Hello all, I am writing to you from my fourth day in coronavirus quarantine, here in Barcelona, Spain. This is a message to everyone- family, friends, former colleagues, peers and teammates back home (or wherever you are in the world). Please take this virus seriously. I want to share with you what is happening here now, what the consequences are of a delayed response. I hope this will help you to understand that all jokes and toilet paper memes aside, your action needs to be taken now.
A week ago here in Spain, we only talked about coronavirus. We already had some cases, but it just didn’t seem that bad. We saw the suffering in Italy and said “That won’t happen here.” Changes were not made. People still went out on the weekend, went to the gym, went to work, to school, etc. Preventing the spread of the virus was not a priority. Fast forward just 1 WEEK: Spain is now in a state of emergency. The virus is here and it is tearing through this country. I have coronavirus. My friends have coronavirus. Parents of children have coronavirus. Teachers, students, business people, researchers, politicians, bus drivers, etc. have coronavirus. In a matter of days, the number of confirmed cases spiked from just a few hundred to well into the thousands. Hospitals and medical clinics are completely and entirely exhausted, operating at over-capacity, with quickly depleting resources and staff. Hundreds of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel have caught the virus and have been issued to quarantine. Those who remain are working 24/7, non stop. It is not just the elderly or the immunocompromised who are checking in for treatment- people of ALL ages are needing medical care. With each passing day, the death toll rises and the situation grows more severe.
In just 1 WEEK the coronavirus has caused Spain to crumble and it appears the worst has yet to come. Now having one of the fastest rates of COVID-19 contagion in the entire world, the Spanish Prime Minister stated that the number of cases could top 10,000 by early next week- almost double the current level. Just yesterday, cases rose by 1,500. If the pressure on the health care system is already unbearable, then what could possibly happen in the following days? We could ask our dear friends in Italy, as they are about a week ahead of us, with thousands of infected people trying to get into hospitals with only a few spaces left. With doctors and nurses having to CHOOSE who to save and who to let die because there are not enough medical professionals, supplies or space left to treat the growing number of patients. The Spanish government can see we are following in Italy’s footsteps and the pressure is on, to make up for a lack of action taken in the beginning.
All schools and universities have shut down. Public events and sports games have been cancelled. Roads have been blocked, entire regions of the country are under lockdown and towns and villages have been quarantined. Businesses, cafes, restaurants, gyms, bars/cubs and shopping centres have all closed, with the exception of the supermarkets selling food and pharmacies. Police roam the streets to ensure people stay inside. The rest of the world can see the risk now too- 62 countries have suspended flights from Spain.
To think, if preventative action could have been taken just 1 week before, if the mindsets of people could have shifted 1 week earlier, we could be living a very different reality right now.
To all the people back home in Canada or wherever you may be, please understand that this virus will change things very quickly. Once it becomes an issue, it is very hard to control. Being proactive and taking precautions now is absolutely necessary; every day counts! Be diligent with your health practices and be responsible with your decision making to be out in public!!! Going to the bar, the mall, the movies, the gym, etc. is truly just not worth it right now!!! Save it for a week that isn’t potentially life threatening to you or the humans around you. Push for work weeks at home and online classes!! Nothing is worth the risk. Social distancing is CRITICAL. And if you are sitting there feeling like you don’t have to be cautious because you are young/healthy, PLEASE remember that we as human beings have a responsibility to look out for one another. You being careless could lead to the loss of someone’s grandmother or grandfather, someone's parent, someone’s coworker, or someone’s friend. That is what is happening here and it’s a lot more difficult to stop now that it’s started.
I hope you take something away from this going forward. Stay home and be cautious. Start today if you haven’t already. You will make a difference!!! Please stay safe everyone. 💛
take away in spanish food 在 BboyChoco Facebook 的精選貼文
Ikke begynn å lese dette hvis du ikke er veldig interessert eller er nevnt, det vil føles som et grovt ran av tiden din 😆
Det er så mange jeg skal takke for denne fantastiske reisen, opplevelsen, erfaringen som jeg har vært på i 2 uker... Liker bedre å skrive slikt personlig, men alle jeg nevner her fortjener en stor og tydelig stor takk. Jeg er utrolig takknemlig for alle som har kommentert, likt, sendt meldinger både før konkurransen, og IKKE MINST når det ikke gikk helt etter planen ❤️ Jeg har virkelig kjent på hvor gode mennesker kan være, og fått opp øynene for hvor viktig det er å støtte andre slik også, ikke bare motta all denne kjærligheten 🙂
Thank you first of all to the people that made these events, Yngvar arranged the R16 qualifier in Norway, I know how hard you worked to make the event. These events puts the Norwegian and Scandinavian scene on the map, you're my first hero here 😃 But the one that gave you the opportunity, and have made all of the qualifiers, and the world final, is the one and only Dyzzee. What he does for the scene, is 100% necessary for the culture to keep rising to new levels! Dyzzee also shares his knowledge at all times, which is really inspiring.
When I arrived Taiwan, I felt at home right away thanks to Airsean and Mzk Choco. Airsean, you took care of us like your best friends, and showed us local food, made activities for us, and straight up showed us real friendship. Because of that, I met my brother Johnny, who barely speaks English, and I barely speak Spanish, but damn, we explored Taipei together, and had complicated conversations in some crazy way. I learned so much from being with this guy, nothing is impossible, the impossible just take some more time. And Choco, thanks for a great event, you did an amazing job arranging the event, and making us feel comfortable.
To all the Bboys we met at practice, the battles, in the cypher, what a time we had! You guys made all the inspiration. And It was a big honor to be on the stage with you! I would like to mention Robert , Michael Huang, Gonza, Loose Lee , Niek , Team Cream Jacob, Bmouth, Hiro, Warreor! Hope to be in the cyphers with you again soon!
Hjemme I Norge har jeg verdens beste crew og familie som støtter uansett hva som skjer, og får meg til å føle at livet handler om andre ting av og til. Elsker familien min Lena, Arild, Daniel, Camilla. Takk Angelica, for at du er jenta i mitt liv, du er enestående, ingen er som deg, og får meg til å føle at til og med breaking kanskje ikke er HELE livet av og til (og ja, jeg sa det offentlig for første gang)... Hele Floorknights er en familie verdig, jeg kunne aldri vært dere foruten på noen som helst måte, takk Rezgar, Johannes, Yakob, Erlend, Sugar Mo, Sami, for alle støttende meldinger og all verdens kjærlighet. Dere er den største støtten og inspirasjonen man kan ha i livet.
Og Elias, din snørrunge, den kommentaren du skrev om at du ser på meg som et forbilde, fikk meg til å felle tårer midt på scenen i Taiwan, det reddet hele skuffelsen for meg, Eirik, Elias Gausen, Brage også, som skrev de mest rørende kommentarene av alle, de kommentarene gjorde meg helt varm innvendig! Og alle dere andre elevene mine også, dere er hele grunnen til at jeg gidder å prøve i det hele tatt, det er ikke noe poeng å gjøre det her, uten å kunne gi det videre til noen som kan gjøre det enda bedre og ta det videre. All inspirasjonen jeg har fått av denne reisen skal rett til dere.
God jul videre folkens 😊
take away in spanish food 在 Naomi Nikola Facebook 的最佳解答
In first grade, a boy named John— a notorious troublemaker—systematically chased every girl in our class during recess trying to kiss her on the lips. Most gave in eventually. It was easier to give in than keep running. When it was my turn, I turned and faced him, grabbed his glasses off his weasel face, and stomped on them on the hard blacktop. He ran to the principal’s office and cried.
In fifth grade, I was asked to be a boy’s girlfriend over email. It was the first email I ever received. He actually told me he wanted to send me an email, so I went home and made an AOL account. We went to a carnival and he won me a Garfield stuffed animal, and then he gave me a 3 Doors Down CD. A few days later, he broke up with me, and asked for Garfield and the CD back. I said no.
In sixth grade, a girl in my year gave head to an eighth grader in the back of the school bus while playing Truth or Dare.
In the summer after sixth grade, I kissed a boy for the first time at sleep away camp. He was my summer love. During the end-of-the-summer dining hall announcements, where kids usually announced lost sweatshirts and Walkmen, an older girl stepped up to the microphone, tossed her hair behind her shoulders, and proudly stated, “I lost something very precious to me last night. My virginity. If anyone finds it, please let me know.” The dining hall erupted into laughter and cheers. She was barred from ever coming back to the camp again, and wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to anyone.
In seventh grade, I told my brother I decided when I was older wanted a Hummer. What I really meant was I wanted a Jeep, but I didn’t know a lot about cars. My mother overheard and screamed at me for “wanting a Hummer.”
In the summer after freshman year of high school, I went to sleepaway field hockey camp with many of my close friends. One of them, named Megan, I had been friends with since kindergarten. One night when I was showering, she ripped open the curtain and snapped a photo of me on her disposable camera. I screamed. She laughed. We both laughed when I got out of the shower a few minutes later. After camp was over, her father took the camera to the convenience store to get it developed. When he gave the finished photos back to her, he said, “Your friend [Anonymous] has grown up.”
Sophomore year of high school, one of my best friends Hilary had a party in her basement while her mom was away. We invited some of the guys in our grade and someone’s older brother bought us a handle of vodka. One of the boys who came sat next to me in Spanish class. His name was Thomas. I remember playing a simple game, where we passed the bottle of vodka around in a circle and drank. I remember being happily tipsy and having fun, to suddenly being very drunk. Thomas and I started chanting numbers in Spanish, and he leaned towards me and kissed me. We kissed in the middle of the party, with all of our friends cheering. Then we went into Hilary’s bedroom.
Hilary’s bedroom was in the basement, on the ground floor, with a large window next to her bed. When someone went outside to smoke a cigarette, they realized it was a front row seat to what was happening in the bedroom. It was dark outside, and the light on was in the bedroom. They called everyone outside to watch. I don’t remember getting undressed, but apparently we were both completely naked in Hilary’s bed. A friend of mine told me later she tried to open the door and stop what was happening, but Thomas must have locked it. They said they pounded on the door. I don’t remember hearing them pounding. I don’t remember seeing everyone’s faces outside the window. I remember Thomas holding my head down, and shoving his penis into my mouth. I remember trying to resist, pulling back, but he held his hands firmly on my head, pushing my face up and down. That’s all that I remember.
The next day, my friends and I went out to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants. I couldn’t eat anything, and it wasn’t because I was hung over. Every time I tried to put food in my mouth, I felt like I was choking. Anytime a flash of the night before appeared in my mind, I felt like vomiting. My friends sat with me in silence. Then they told me a girl named Lindsey, who had briefly dated Thomas freshman year, had stood outside and watched the entire time. Even after everyone else stopped watching. My friends said they didn’t watch.
On Monday, Thomas and I sat next to each other in Spanish. We didn’t speak. We didn’t make eye contact. I went to the girls bathroom and threw up. I hear Lindsey and Thomas live together, now, ten years later.
Junior year of high school, my teacher for Honors Spanish was named Señor Gonzales. Señor Gonzales had all of the girls sit in the front row. Señor Gonzales called on any girl who was wearing a skirt to write on the chalkboard. Señor Gonzales asked a friend of mine, who had broken her finger playing an after school sport, if she broke her finger because “she liked it rough.” Señor Gonzales was a tenured teacher.
Senior year of high school, I got my first real boyfriend. His name was Colin. He was on the lacrosse team with Thomas. He told me that sophomore year, Thomas told everyone on the team what happened that night at Hilary’s. Everyone cheered. Colin said that, even then, he had a crush on me. Even then, he wanted to punch Thomas.
Colin and I lost our virginities to each other. Colin said if I got pregnant, he would make me have the baby. He didn’t believe in abortion. Colin said if I got pregnant, he would make me have a C-section. Colin said that if I didn’t have a C-section, my vagina would be too loose for him to ever enjoy having sex with me again. Colin said that he wouldn’t let our child breastfeed. He said his mother gave him formula, and that he turned out just fine. I didn’t get pregnant.
Junior year of college, I lived in Denmark for the spring semester and studied at the University of Copenhagen. Copenhagen is one of the safest cities in the world. Guns are illegal there. Pepper spray is illegal there. One night, my friends and I went to a concert at a crowded club in a part of the city I didn’t know very well. I brought a tiny purse with money, my apartment key, and my international cell phone. For some reason it made sense at the time to put my purse inside my friend’s purse. Maybe I didn’t feel like carrying it. We were both drinking. My friend left the concert to go home with her boyfriend. One by one, everyone I was there with left the concert, until I was suddenly alone and I realized I didn’t have my purse, or any money for a cab ride home.
I started walking in the direction that felt right. I walked for a long time. I had no idea where I was, and didn’t recognize the area. It was almost 4 am. I was on a residential street when a cab pulled up next to me. I asked the driver if he could drive me to an intersection down the street from my apartment.
I don’t have any money, I said.
I really need your help, I said.
I will do it for free, he said.
Sit in the front, he said.
I sat in the front. We drove in silence for some time, until he pulled over on the side of a dark street.
I don’t want to do it for free anymore, he said.
He locked the car doors and reached across the center console and slipped his hand up my skirt. He grabbed my vagina. Hard. I pushed his hand away and unlocked the door. I ran down the street and realized he had taken me a block away from the intersection I wanted. I walked to my apartment and threw rocks at my roommate’s window until she let me inside. She yelled at me for waking her up. I escaped. Nothing happened. I was fine.
The summer after I graduated college I helped Hilary find an internship. She was an art major and wanted something for her resume besides waitressing. We found a posting on Craigslist to be a studio assistant for a painter in the Bronx. It was listed as an unpaid internship. The toll for the George Washington Bridge was twelve dollars, plus gas, but she got the internship anyway. She wanted the experience.
The artist was a 38-year-old Canadian painter named Bradley. Hilary was 22.There was another intern there, an art student from Manhattan named Stella. Bradley needed assistants to help him make bubble wrap paintings. Stella and Hilary would take a syringe and fill the tiny bubbles with different color paints until it formed a mosaic. Bradley always had Hilary stay after Stella left to clean the paintbrushes and syringes. He told Hilary she was beautiful. More beautiful than his wife, who he only married for citizenship. He told Hilary they had a loveless marriage. He told Hilary he wanted to have her beautiful children. They began an affair. He told Hilary has wife knew and didn’t care. He told Hilary he was going to leave his wife soon.
Everyday Hilary drove to the Bronx, cleaned Bradley’s paintbrushes, and had sex on the studio floor. Everyday she went home with no money, and everyday she paid the toll at the George Washington Bridge. She needed the internship for her resume, she said. It was too late to find a new job, she said.
I could go on. I could tell you a lot more. About the whistles on the sidewalk, the kids who sat at the bottom of the stairs in high school to look up our skirts, my friend who was a prostitute in South Carolina, the men who’ve cornered me in parking lots and bars calling me a tease, the unwanted grabbing on the subway, the many times my father has called me fat, the time I traveled to the Philippines and discovered Western men pay preteen locals to spend the week in their hotel, the messages on OKCupid asking to “fart in my mouth.” About how I wasn’t sure if I had been raped because I was drunk and kissed Thomas back. How he raped my mouth and not my vagina, so that must not be rape. How easy it was for me to escape the dark street in Copenhagen, and how that made it not matter since “it could’ve been worse.”
Men have no idea what it takes to be a woman. To grin and bear it and persevere. The constant state of war, navigating the relentless obstacle course of testosterone and misogyny, where they think we are property to be owned and plowed. But we’re not. We are people, just like them. Equals, in fact, or at least that’s the core of what feminism is still trying to achieve. The job is not over. We’ve made great progress. There are female CEOs, though not very many. There are females writing for the New York Times and winning Pulitzer prizes, though not very many. There are female politicians, though not very many. But these advances are only on paper. The job won’t be over until equality permeates the air we breathe, the streets we walk and the homes we live in.
I think back to how easy it was for me, in first grade, to feel fearless and strong in my conviction to stomp on John’s glasses. I felt right in reacting how I did, because John’s behavior was wrong. But his was an elementary learning of the wide boundaries his gender would go on to afford him. For me, it would never again be so easy.
— Anonymous, age 25
(source: ibelieveyouitsnotyourfault.tumblr.com)