The Coronavirus ... a Disaster and an Opportunity!

You may have heard some politician or Hollywood actor say, in a time of crisis, "The Chinese character for 'crisis' is a combination of the characters for 'disaster' and 'opportunity.'" I've read that that not-too-original saying simply isn't true. Those of you who understand Chinese characters could inform me if the statement is right or wrong. Either way, the point is that times of crisis not only cause problems and harm, they also create opportunities.

First, the disastrous part. We've already seen sports events and concerts cancelled, doomsday-prepper wannabees emptying stores of toilet paper and several other things. Real preppers stocked up on those things YEARS ago; not to mention if you live in California, you should have lots of these things - e.g., canned food, bottle water, batteries and flashlights, and yes, toilet paper - stored for earthquakes already. We can't really do anything about this at this point, other than keep our distance from other people, staying home if we're sick, and washing our blessed hands! I have several students (and friends' children) whose classes are cancelled for at least a month, and another student told me his school's SAT date was cancelled and not rescheduled.  

Second, the opportunity. If you're one of the people who's SAT date, classes, or both were cancelled, you have a tremendous opportunity to focus on test prep. For example, my one friend's kids are being given 3 hours' work  per day to do by their school while classes are suspended. If they were SAT age (they're a bit too young at this time), they'd have an extra 3 hours for practically anything else that would help them prepare for college and life in general, including test prep, what would normally be extracurricular activities such as exercise, camping, volunteer or paid work, learning a language (human or computer), or practically anything constructive. It's best to keep yourself in top physical and mental shape during the few months most people expect this crisis to last. I'm happy to help you with the second part- I'd be thrilled to do test prep with you using Skype, Google Hangouts, or another platform. [Yes, I know, that was very opportunistic of me- so sue me if you don't like it. :-) ]