One Market: Season 1, Episode 2

Bruce Gillespie 0:05
Welcome to One Market, keeping the Laurier Brantford community connected. I’m Bruce Gillespie. This is Episode Two. This week we speak to a faculty member who is conducting research in New Zealand when the Prime Minister told Canadians to come home before it was too late. Then we get an update on the Laurier students studying for their legal degrees in England. And then finally, we hear about how staff at the Center for Student Equity, Diversity and Inclusion are coming up with ways to support students remotely including with playlists. All that and more coming up on this episode of One Market.

Our first guest is Stacey Hanim, a professor and chair of the criminology department. Stacy just entered a 14 day period of self isolation because she was conducting research and New Zealand when the pandemic was declared, and air travel started to shut down. Here’s our conversation.

Hi, Stacey. Thanks for joining us today on one market.

Stacey Hannem 1:09
Hi, Bruce. Thanks for having me.

Bruce Gillespie 1:12
So one of the reasons we want to talk to you was that you’re a faculty member who’s currently in self isolation. So maybe it’d be useful for us just for backup a couple weeks to talk about how you got to this point.

Stacey Hannem 1:23
Sure. So the long story is that I had a grant to study the international regulation of sex work in Canada, in Nevada, USA and in New Zealand. And our research was planned to start with the New Zealand data collection. New Zealand’s a really interesting country because it’s the only country in the world to fully decriminalize sex work. So we had our plans to go and we were going to be doing some interviewing and some field work with the New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective, particularly in Wellington and in Auckland. So we left on March 9, and at the time, my research colleague Chris Bruckert, and I from the University of Ottawa, sort of joked a little bit that, you know, we were going to be careful and we brought some hand sanitizer, but at that point there were, you know, a handful of cases in Ontario of COVID-19. And there were only two in New Zealand and we thought, okay, we’re going to a very safe place. This shouldn’t be a problem at all.

Bruce Gillespie 2:27
And certainly, the public health directives at that time were pretty–they weren’t the same as they would have been two weeks later.

Stacey Hannem 2:33
Absolutely. They were saying at that point, don’t go to Italy. Fine. Don’t go to China. Awesome. We’re not going to China. So we thought New Zealand should be fine. And you know, we really didn’t think too much about it. And so we got on the plane and we flew first to Vancouver. And we noticed you know, Vancouver airport was was pretty empty. And we got on the plane from Vancouver to Auckland and everything was great. Until we got to Auckland and then things got a little bit real, because when we landed in Auckland, they came over the loudspeaker on the plane and said, we’ve we’ve landed, but we want all passengers to remain seated. A medical crew needs to come onto the plane to check out a passenger.

And at first we thought, has there been an emergency, has somebody had a heart attack? You know, is there something happened? And and a crew of about six or seven people came onto the plane in full hazmat suits. And they came down the aisle right past where we were right to the very back of the plane. And they spent a considerable amount of time sort of talking and and checking out this passenger at the back of the plane. And we sat on the tarmac for about 40 minutes waiting to see what was going to happen that we’re discussing, and are they going to let us into the country? Are they going to turn the plane around and send us back to Canada? What’s going to happen?

Bruce Gillespie 3:49
That’s not every day you see people in hazmat suits come on your plane.

Stacey Hannem 3:52
No, it was it was very disconcerting. And that was sort of our first clue that hey, you know, there might be something bigger going on than that than we really were realizing or aware of at the time.

Bruce Gillespie 4:05
So how long were you there and actually doing your research during interviews?

Stacey Hannem 4:08
So we left March 9, and because the time change, we arrived on March 11. And it was right around March 13 that we really started to get the news coming back from Canada that things were getting serious. And there was conflicting messages coming, you know, that the Premier of Ontario was saying, Oh, you everybody should go and enjoy their March Break. And in the meantime, then the Prime Minister starts to say, well, Canadians should come home. And we were originally scheduled to be there until the 30th of March. And since I’m back in Canada, you can tell I did not stay until the 30th of March.

Bruce Gillespie 4:44
Wow, that’s, that’s crazy. So were you able to get, I mean, not all of your research that you wanted to do was done, but did you get a decent amount of it done?

Stacey Hannem 4:52
So we did get all of the interviews we wanted to get in Wellington and one of the sort of unintended consequences of the burgeoning emergence of awareness about COVID-19 in New Zealand at the time was that what we were actually seeing was a significant decline in work for sex workers and people working in the industry. And so as it turned out, they had a little more time than they ordinarily may have had to do interviews. And they were, you know, happy to come and chat with us about what was going on. And so we did get the interviews done that we wanted to get. And we also got a really interesting perspective on how marginal workers need to adapt in in a situation like this, because they don’t always have the same kinds of supports at the same kinds of options that other kinds of workers would have.

Bruce Gillespie 5:41
What an, like, you said, unintentionally interesting time to be there to do this research. And that that’s, that’s really interesting. So you come back on the 20th of March, clearly, you must go into self isolation right away just because you’re someone who’s been out of the country. So what’s what have you been doing since

Stacey Hannem 5:58
I’ve been, you know, doing a little bit of crochet, I like to crochet things and make afghans and hats and various things as a hobby. So I’ve had a little more time to do that. And while I have binge watched a little bit of Netflix, and I am trying to continue with my research and my my writing, and I’m actually in the process of trying to finish up a book that we started some time ago.

Bruce Gillespie 6:22
It’s interesting, think about all the ways that you know, we take all these research opportunities for granted, the many ways that you can just go someplace and talk to people if you’ve done all the right prep work. But certainly the university has said for now that in person, research has come to an end. So which makes sense, given the fact that we can’t really go anyplace, but it really makes you think about I mean, makes me think about at least how often we take these kinds of opportunities for granted.

Stacey Hannem 6:45
And in the last couple of years, I’ve been sort of increasingly incorporating social media into the way I’m thinking about research and the sorts of data that I’m working with. I am seeing really interesting opportunities right now to again, look at marginal communities. That have sort of collective presence on platforms like Twitter. So sex work Twitter is a really popular thing. Lots of sex workers use it both to engage with one another, and also to engage with possible clients. And so I’m seeing some interesting things on Twitter around how even Canadian sex workers are trying to deal with the loss of income.

Bruce Gillespie 7:23
So you must be coming to the end of your self isolation period.

Stacey Hannem 7:26
Today is day 14. I’m so excited. But there’s still nowhere for me to go after.

Bruce Gillespie 7:31
That’s what I was thinking. I mean, you know, you can cross that date off your your, you know, your book, but you’re probably not doing anything differently, right?

Stacey Hannem 7:37
No, this is it. I have been thinking about, you know, what little change I’m actually quite because I came from a place that was so profoundly normal. I mean, the night the night before we left New Zealand, my research colleagues and I went out for dinner, and we, you know, had a couple of drinks at the bar and we had a lovely meal. And we were laughing and chatting and there was people out walking on the boardwalks in Wellington. And it was a beautiful evening. So we left this sort of relative normalcy and then came back to total isolation. And so as a result, I haven’t been to see what it’s like at the grocery store, or out on the streets. I haven’t even been around the block. The furthest I’ve been has been my backyard. And so I’m actually quite anxious about what that’s going to be like about sort of acclimatizing to the new normal that we have to live with.

Bruce Gillespie 8:28
And I mean, truthfully, I think it takes some adjustment. We’ve been mostly staying home for about three weeks now. I went out to the grocery store and the pharmacy yesterday was the first time I’ve been in stores in three weeks, and they were far less busy than usual. And I went at times I thought they’d be on less busy, sort of late. But it was still very strange after three weeks of not really seeing a whole lot of people to be out in those public places.

Stacey Hannem 8:50
Again,the other thing that has struck me and something I think that I think provokes some concern for me is the sense of it. What if I do it wrong? What if you accidenetally step into somebody’s you know, six foot bubble? And what are the consequences of that? We’ve heard a lot of talk about sort of the criminalization and the the legal penalties for not properly physically distancing yourself from other people. And I think that that for me is very anxiety provoking the thought that you might inadvertently end up in trouble for doing something that should be so normal

Bruce Gillespie 9:24
Yeah, you’re right it’s it’s having to rethink all this behaviors that guess that that seemed completely everyday to us, like, you know, politely passing someone in the grocery store aisle, you know, not getting too close, but also not probably keeping six feet away at the same time. But taking all those those normal everyday behaviors and really be conscious of them.

Stacey Hannem 9:41
Yes. And I hear from my Facebook group of moms here in Paris where I live that you know, our local grocery store has arrows on the floor and you have to follow the arrows which brings me a bit of comfort. I feel like I can follow directions like that. That should be fine. But But you know, that is so strange and so foreign to us, but it’s a little hard to imagine.

Bruce Gillespie 10:01
Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think feels like such a long time so far. But it’s been such a short amount of time. I suspect it’ll take, you know, more time for us to all to sort of get adjusted to what this this new current reality looks like and feels like.

Stacey Hannem 10:13
Mm hmm. Yeah, it is certainly a shift.

Bruce Gillespie 10:17
Well, this is great. Stacey, thank you so much for joining us today.

Stacey Hannem 10:19
Thank you for having me. I’ve enjoyed chatting with you.

Bruce Gillespie 10:24
Our next guest is Julie Pong, who’s the manager of the joint degree program Laurier offers with Sussex University in England. This is a competitive entry program in which students may obtain both a BA from Laurier and an LLB from Sussex. I started off by asking Julie to describe her job.

Julie Pong 10:43
So I work with the students who spend two years at Laurier. I work with them to ensure that they’re meeting progression requirements and we do a lot of work on pre-departure work before they go abroad. So we’re making sure that they’re prepared for their their time over in England. When they’re over in England for three years, I stay in contact with them. I go visit them twice a year just to see how they’re doing. And then when they come back for one last year at Laurier, I’ll be supporting them during that last year, but they’re going through the accreditation process.

Bruce Gillespie 11:15
Great. Having worked nearby your office in the past, and always strikes me that part of your job is sort of half administrator, half camp counselor in the best possible sense, like you’re always in contact with all these students trying to work with students who are here and getting ready to go to England working with students who are in England, trying to troubleshoot and support them. It’s a it’s a busy job.

Julie Pong 11:37
Well, I guess the one thing I really love about this is the fact that I do get to work with them from start to finish has sort of number of roles on campus and you work with students that sort of different points in their academic career. But for this role, I’m able to welcome them when they first come on campus and in a couple of years time I will be there when our first group graduates, so it’s been really great that I’m able to to work with them during that whole six years,

Bruce Gillespie 12:04
That’s really cool to be able to see that entire journey from start to finish. You’re right, we don’t often get a lot of chances to do that and a lot of roles for sure. Nice. So obviously, with a pandemic and all the sort of related issues, we thought it’d be interesting to hear from you, how are Sussex students are doing so maybe the place to start is how many students are actually from Laurier at Sussex this year.

Julie Pong 12:27
So currently, there are 76 students, between those that are in their first year at Sussex and their second year at Sussex. So there’s the 76 that are over there right now. The majority of them have come back. I haven’t heard from all of them. Some of them are, you know, very independent, even though I’ve asked them sort of to give me updates of where they’re at, and Susses has sent them that same sort of information. Right now, I do know that 56 were there 56 of them, where they’re at and of that 56, 52 of them. Back here in Canada, there were four that decided to stay in the UK during this.

Bruce Gillespie 13:05
Okay. So what were the challenges like that they were facing in terms of trying to organize themselves to get back on what I assume was pretty short notice?

Julie Pong 13:13
Yeah, the tricky part was when it was Friday, March 13, when Trudeau said to everyone, you know, get back to Canada while you can. So that happened on the Friday and it wasn’t until Monday that Sussex had said, we’re going to close campus and finish off the term remotely. So that weekend was a bit challenging for students because here you know, Canada saying come home, and they weren’t quite sure what was happening with their academics over at Sussex. Based on their visa, they need to be in class for a certain portion of the year. So there were some concerns about visas. Luckily, sort of Monday morning, very early, Sussex announced that they would be going online and so very quickly students were then booking flights to come home. They were packing up all their stuff and getting it in storage. So it was sort of a very busy week, that week as they organize their lives to get back. The airlines, they were talking about how, you know, they were shutting down their services, they were suspending some of their flights. And so the question was, you know, are we going to be able to get out in time, as you know, Westjet did say, you know, we have a couple more weeks, but we’re gonna have fights coming in and out internationally. So, yeah, it was a little bit tiring for, you know, those this couple of weeks when they were trying to get back and just ensure that, you know, their safety was was of the most importance. But yeah, it was sort of a long couple of weeks there just as they were trying to get themselves back and make sure they were safe.

Bruce Gillespie 14:53
I bet and again, that’s really good for them, but they have the support of university and folks like you to help try to coordinate those plans. I’m sure that was a big help to them.

Julie Pong 15:02
Well, it’s helpful that for me that I have contacts with the consultate there. So, you know, I reached out to them immediately say, you know, I have 76 people who are studying at a university in England, what can you do? So, you know, they were very responsive and got information to the students about if they needed any help with anything, just all these little moving pieces in our see everything that we can give them that support.

Bruce Gillespie 15:25
That’s great. And so they are continuing their studies at Sussex remotely, just like Laurier students domestically are doing correct?

Julie Pong 15:33
Yes. So same, they had a week off where they sort of for a week, they didn’t have any classes. Well, they moved everything online. So they just started up last week that those classes online.

Bruce Gillespie 15:45
I mean, I just, I know what it’s like to sort of manage these kinds of changes with a couple of classes of students who are all here. I can’t imagine what it’s like to sort of coordinate that kind of effort for students who are half a world away. Yeah, I must be I must be a lot of work and stress.

Julie Pong 15:59
Well, yeah, I guess the The hard part is just, you know, between two different universities and the two different countries really. And then just don’t know what’s going to happen next. And so I think that has been the hard part for both them for myself. You know it just as much as you can plan and do things, things are changing on the daily for everyone.

Bruce Gillespie 16:20
Sure, that makes sense. So outside of work, then I know that you’re normally a very active, physically active person who’s outside and always doing things. What are you doing to keep yourself busy outside of work hours when you’re supposed to be staying home?

Julie Pong 16:33
Well, to be honest, probably the epitome of what you’re not supposed to do, in the sense of I don’t have a routine. You know, it’s it’s very much a today, okay, there’ll be you know, the work that happens, but what I’m doing at night, sometimes it’s it’s extending the workday a little bit longer. I have been relying on the W Network movies and watching a lot of those. I feel like right now, two things are so unpredictable that I’m able to watch those sort of feel good movies, and they’re highly predictable. And so it gives me that sort of balance from what’s happening in the real world to just sort of sitting down for a couple hours and sort of turning my brain off. But, you know, I haven’t sort of picked up a new hobby. To be honest, I’m just sort of hanging out. I feel like right now. And so I’m sort of waiting for the next month where I can sit in my backyard. But right now, I think I’m just kind of watchi ng paint dry.

Bruce Gillespie 17:39
Well, fair enough, right? And I think that’s the strange thing is that, on the one hand, it feels like we’ve been doing this forever, but at the same time, we look at the calendar and think it’s really only been about three weeks, right, which is probably still not time to actually adjust to, to sort of fully adjust any of this kind of new way of being that we’re in.

Julie Pong 17:57
Yeah, I think, you know, I was I was talking someone the other day. And we were messaging, but just saying that, you know, it feels like your days are so long, but the same time they’re so short, like three weeks have gone has gone by in a blink of an eye. And so my sister sent me a meme yesterday to say, you know, remember when we were kids, and we had those, we wore underwear that had the day of the week on it, like we need those now as adults know what day it is. Because I do feel like, Oh, another week has passed. And, you know, what have I done this week? Not much. And so same time, I feel like I have done a lot because, you know, I just think the work is and you know, at the end of the day, you’re sort of mentally exhausted.

Bruce Gillespie 18:44
Yeah, and I suspect in your case, because I mean, you’re still dealing with students who are sort of some of whom are still in the UK like you’re dealing with time difference. There are some in some of your work must have to be shifted four or five hours in one direction or another.

Julie Pong 18:55
Absolutely. So that that first weekend after Trudeau made that announcement on that Monday morning, I was on email at 5 am. And I’m not a morning person, by any means. But again, it was 9 am. At that, over in the UK at that time, their, their time change was only four hours. They don’t change their clocks the same time that we do. It took me some time to get adjusted to that. But now they’re five hours difference between us, but the time there are only four. So I’m thinking ahead, you know, it’s 9 am. There. They want to know, know, sort of as much information as they can and what do I know here on my end? So absolutely. Working with the time difference does sort of shift my day about which I think is partly reason why I can’t get into a routine.

Bruce Gillespie 19:35
Well, here’s hoping you you’ll get into a new routine and sort of start feeling more adjusted sometime soon.

Julie Pong 19:41
Yes, me, too. I think next month, let’s just a little bit nicer out and we can enjoy the backyard.

Bruce Gillespie 19:48
Well thanks, Julie for joining us on One Market. It was great chatting with you.

Julie Pong 19:51
Thanks very much for having me. It was great chatting with you.

Bruce Gillespie 19:56
Our next guest is Lauren Burrows, who’s the education and inclusion coordinator for the Center for Student Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the Brantford campus, who spoke to me about how she’s continuing to support students while working remotely.

Hi, Lauren, thanks for joining us today on one markets.

Lauren Burrows 20:13
Hello, thank you so much for having me.

Bruce Gillespie 20:15
My pleasure. I thought a good place to start would be for those folks who may not know you. Can you explain what your job is and what it normally looks like when we’re all working on campus?

Lauren Burrows 20:25
Yeah, so I am the education inclusion coordinator at the Center for Student Equity, Diversity and Inclusion on the preferred campus. And so this is a multi campus department that works to create a culture of inclusion by supporting students. So some of the things that I would normally be doing sort of in my everyday in the office include support and advocacy, including systems navigation small-C counseling, mentorship for students from historically marginalized communities or underserved communities. Also, education around social justice issues. So things like that include like workshops, and other educational programming. And then we also engage in research and knowledge mobilization on campus, specifically around SDI connected to students.

So, days are pretty varied and, and often very busy between student support and programming. Since we’ve moved online, it’s looked a little bit different, but we are, we are trying our best to sort of transfer all of those pieces over. So some of the things that we’ve been up to include I put out a newsletter that goes out two to three times a week and that newsletter includes information resources, events, opportunities around social justice, both on and off campus, for students to engage with recently, it’s been obviously a lot about responding to the needs around COVID around feelings of isolation being displaced or precariously house, loss of access to financial, medical and other resources, challenges in digital safety and surveillance, supporting loved ones abroad, those sorts of issues.

And then I’ve been putting out a daily playlist. It’s a staff and faculty top 10 playlist, which has been released. Yeah, I’ve been really excited about that. It’s been great to have sort of like a music moment, which I’ve been feeling has been really calming for myself. And then also it gets… it lets you get to know different staff and faculty and then an opportunity for students to learn more about how they’re moving their resources online right now. Other things we’re doing, we’re doing daily zoom check ins with students, for students to come and talk, ask questions, receive support, as well as one on one meetings with students and then what else are we doing? We’re also doing online workshops right now. We had our first online workshop last week, which looked at using online platforms like Canva, Zoom and MailChimp, and then some best practices in inclusivity. And now we’re working on some others, including things around how to ethically produce written materials and then also how to organize in the context of a pandemic.

Yeah, yeah. So we’ve been really lucky in that. We’ve been able to transfer a lot online, it looks really different right now. And I know that a lot of folks are struggling in this context. But but we’re doing our best to be useful and provide as much support to students and in the communities that they exist in right now.

Bruce Gillespie 23:19
I’m totally not surprised knowing you but that’s so nice to hear at the same time, because I think of folks in your position, like, I think my impression is that during normal times, a lot of your work is really face to face based, right. So I was thinking, and part of the reason why we want to talk to you today was like for someone whose work is so face to face based, like how does that change when you have to work remotely? So I mean, some of the things are charged, like the zoom meetings, and the online workshops, is great to hear that’s happening because I imagine I mean, imagine much like faculty like not having that face to face contact with students, when you’re really used to it is really jarring. It’s really strange.

Lauren Burrows 23:54
Yeah, it can be really difficult and I think that we have to try really intentionally to cultivate intimacy with people through online platforms. And I also think that there are new concerns regarding like safety for folks when you’re having confidential or difficult conversations on zoom, or other spaces like that. And so a lot has changed. And it has presented some challenges. But there’s lots of really great information out there for folks who are doing social justice work and work that requires a lot of care and compassion and intention in doing this online, right. And then also, there are some benefits to online work in that we are able to reach different folks and in different ways. So we’re trying to do our best around that, I think.

Bruce Gillespie 24:39
That’s interesting. So are you finding that you’re reaching… Because you’re working sort of remotely only at the moment, are you finding you’re reaching people you wouldn’t have been able to reach in person?

Lauren Burrows 24:48
Yeah, I think that, that there have been some opportunities to connect with students that I didn’t have before. So for example, in some of our open house, like zoom check in spaces, I’ve had contact with students that I haven’t supported face to face, which has been really exciting that they felt comfortable or confident to reach out and hold that space with me. So…

Bruce Gillespie 25:09
That’s amazing. And I guess, I mean that what that makes me think of is, you know, we have years and years of evidence saying that, you know, things like anonymous telephone help lines are really popular for people when they need support, but don’t want to meet someone face to face don’t necessarily want to identify themselves. So I guess there are some real opportunities to work in this way that maybe don’t seem obvious at first.

Lauren Burrows 25:30
Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that there are obviously a lot of challenges, including folks who might not have access to the internet, like Internet and equity is huge. But I do think that there are cool, they’re cool ways to use online platforms. And I think that there are a lot of, in particular young people who are super dialed into Instagram or Snapchat or Twitter and are receiving a lot of information that way anyways, and so really trying to use those platforms to share And really focusing on that right now feels important.

Bruce Gillespie 26:03
Yeah, for sure. I know it’s hard to or maybe even impossible to generalize, but what’s your sense about how students are coping so far how they’re adjusting?

Lauren Burrows 26:12
Yeah, I think that it’s mixed. I think that it’s mixed in terms of students experiences. And obviously, the impacts of COVID-19 are incredibly diverse and that the communities that were more vulnerable beforehand have become increasingly vulnerable. And so I think that most students would have similar feelings to everyone else. So those feelings of fear, probably a lot of feelings of loss around how they thought the rest of the term would look like. Obviously, some feelings of isolation and maybe lack of motivation, probably stress because of sort of the changing circumstances.

Bruce Gillespie 26:50
So in terms of working from home what’s what’s your setup like? Are you were you prepared to sort of work at home isn’t something you do on a regular basis? Are you sort of working in a makeshift kind of space? What’s it look like?

Lauren Burrows 26:59
Yeah. I’m currently sitting at a bench at the end of my bed that used to be where I threw my clothes, my dirty clothes. That’s now become my desk. So I kind of I made sort of a sort of a makeshift space outside sort of in our common area that my partner’s currently using right now. So we’re kind of just moving all around the apartment. But I’m pretty flexible. So I found it…okay, working, working from home, and it’s nice to have a little bit more face to face time with my family.

Bruce Gillespie 27:29
Yeah, for sure. It’s funny. I’m having the same experiences with my partner on a bunch of webinars as well. So it’s like, who will be in which room during which webinar time so that there’s no sound in the background and who said who’s connecting to which internet and yeah, it’s funny to sort of sort those things out at home, but it’s certainly nice to have company.

Lauren Burrows 27:47
Yeah, I totally agree. I was like, even before I came on to the podcast, I was like, you need to make your smoothie now or you don’t get one.

Bruce Gillespie 27:55
For the next like 30 minutes. Like please take the dog outside. I will come and get you when everything is good, yeah. So, um, the other thing I was hoping to talk to you about was, I know you’re working on your MA at the same time you’re doing everything else. What’s your experience been like as a student so far adjusting to this new reality?

Lauren Burrows 28:13
Yeah, I think that that one’s been a really interesting one. I think I’ve had feelings of been trying to evaluate what feels really important for me. And I feel really lucky and that my graduate work and the social justice and community engagement program very much mirrors my professional and my personal organizing work. And so I’m really looking at sort of like critical theories, and then how that we employ those into into practice around social justice and community engagement. And so a lot of the things I’ve been thinking about in my master’s are looking at how we engage in direct action labor, how we organize for people’s rights, how we run a nonprofit, how we, yes, get connected to communities that are most at the margins, and so I’ve been lucky and I’ve been able to pivot in my graduate work right now, and and produce some things that I think are going to be meaningful to responding to COVID-19 and some of my community organizing work.

Bruce Gillespie 29:10
I was going to say what a great opportunity to be able to to make everything you’re learning and studying and researching, meaningful and and immediately useful, and they have an immediate impact. That’s fantastic. My last question for you, which is something we’re asking all of our guests is, how are you keeping yourself calm, sane collected in your off hours when you’re not sort of distracted with work and studying when you would normally be presumably outside of your home doing a whole bunch of fun things? What do you what are you doing at home to sort of in your off hours?

Lauren Burrows 29:43
That’s actually a really good question. I think that I haven’t quite figured that out yet. In terms of what I’m doing my off hours I’ve been doing. Obviously a lot of community work which fills my bucket and has been really rewarding for me. And so I’ve been doing that I’ve been doing some graphic design work, which has been exciting for me and that it’s still towards sort of that work, but then gives me a chance to be creative. I’ve been having a lot of phone calls with my friends, which is really nice. And now that everyone used to not pick up my phone calls [laughter] I remember I called one of our colleagues a couple weeks ago, and I FaceTimed her and she was like, Did you mean to FaceTime me? And I’m like, Yeah, I totally did. And she’s like, I thought it was a butt dial. And I’m like, Nope, I’m just, I’m a call. I’m a caller, I like to call people. So that’s been really nice. And then a lot of people who might not have liked the phone or FaceTime before are more excited to have those conversations. So that’s been really great.

Bruce Gillespie 30:48
Well, Lauren, thank you for everything you do and are continuing to do in these weird circumstances. And thank you so much for joining us.

Lauren Burrows 30:54
Thank you so much for having me and for your labor as well. I felt so honored to be able to hold this space with you

Bruce Gillespie 31:00
That’s a wrap on the second episode of One Market. Thanks for joining us. We hope it’s helped you feel a little more connected to the Laurier Brantford community. If you’d like to appear in a future episode to talk about how you’re doing or adjusting, or with tips for activities and hobbies, please get in touch. We’d love to hear from staff, students and faculty. If you liked what you heard, tell your friends and colleagues. You can download the program anywhere you find your podcasts. You can also find us online at one- hyphen-market.simulcast.com. Follow us on Instagram at onemarket dot podcast or email us at one-dot-market-dot-podcast@gmail.com. We’ll be back with a new episode in about one week.

One Market was created and produced by Bruce Gillespie and Tarah Brookfield. Music by Scott Holmes. Grraphics by Melissa Weaver. Thanks for listening. Keep in touch

Transcribed by https://otter.ai