Past & Present: Time of Your Life ('06)

Q: What is your favorite memory from Monta Vista?

A: I think my favorite memory was when I was in cross country and track. Being on a sports team, [they] become my core group of friends as well. Feeling that sense of camaraderie and spending a lot of time together really [made] us close over the years, and we're still in contact to this day. You definitely do make some lifelong friends in high school.

Q: How was college compared to high school?

A: Being at such an academically high-pressure focused school really prepared me for college at De Anza [...] I felt very privileged to have [attended] Monta Vista. At the moment, you’d think “this is terrible.” But it really did set me up for the rest of my life, and instilled good work ethic and studying habits.

Q: Do you have any advice for current Monta Vista students?

A: High school is such a small time in your life. Looking back, some of the things that I thought were such a big deal aren't that big of a deal in the bigger bigger picture. If you are struggling in high school, just know that there is always a future after high school. Things in high school aren’t permanent. If anything, college is where you really start to learn and develop a sense of who you are. High school is a place where you just really barely start to figure things out [...] It's okay to struggle a little bit in high school and that's totally normal. When I was in high school, I really wanted to go to a four year school straight out of high school, but my parents were like, “Nah, that's okay. Go to junior college first.” At first, I was thinking about the whole college experience I’d miss, but then I thought about it later and it's like, well, what am I really missing? I still have a whole lot of friends here. Just know that there are other options and there's other ways to be successful. It doesn't have to be based on your SAT score or your GPA. I know lots of people who didn't do amazingly at Monta Vista but are thriving at college.

Q: What song or artist reminds you of your time at Monta Vista?

A: “Time Of Your Life” by Green Day. It’s a classic.

Q: What’s your current occupation?

A: So currently, I work at Kaiser as an occupational therapist. I help with rehab and orthopedics, people with hip replacements, knee replacements, shoulder replacements or any other ailment on top of the hospital being a neuro specialty hospital, so also people with strokes, tumors seizures. I also work at Santa Clara Valley medical as a per diem position. I work with people with mental health impairments like schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar.

Q: What are you up to now outside of work?

A: I mean with this whole shelter in place, you know, I'm still trying to figure out ways to keep myself entertained. So it just kind of goes back to exercise and ways to be healthy. You know, doing online classes for my field of practice, because there's always room for improvement and growth. I just moved to a new studio, so we're trying to figure that whole situation out, and decorating can be a struggle.

Q: Do you have any advice regarding COVID-19?

A: Shelter in place is there for a reason. Some people get stir crazy and like, “Oh, I need to leave. I need to go out and do something.” If you want to take that risk, that's cool, but just be smart about it and maintain that social distancing. Please wear a mask, please wash your hands. Don't go into crowded areas. It's not worth it. People like to complain about having to wear a mask for 20 minutes out there in the store, but I have to wear it eight plus hours a day and work with people who are sick or who do have COVID. So in perspective, it isn't really that much of an inconvenience to be smart about what you're doing.

Q: We heard you contracted COVID-19 earlier this year. Could you talk about your experience?

A: I had plans months ago to go visit my friend, so I went to visit her in SoCal. Usually with COVID, there's some preceding symptoms. You feel under the weather, fatigued, but I felt none of those symptoms. So to fly down there Friday night and then wake up with every single symptom you could really think of was very scary and terrifying. Also at the time, there weren't a lot of places to get tested quickly. Fortunately, there’s a lot of places now [...] I couldn't taste or smell anything. I had a high fever, which was in the range of having seizures at that point [...] So the doctor even told me, “Hey, your oxygen isn't so great right now.” I kind of took it upon myself from a rehab perspective. I know I should be resting, but at the same time, I shouldn't be stagnant in bed so I would just, on occasion, sit up at the edge of the bed and watch my monitor [...] Not being in personal contact with friends or family was very emotionally and mentally taxing. But I slowly started to recover after receiving all the antibiotics and antivirals. Then I had to figure out what would be the next step as far as discharge and “How are they going to get me home?” That whole process was very disappointing to see, because they didn't really know what to do with me because I was such a special case. I wasn't from the area so I couldn't just go back home. I'm still kind of jaded by how they dealt with that. The doctor basically said, “You have to drive yourself home.” And I'm like, dude, I live eight hours away from here and you expect me to drive home in this condition? And he's like, well, there's hospitals along the way. I was not happy with that whole situation. The overall experience of having COVID is just very scary because you don't know what's going to happen. The biggest thing for me is how can I educate other people and have them take this situation more seriously? People don’t realize how bad it is until either they get it or they know someone personally who gets it.