UNEXPECTED RECESS
It’s been a rough week (opens in a new tab) in the Big Apple. I’ve lived in New York City most of my life, through hurricanes and blizzards, terrorist attacks and tourist invasions, not to mention regular teacher/sanitation/transportation/newspaper union strikes, so I am familiar with disruption, inconvenience, and challenge. Never before, however, have I lacked hot water, heat, electricity, and phone or mobile for 4 days or had to use a flashlight in pitch-black stairwells to get to my 8th floor apartment. The subway (metro) has never been so disrupted; schools have never been closed for so long. Automobile and train tunnels are still being pumped out, a week later. How can I convey my shock - this is New York City - 14-ft salt water surges are not on my list of concerns!
My academic home - the NYU School of Medicine -- the one that takes out full-page ads in the New York Times every few days bragging of its top-flight, cutting-edge, world-class staff and operations - - is completely shut down and will be for weeks. Huge trucks parked outside say “National Disaster Team.” Men in white hazmat suits bustle around. Billions of dollars of research (opens in a new tab) have been interrupted - maybe ruined. Hundreds of inpatients were evacuated (opens in a new tab) in the middle of the night and outpatient schedules are still a mystery.
I don’t know exactly what this has to do with selling-sickness or disease-mongering, but it definitely disrupted our conference planning for a week. I just thought you’d like to know.