernandez.

Jenny Liu, a lecturer with the department of psychology at Ryerson, says the reason why students get anxiety from online learning is because it is happening during a pandemic, which can add a lot more pressure. “Not knowing when things will end, that kind of unknown, that uncertainty, that lack of control is a huge challenge for mental health,” she says.

She says the pandemic and associated challenges “have created shifts and adjustments to our lifestyles on an ongoing basis. Coupled with the stresses of uncertainties, socio-economic hardships, and other psychosocial stressors we may face, the resulting post-secondary education experience may be different than those that students may typically expect, such as expectations of life on residence, in-person classes, on-campus life, and getting to know fellow students and community members.”

Liu says all of these factors together, “may impact the identities and roles students may have of themselves, their interactions and ways of receiving support from their fellow peers, professors, and community members, and impact the ways in which students experience their post-secondary education.”

There is also huge anxiety associated with having webcams on during a lecture. Mark Antczak, an in-house registered clinical counsellor and clinical educator at Anxiety Canada, says this could possibly be because of students’ fear of judgment. “On Zoom, there are probably some who are worried about what other students might be thinking, either based on what is in their background or the way they appear on the screen,” he says.

Sarah Hsiung knows this first-hand. Hsiung, a first-year student at Western University, says her English tutorial gives her a lot of stress and that her instructor prefers students to have their cameras on. “I don’t like that, because then I feel like I can’t freely share my ideas,” she says. “I feel like they are judging me no matter what.”

Brecher says there are many ways to alleviate students’ anxiety associated with online learning, including her recommendation that students should move around when they are online. “Anxiety is also in the body, so if you can relax the body, either through speeding up an exercise or slowing down through meditation, you can manage the symptoms of anxiety,” she says.

Brecher also notes that anxiety generally comes from people thinking about the worst possible scenario. To alleviate this, she recommends the Worst Case/Best Case exercise. “We can do this by first imagining the worst-case scenario and then assign a percentage of how likely this will actually happen,” says Brecher. “Then, imagine the best-case scenario and assign a percentage to how likely it will happen. Finally, considering the above scenarios and how unlikely either will happen — then imagine the most likely scenario and assign a percentage to that. Follow up with an action plan.” This exercise can be found in Thriving in Action Online, a website developed by Brecher and Deena Kara Shaffer in 2019.

Hsiung’s anxiety relief comes from the support of her mom. “My anxiety blinds me from the fact that I need to take care of myself. So she’s always there reminding me that.”

When Marin-Hernandez feels the dreadful wave of anxiety taking over, she reaches for a beanbag of Mike Wazowski, a character from the film Monsters, Inc. Tossing the small bean bag back and forth between her hands, her anxiety calms down and she finds her mind and body relaxing.

With a one-eyed green monster to help her through the worst of her anxiety, she’s prepared to do what’s needed. She knows the shift back to in-person classes will take some time to get used to. But it will be worth it.

“It’s kind of like getting up from a chair that you’ve been sitting in for hours, where everything is asleep,” she says. “But at the same time you know you have to slowly reawaken yourself.”

April 11, 2021

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