OK, GOOGLE. “WHAT IS A FURLOUGH?”

It’s 10:30 AM on Friday, March 17, 2020. The marketing team at Penn National Gaming is called together. This rarely happens.

Our last two weeks were spent closing our 34 casinos across the United States to reduce the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19.

News sites wrote about casino operator cash flows. They highlighted Penn as having 5 months of cash to stay afloat. Earlier in the month, the company had pledged to pay employees through March 31st.

We were close to the deadline.

The call was fast and to the point. 26,000 employees would be furloughed, putting us on indefinite leave starting April 1st. My fear of losing health insurance for my wife and 8 month old son disappeared because Penn generously said they would be continuing to provide coverage through June 30th.

Unemployed. Shut-in. Now what?

Today I filed for unemployment for the first time.

With no clear end to the isolation ahead, I’m left asking myself: How am I going to make the best use of this unique time?

For me, writing has not been at the top of my list. As time passes I feel guilt that I absorb so much knowledge from people around the world online, but I am not sharing my experiences with others.

That changes now.

Practicando Mi Español

My wife and I got married in the fall of 2019, used our local Oktoberfest celebration as a free five day wedding reception, and then went straight down to the jungle in Costa Rica for our honeymoon. I started using Duolingo to practice my Spanish.

I took four years of Spanish in high school and remember very little. Use it or lose it. 3 years prior during a trip to Peru I found out how bad my Spanish really was. Because of this I started using Duolingo to practice my spanish before our trip.

Not long after our honeymoon, we were preparing for the birth of my son. I always wanted to be better at Spanish and my son was an extra motivator to get stronger at a second language with the hopes that he would benefit from being exposed to it.

Here I am on day 450 of my Duolingo streak (plenty of freezes used) and riding high in the Diamond league. I think writing will be a good habit and translating my writing into Spanish will be extra practice for me and will force me to learn new words and learn tenses.

¡Vamos!