4 years since Covid started. What are your memories from that time? How have you evolved since?

Start with mine: Good: Spent time with family, played Ludo, started regular exercise, moved to own house from rented once in Feb 20, Didi marriage. Was away from family since 2008. Was visiting family only in festivals. Bad: Job offer from Dubai rescinded but current employer retained so not that bad.

The whole lockdown is too much to go through and express in a single thread. So this is the first wave thread. Across this series of threads (wave 1 - 3), I, and hopefully more people will be looking forward to catch each others slice of life stories and look forward to the sequels over the next few days. Subsequent posts will also have a link to this post so more people catch on. Catch mine in the comments!

During my B.Tech, I balanced my studies with active participation in clubs and committees, and also engaged in sports and exploration. Aspiring for a non-core placement, I didn't participate in hackathons or apply for internships. After graduation, I pursued various paths, including preparing for the CAT exam with only three months of preparation time, but I didn't succeed. I then applied to several companies for data analytics roles but kept making new mistakes in each attempt. In one instance, I was rejected for oversharing my passion for data science in a final interview. To improve my chances, I optimized my resume and completed significant projects, but these efforts haven't yet yielded the desired results. Realizing the challenges of relying on a single target, I also started preparing for the GATE exam. Reflecting on my journey, I recognize that I should have applied for on-campus opportunities, as off-campus job hunting is challenging and unpredictable, regardless of one's preparation. Tell me your story? In order to get some hope that we can make it and it's never too late

I wanted to pen down my story, as I have been feeling extremely low for the past two days. I work hard, but still don’t get the results that I deserve Some background. Did engineering from a tier 3 college(this one’s on me, didn’t study hard in my 12th, hence completely my mistake). During college, I was motivated and determined to do good, and aspired for MS abroad in top university, so that I could get rid of the tier 3 tag(honestly, my undergrad college was so bad that mostly the localites of the city enrolled, and only for the purpose of getting a degree, even mass recruiters didn’t recruit from this campus). I worked hard in my first sem, and this college was affiliated to a state university. In the end sem exam, I was given horrible marks, completely careless checking, significantly reducing my GPA. I applied for reassessment but no change. Apart from that, I kept upskilling, learnt ML. In 4th sem, I was given a backlog(it got cleared when I applied for reassessment). Honestly I would always do well in class and internal exams, but somehow the external examiners always gave unfair marks and had to always apply for reassessment. In 3rd year, I got an internship of 2 months, but had to cut it down to a month as college had attendance issues. In the final semester I got a 6 month internship at a very good startup, at a very good pay, but again, had to turn it down due to college attendance issues. During final year, wrote a research paper, initially it got rejected, but had to raise contention with the conference committee for unfair evaluation, and after reevaluation by other reviewers, got stellar reviews and paper was published( you see how unfair it is right). I also gave GRE, TOEFL and got decent score, got into 1 so so university but was rejected by 5 others. Didn’t go for it as it was not that great and it was COVID year. After college concluded, it was COVID time. Continued in comments.

These past 6 months my performance at work has been dwindling and one primary reason I attribute is memory loss. I find it difficult to recall key points of mails, design reviews, MoMs etc. and often end up missing out things at assigned tasks. What's scarier is that it not only applies to new concepts, I often find myself forgetting even formerly familiar things. During morning updates and discussions I find myself giving uncertain inputs and asking shaky questions because I find it hard to remember key terms, figures etc. I sometimes even forget to pick up some assigned tasks altogether. Random brain freezes have become everyday affair. . Sleep-wise it has been little medium-poor but not so bad that could explain such drastic changes. I'm 30 yr old, male, unmarried and don't have any major health issues (except some stress / anxiety and accompanying Irritable Bowel Syndrome condition). . If anyone else experienced this, how have you dealt with it?

Ever since 2020, it feels like years have passed within weeks. I can't possibly explain this in words, but for some reason, time has been passing a bit too fast. Before I realized it, my graduation was completed, someone who would seem a grown-up to the person I was before the lockdown. Festivals don't seem to make me happy now, and neither does having friends and going out with anyone...everything seems normal and everything goes by before I can process anything on my mind. Is it just me? I can't feel any emotions like I used to, is it something that all grown-ups go through/suffer with?