The friend-making friend

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Love and work. I was in a long distance relationship with a Chinese woman. We are married now. We were able to close the distance barrier because she got a job working as an English Teacher at Jr. High School. They wanted a foreign teacher and she recommended me and that was how I got into China. I went to visit family in the U.S. in December before the outbreak and came back to China recently which is why I am held in quarantine at a hotel. Guys in Haz-Mat suits bring me my meals. Its strange how life turns out.

So I heard! I am in complete shock I thought the CDC would be able to keep it in check.
 
No, it’s bad. Store shelves are empty. My school is closed right now. Libraries are closed. The governor of my state just ordered that all restaurants and bars be closed for dine-ins. It’s a truly surreal experience. Yet, you turn on the TV, you see commercials of the movies out now, restaurants, tourism places, etc: you wouldn’t be able to tell that it’s the end of the world as we know it. Only on the news. It’s a weird feeling.
 
I will be 32 years old this month. I am a convert from what I call secular Buddhism. I like listening to all types of rock music, but I especially like 90s alternative rock. I talk more about my Heritage than people think I should, but my grandma taught me to be proud of it, So I took that to heart. I enjoy soccer, and in fact watch both MLS and Premier League, well I would watch MLS, but it’s been postponed due to Coronavirus. I have Asperger syndrome, which is kind of like high functioning autism without the language delay. I love Pokémon, I’ve been playing it since 1998. I have been a Catholic since I was 21, at the urging of a now very anti-Catholic friend, which is a story in and of itself. I am single, I don’t have any kids, but I am quite a bit older than my two youngest sisters, and I have a lot of nieces and nephews. I am in the process of writing some books, and I like to read. I have some issues with depression and anxiety, but I’d rather not get into that, and my father died when I was nine from complications related to ALS. I have a really hard to p(name removed by moderator)oint accent, which is one of the reasons I think people mistake me for being from a military family. (It’s General American, with a little bit of a southern twang). Now with regards to me being Catholic, the priest that brought me into the Church, actually just died recently so I ask that y’all pray for the Repose of his soul, he was 92. I mean there’s definitely more, but I’m sure other people are way more interesting.
 
I am skeptical about the severity of the outbreak. I Think of it like a “The boy who cried wolf” scenario. In my short time hear on earth, I have scene many claim an end of the world pandemic. I was booed for this on other sites. I tend to be…jaded when it comes to world reports. It might be bad as in millions dead…but I tend to take these things and many others… with many grains of salt. Because I was told back in 2012 by many in the media and “academics” that the world was going to end on December 21st. the rise of Ebola back a few years ago. I believe we should at the situation with calm eyes, and not freak ot, no?
 
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Hi! I was wondering how you met your now wife. Did you meet online? Reason I am asking is because I don’t know how people meet nowadays but it seems that it’s online but want to make sure and gather more information.
 
I’m a 19-year-old girl, a college student who will major in teaching, a cradle Catholic, and a total bookworm. I can spend hours burying my nose in a good book. For my hobbies, I enjoy (besides reading, of course!) writing, acting, singing, and shopping. I’m also a huge animal-lover and adore basically any kind of animal (Except snakes and most insects - they don’t count) I love fashion and enjoy putting outfits together and doing my make-up. I love taking my dog on long walks and spending time with my family and friends. Thanks everybody, for introducing yourselves. It’s great to meet everyone. 🙂
 
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Let me tell you. The end of the world would be much worse than this. The world wars went side by side with deadly diseases like the Spanish Influenza that killed more than the war itself. I’m sure people living in those days must have felt the end was near. The coronavirus will pass just like all the others. It just seems a big deal because of mass hysteria.
 
I agree! I feel like the world has caved in to mass hysteria. But then again I can’t help but wonder if the true scale of it is not being made public. I remember the Mayan 2012 prophecy. Haha that was one a real joke. it seems to me that human beings like being scared.
 
My parents and grandparents lived through the depression, and world wars. There were shortages, rationing of food items and plenty of other things they did without. Life went on. People were resilient, creative, and survived.

It will be okay. Lots of inconvenience maybe, but for most of us, I don’t think we will get the virus. Everyone is doing everything they can to lessen the onslaught of the virus.

We can offer up all of the things we are “missing” as Lenten fasts. It will be fine. 🙂
 
Well, its a long story! But to put it simply yes we met online. At a website called interpals. Since she was Chinese and I was American it didn’t seem possible we could ever meet in person. We did long distance for 2 years before she got the job at the Jr. High School and in turn recommended me for a job as a foreign teacher. Those 2 years being in a long distance online relationship was very difficult. So many times it would have been very easy to end it all and break up. It took incredible dedication on both of our parts to stay together. When I met her in person for the first time it felt like I was seeing her for the first time despite the fact that we had hundreds of video chats for hours at a time. The way I see it nothing will ever replace face to face interaction. Online is a big wide world but you should be cautious of catfish and other people.
 
The thing I’m mainly worried about is my grades. All the anti-cheating measures being put into place are probably going to make remote-learning exams worse than normal exams. The worst thing is that my school just decided to lock down today when it was previously going to lockdown Wednesday and there are still so many unknowns about our exams. For a medical science university, it has been pretty unprepared. Professors are just learning now how to do things remotely. You’d think they’d be watching Corona closely and preparing for the worst.
 
It means were you born and raised as a Catholic from infancy. Baptized as a baby, as opposed to becoming Catholic at some point later in life.
 
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Hey, that’s not a bad question if you don’t know, and It’s a legitimate thing to ask. I have a bit of Mind blindness, (which is an inaccurate term), however, I can generally tell by the context of what someone means. I figured out what cradle Catholic means, by thinking about babies, because a baby would be in a cradle.
 
No, that’s okay. A Cradle Catholic is just a term for someone who was born into a Catholic family and raised Catholic. 🙂
 
My grandpa was born in the early thirties in the Midwest, I’m honestly surprised he lived as long as he did. He would probably tell us to toughen up if he were still alive, he was a 3 War veteran. Those are the types of people that you like being with during times of crises , because they know how to get food, they know what to do if they don’t have toilet paper, they know how to get things to drink.
 
I am definitely a cradle catholic. Only now at this point in my life have I decided to earnestly change that. But, circumstances make that very difficult. Since I spend most months out of the year in China. There are definitely no Catholic churches here. At least not true ones since I know the relationship between China and the Vatican is complicated and confrontational.
 
Oh man… Phew… geez lousie. Ok… that was a rough couple days of programming. It’s good now though. All good. Man…

Ok, so… I am a 21 almost 22 year old guy (I self identify as myself and no other) who spends his time studying towards a Computer Science and Engineering combined Bachelors degree through the partnership program which my local community college has with the University of Toledo (basically means I commute to a satellite campus and will end up not paying as much for college cuz the math and science classes are Community College classes). We have 3 mandatory internships we need before we can graduate. I just got myself a 4th for Spring 2021 which will delay my graduation a year probably, but it’s good experience.

Spare time… whenever that comes around is spent mainly helping out at my parish (I train out altar servers, try to make sure the litergy goes smoothly, and am on the pariah council who is right now trying to figure out how to get more than old people back to church). Trust me… I feel the I’m the only 21 year old at my parish thing and kinda sick of it. Idk about you guys but it’s not easy not having good, solid, practicing Catholics your age close by and staying on the strait an narrow close to God at the same time. Gotta have good influences.

But besides church I… do something else… uh… oh I’ve gotten into shooting more, bought my first pistol recently. Also, videogames to wind down (Mario games are fun, some first person shooters, Minecraft (best game of all time change my mind). Wanna learn guitar if I’d ever make time.

Also, between semesters I always to to make time to go on a camping/backpacking trip out of state. So far I’ve hiked Mount Rogers (highest point in Virginia), hiked down Grand Canyon of the Gunnison and almost made it to the bottom (dont do it the way we did. We should have died honestly), driven around ATV’s in the Utah desert in a little.town called Hanksville (which we later found out was used by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid as a resupply point occasionally), gone to D.C. a few times, Baltimore Maryland (got sent into a wall while driving to the hotel by another driver… oof), and… other stuff.

There are other things for example I like doing stuff myself rather than just paying someone else to do it. For example, another mi or accident i was in, i slipped in some ice into a giant F-250 (my little Fords Focus’ bumper and impact bar didnt have a chance against his trailer hitch). But rather than paying $3000 to have the front end ripped off and repaired I just went to the junk yard and figured it out myself. Took me a year and I’ve never worked on a car to that extent, but it cost me around $300 to fix in the end vs $3000. Soooo, 10x savings? I’m ok with that. XD

But yeah. Those are the highlights of my life. You now know more about me than I do. 👌 If you’ve made it through all this, I am impressed.
 
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You gone down to Mount Mitchell in North Carolina? It’s actually up for me. That’s the highest point in these parts of the United States, and you know I know there are higher mountains out west, but Mount Mitchell is the highest mountain I’ve been on, and it’s so high up that I could not see in front of me. You mentioned mountains, and I love mountains so there. I also got a walking stick from Clingmans Dome. It is a very nice walking stick.
 
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