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Well! Well! Well!
Here we are! One more time! Reflecting back on the fifth month of being quarantined.
This month has been a real blessing for me for various reasons and the most important one being the kind and supporting people around me. I couldn’t be more proud of the relationships that I have built in my life and how important those relationships are especially during times like these. I know I have mentioned this in my previous posts, but it is such an important lesson - NEVER TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED!
Let’s get started with this month, shall we?
MAJOR HAPPENINGS
Dikshu Tai’s birthday
My youngest sister, Dikshu Tai, celebrated her birthday on the first day of this quarantine month. This was the first, in a long time, that she was celebrating her birthday away from home. As she is in India and is working from home for more than 3 months now, it becomes harder to celebrate these major milestones, but I was glad that she still could pull it off and celebrated this with her roommates.
I have nothing but good wishes for her and hopefully she will be able to come to the US. 🤞🏽
H1B Visa Approval Notice
When I came to the US on a student visa, the last thing I was worried about was waiting for 3 years to get my work visa. When I started, I was confident (you can say overconfident too) to score H1B. That changes when I didn’t get picked up for lottery during the first two attempts. That’s when I started thinking about “other” ways to stay in North America and applied for Canada Permanent Resident Card.
Fortunately, my Canada PR was approved, which gave me some relief. That changed again, when, finally, my H1B application was picked up for lottery. I saw there was still a hope & went ahead with the premium processing. As the luck turned out, my application was approved on July 26th for 3 years which gave me a huge relief. The one thing that I wasn’t worried about, turned out to be a dreamsaver for me. And that’s why the learning of this quarantine – “NEVER TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED” fits so true for this.
Visit to the workplace
Ford was kind enough to let us go to our respective workplace to get our stuff before they redesign our workplace when we finally go back to work. It was a bag of mixed emotions to go to a place where you used to spend more than 10 hours of your day. I felt good to see my desk and the parking spot where I used to park my car. I felt bad that this might be the end of it, because, you never know, we might work from home indefinitely.
Anyway, I must commend Ford’s efforts to make sure all necessary precautions are taken. Temperature scans, gloves, and masks distributions and helping with building access is some of the ways Ford helped make this transition smoother than expected. I have high hopes that life will be normal, I am just not hopeful that it will be like that anytime soon.
Solving the Rubik’s Cube
Solving a Rubik’s Cube has been the highlight of this month. It all started by watching The Speed Cubers documentary on Netflix. I hardly watch TV, but whenever I do, I go for a documentary, so this definitely was one of the best ones I watched and was highly motivated to try it out, and so were the kids.
Unfortunately, the works and the fitness schedule didn’t allow me to spend that much time on actually solving the cube. That all changed when the kids came up to me and asked me for my help as they couldn’t figure out the next steps. I had to take matters in my hands, and that’s when I spent almost 2-3 hours on the below video to figure out a way to teach kids in simpler terms. I was the most focused during those 2-3 hours and told myself not to give up until I finish the cube and have the notes for kids.
Man, it was hard. I had to redo the cube every time I used to miss a step or a move. I remember starting from the “Daisy” at least 25 times. But, all that practice helped me figure out ways to teach kids how to solve the cube and I must say, they blew me away with their cube solving techniques. I haven’t seen anyone grasping a new concept with such clarity. It is all because they are ready to learn new things and I am an extremely proud godparent!
It has been a couple weeks now and they beat me every time we compete to solve the cube. Mr. Aryan’s best time so far is 1 minute 40 seconds. Mr. Arnav’s best time so far is 1 minute 23 seconds and yours truly is stuck at 2 minutes 4 seconds. Let’s see when I get a chance to crack the 2 minutes mark.
Till then, enjoy my first attempt ever at 3 minutes 23 seconds.
Visit to my most favorite place on Planet Earth – Upper Peninsula
Every visit to UP is special and this was truly a special one. UP is the best place for me and my favorite place in the whole wide world. It was just surreal, let’s leave it at that.
We enjoyed 6 hour drive to Pictured Rocks, followed by a 12 miles hike, and made it home after a 7 hour drive. Due to Covid19, we decided not to stay anywhere and were glad that we weren’t that much tired we thought we would be.
Now, let’s begin with the usual template that I have been using for these monthly quarantine updates.
COVID19 POSITIVE CASES IN MICHIGAN
The COVID19 Positive Cases were on the rise throughout the US and Michigan was no exception.
Though with the correct measures and restrictions, the number of positive cases is on the rise and I am not sure when it is going to come down if it does. On August 17th, we had 675 positive cases in Michigan which is less than 1000-1100 that we had seen during this month, but definitely bigger than 465 which was exactly a month ago. I am sure our Governor is doing everything that she can. Hopefully, Michiganders will listen and wear their masks.
Fingers crossed!
RUNNING
Talking about running, two things come to my mind.
The first thing is the number of miles that I ran during this time. I came 0.8 miles short of a perfect 100 mile distance. I could finish 99.2 miles during these 30 days and couldn’t be more proud. This just goes on to show that you can accomplish anything if you work on small goals (small runs) which contribute to the one big top-level goal (100 miles distance).
The second highlight was that I ran 3 Half Marathons in this month. It is a feat unimaginable just a few months ago, but, hey, I just did that, right? The more exciting thing was that I scored PR on my last run, finishing the 13.1 miles distance in 2 hours 8 minutes 15 seconds. The Tartan Track at NHS and the slightly cooler weather helped me achieve this milestone.
BIKING
Biking has taken a back seat a little bit, but I am okay with that.
I could manage to bike for like 60 miles and I am not that happy with that, but hey, its okay. I know I will bounce back stronger.
HIKING
As mentioned, hiking 12 miles at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore was the highlight of the month for me, and loved every single step of that hike.
I would like to go there again to get some miles in before it gets too cold in Michigan to go out.
CORE EXERCISES
During this month, we started doing HIIT workouts at a home garage. I am pumped for that and love spending 30 minutes working out with friends, as we used to do it at our CrossFit Gyms.
If you are interested, this is the workout that we did yesterday.
THE CONCLUSION
WEAR A MASK!
& enjoy some pictures from this month.
Till then, take care & stay safe!
stochasticity 
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