CBD & Poetry
CBD & Poetry
Elizabeth Rodriguez: What a Headache!, Season of Sheltering in Place
Expatriate software designer Elizabeth Rodriguez contrasts hemp culture between the US and Mexico.
Resources
- elyrodriguezzz@gmail.com
Teresa Y. Roberson is a writer, visual artist, producer and Zilis Independent Ambassador (#7161976). Zilis does not endorse the CBD & Poetry podcast nor any material presented as a result. Statements made in CBD & Poetry podcast have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Non-prescription CBD is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or medical conditions. The CBD & Poetry discussion is not intended as medical advice and should not substitute advice from a healthcare professional.
Music
- Intro Music: "Green Magic" Cabrini Green, Green Magic Album.
- Outro Music: "Bumpin That Real Shit" Cabrini Green, This Is Ghettostep Album
- cabrinigreenenterprises.com
What a Headache
Extremes trigger the mind
Too much capoeira or sleep or emotion
Even part of a nightmare
Waking up with a migraine
It’s bananas
Creative masks
While forging through grocery stores
Not quite a day at the beach
Especially with the military
On the data front lines
Marking the path of the pandemic
Thank God for work
It helps sanity
Teresa Roberson
Now how did you cross paths with CBD?
Elizabeth
Yeah, so I suffer from migraines. And have for like since I was 14 and, and there was, I guess a period about a year and a half ago where I was going through and they're more prominent when I have stress. Like I was going through stress, which I felt like anxiety and then like during the day and then I wasn't sleeping very well and then I kept getting migraines and I got one migraine that just wouldn't go away. I think I already had it for like over 12 hours and it's like, wasn't not going away. And so, a guy at the time I was dating, he recommended that I try CBD oil. Thought maybe it could like give me some like, what a relief or relaxing enough to like kind of get out of it. And like I was really against taking it because like with weed like marijuana like I get I'm very hypersensitive to it. I always get too high and like it doesn't like as much as especially if I smoke it like it doesn't do well with me. So, I was really afraid of being like high and in pain at the same time. Is gonna make it worse? Because I tend to like marijuana. Gets lost in my head and I was like I can't do that and like try to focus on you know, not hurting. But he ended up getting it to me. Like the person who got it, give it to me here. It was in Playa del Carmen, so it wasn't through like a shop because here like just in the past, I would say six to nine months, I started seeing that like at different like shops here like it is legal.
Teresa Roberson
Okay. Okay.
Elizabeth
It just wasn't like widely available here like it was in the States, so I didn't see it anywhere. So, like he knew somebody who who her her family manufactured it.
Teresa Roberson
Okay.
Elizabeth
So, I said okay and she like, she was interesting that she like ended up taking like some personal data like my my age, my weight like, different like data points and then ask me like what I wanted to use this for that sort of thing, and then she gave me kind of like a schedule to take it. And she would say for example, like, I think in the morning, it was like five drops, like she was like, either with this food and then like, it might have this much or whatever. And so, like I did that for a while and like, I would say that like, it did help my stress, you know.
Teresa Roberson
Okay.
Elizabeth
And like, now hers apparently had traces of THC in it. She's…
Teresa Roberson
Okay.
Elizabeth
Like, it was like predominantly all CBD. But I had some slight traces of THC, but it wasn't enough to get you high. Like…
Teresa Roberson
Do you know, did she tell you what percentage of THC it was?
Elizabeth
No, she didn't tell me. She said there would be small amounts, you know?
Teresa Roberson
Okay. Because here are the States, just FYI, you can legally have up to point 3%.
Elizabeth
Okay. Yeah, she didn't tell me. I wasn't. I don't know if she even knew how much it was. Like so, the first batch was good. And then I use it up pretty quickly. And then well, I mean, I use it as as prescribed. And then I think the next batch had more THC in it because like a couple of times when I took like 10 drops, and that's what she was telling me to take was 10 drops at night. Like I did feel quite high. And so, like it didn't, it didn't, it wasn't like enough to like upset me, but it did it, I didn't notice like the difference.
Teresa Roberson
Did you give her that feedback that the formulation wasn't consistent?
Elizabeth
I ended up having a friend, came over and I told him about it. He's like, “Ah, this is wonderful.” He ended up taking the bottle. Like thought it was like the best thing ever, you know. So, um, more recently, like the, so I'm training at the CrossFit gym or when there's not a pandemic, I train at the CrossFit gym. And the owner, he is friends with a vitamin shop here, and they they recently started carrying it. So, like, once this is all over, I think I'm going to go to them. Or maybe this weekend, I'll see if they're open. I'll go put my mask on and search him down. Because definitely like the past couple weeks have been more stressed out than not.
Teresa Roberson
Okay. I want to ask you one more question about the woman who, it sounds like she, I don't want to say "prescribed," but my question is, does she say that she's a doctor? How did she…
Elizabeth
No, she didn't say she was a doctor. She just, she just said that she could recommend like a dosage based on like, my, my personal situation and like the goals that I had, but she didn't present herself as like a doctor. She didn't present himself as like a health care professional. She just, you know…
Teresa Roberson
Her family grows it?
Elizabeth
And this is what…
Teresa Roberson
Formulates it? Uh huh. How far away, because you're in the Playa Del Carmen area?
Elizabeth
So, I'm in Quintana Roo and she's in Veracruz, so it's like just on the other side of the dip.
Teresa Roberson
Okay.
Elizabeth
Yeah, so I don't know how many kilometers and miles that is. I guess driving it's probably like one day of driving one way.
Teresa Roberson
Okay.
Elizabeth
Like maybe 12 hours away.
Teresa Roberson
And then in the vitamin shop that you're looking at that is more compounded still by a local entrepreneur?
Elizabeth
It's also a local small shop and they have like their own branding on it. So yeah, I don't know anything more about it than that. I can send you the link or whatever they have the Instagram page.
Teresa Roberson
Okay.
Elizabeth
But yeah, so that's what I've seen here in Playa is that like, it's like it's mainly like the little vitamin and like natural stores, you know? They sell like Herbal Essences and things not Herbal Essences. That's shampoo. What am I'm thinking of? Essential oils.
Teresa Roberson
Okay. I was gonna say "shampoo"? What?
Elizabeth
Yeah, so that's the ones are selling it. I feel like I've seen it like, at some smoke shops like we have a couple of like, pet shops or the things like marijuana is illegal in Mexico. So, it is illegal, but like, I guess CBD is legal, but you'll have like shops that sell like types and like grapes and stuff and so like I find that. In fact, I saw one for like CBD gummies the other day like that was the like, sign of it.
Teresa Roberson
Is medical marijuana thing in Mexico?
Elizabeth
No, it's not legal yet. Like it's been like, on the legislation for a while. Like I went to, I think it's been almost three years ago, I went to a, a growers fair in Mexico City. And they were just talking about how to grow your own marijuana and how to cultivate yourself. And a lot of them, like the pushing that is interesting, because the reason that they push for it in Mexico is because no one, well, if you're conscientious about things, you don't want to give your money to the narcos. Because you don't want to support the organization. You don't want to like have anything to do with them, you know, so it's a way of like, controlling the product that you consume. And then also not giving money to criminals or having to like have any like dealings with criminals because like, the network of who you might have get your marijuana from in Mexico would be very much different from like the person you might get it from, you know, in Austin, Texas.
Teresa Roberson
Okay.
Elizabeth
So, they're all pushing for like the legalization and like they have decriminalized small amounts of drugs like multiple types of drugs, but like it's still not legal. So, it's like that gray area, but they're hoping to like get medical marijuana but like, I feel like in Mexico, it would be really hard to control it, because they don't have control like regular narcotics. Like I was at the pharmacy a couple weeks ago, and they had a sell on Tramadol. And it's just like, and it was like on sale for like $7 for like 60 pills or something like that. And it's just like whatever you want, you can pretty much just walk in and say like, "Oh, this is what I want," and give it to you. So, like, if they did it for marijuana, they would have to be really strict with like dispensaries or like, have it like at a medical facility. I don't know how they would do that though.
Teresa Roberson
Now here in the States, I've never tried to grow it or even look into growing it, but it, just a casual review and research, it seems like here in the States they take great pains to say that there's a difference between a marijuana plant and a hemp plant and one of the main differences is that a hemp plant will naturally have less THC. Do you also feel at that growers meeting that you went to…
Elizabeth
These were specifically for people who want to THC like for sure. It was definitely like the marijuana culture. Like the clothing, like the music, like the whole like vibe. That's kind of what they were going for. It was never stated, but it was like it was an underlying theme of the entire thing. So that's definitely what it was for.
Teresa Roberson
Okay. Okay so that was more of the emphasis than what I just said.
Elizabeth
It was the opposite. It was the opposite. And we went, me and Luna, we went to Spain. And like, I know I want to say that they had like, we went to like a convenience store to get water. And they had like, THC like lip balm. And they had like, like THC like, like lollipops. Not, sorry, THC, CBD. CBD like lip gloss or whatever chapstick and then like suckers and everything. So, it seems to be like definitely much more widespread there than here. It's like, it's now becoming available here, but it isn't like, like widely consumed. I think I see it a lot though. Unlike the like the fitness pages on Instagram. Like people were like, “Oh, I take CBD.” Or “CBD as part of like my recovery,” or whatever, you know.
Teresa Roberson
Now are you a daily user of CBD or just when you're experiencing…
Elizabeth
For a while, I was taking it every day. And then like I started only taking it, I don't know, like once a week or so once every two weeks. Like she said, like the lady was saying she, it was her recommendation that I take it every day. Like the ongoing use of it will help control like the reoccurrence of like of migraines, but definitely like would help with the reoccurrence of like stress and anxiety. So…
Teresa Roberson
Now would you say that you have specific triggers? Do you know?
Elizabeth
For migraines?
Teresa Roberson
Yeah, do you know up front what pretty much is gonna trigger one?
Elizabeth
Yeah, I do. It's not like, usually I can feel them coming on and I can take like, if I can take like, for example, like 1000 milligrams of like paracetamol. Like it'll stop it in its tracks. But the past couple months I had one this week that was really bad. The problem is sometimes it hits me in the middle of the night and I wake up in the middle of a migraine. And then like once I wake up in the middle of migraine. It's just like, there's not much I can do this time. I didn't have any, any CBD I was able to take. I took 800 milligrams of ibuprofen, which did nothing and then took 1000 milligrams of paracetamol that had caffeine and eventually like it were off, but it was like 12 hours until it wore off. I really liked it. They used to give me narcotics for it, but I don't really like taking them. So, I would like to try the CBD daily. But yeah triggers are, if I get super stressed, which I don't think that was the case this time. Like emotional stress typically. Emotional stress if I have a super hard workout it'll trigger it, which is interesting. If I have like a really hard run or like a really crazy like workout where I want to vomit like that level of intensity will give me one. Like I had one after a birthday roda one time.
Teresa Roberson
You had it after what?
Elizabeth
A birthday roda for capoeira.
Teresa Roberson
Oh, right, right.
Elizabeth
It was like so hard. It was like making me want to vomit and then like that night I had like, an intense migraine.
Teresa Roberson
Now, I'm just gonna say for someone who never heard of capoeira, they wouldn't know what a birthday roda is. Can you describe what that is?
Elizabeth
Yeah. So, it's like a... let me see. So, uh capoeira is a Brazilian martial arts in which the purpose is to evade rather than to take a hit, right. So, it's pretty much the opposite of most martial arts. But a birthday roda is when, everybody gives you a greeting per se.
Teresa Roberson
Right?
Elizabeth
And they, they, they, they challenge your skills one after the other and so it's like the equivalent of sprinting. Until you can sprint no longer. And it was equivalent of like this was probably like 15 minutes.
Teresa Roberson
How many people did you have to, I call it a "fight."
Elizabeth
I think I probably played like, yeah, probably close to 20 people. It was like a really big one. The problem is that like, my birthday is like right around right after our annual event, so our batizdo. So, everybody's super excited and wants to play.
Teresa Roberson
Right so at batizado, you play hard like it's your birthday.
Elizabeth
Yeah. Truthfully, like, for the week after batizado, so it's like when I go like everybody's like super excited. But yeah, working hard and hard workouts. One funny thing is like oversleeping trips a lot of headaches, which I was told is common, apparently. Like if I stay in bed like to like 9-10 in the morning, I'll also get a headache. So, I get a migraine.
Teresa Roberson
It seems like the extremes. Like if you're too lazy or too go go go.
Elizabeth
Yeah.
Teresa Roberson
Your body is like nah.
Elizabeth
Yeah like extreme stress usually emotional and, and yet working out too much being too lazy and specifically laying in bed like horizontal causes it. Dehydration, of course, will cause it. Those are like the main factors but like, more recently, it's been like really super high workouts, but I found that like, right after my workout, I know it's like, if I can pay attention to know like, it's pretty, pretty tiring. I can take like 800 milligrams of ibuprofen and it will, it will like avoid it. Like I might get a headache, but it's, it's nothing more than just kind of annoying.
Teresa Roberson
That's amazing because you and I have known each other I want to say about 10 years or so and we met playing capoeira. We're part of the same capoeira group. I actually still feel that I'm still part of Capoeira Evoluçao.
Elizabeth
I've seen you in like videos and some pictures with Negro, right? You go train with them occasionally?
Teresa Roberson
Right. Because Negro, one of our instructors, he started a conditioning class and you and I actually took that one class together when you were visiting. Was it last year? It must have been last year.
Elizabeth
It was last May.
Teresa Roberson
Yeah. But I never knew that whole time. That if you played too hard, or whatever that. would trigger…
Elizabeth
I haven't, I've only gotten a few from capoeira. Like it's been very, very few. But yeah, occasionally it will happen. So, but yeah, so as soon as I can, like get to the store, like I have been limiting myself like in the past three weeks, I've only been out three times. You know, I was going to the grocery store each time so like, but like…
Teresa Roberson
That's one of the smart reasons to brave being around other people during this pandemic. I mean, it makes no sense to stay home and starve to death.
Elizabeth
Yeah. That's true. Yeah, so like I got a bunch of food and like I really don't need much. It's like when I have like enough of probably like at this point like three weeks, but like I go to get like, like the cheeses and like the produce and like all you know, fresh ingredients, stockpile fresh ingredients.
Teresa Roberson
So, in the States, we always hoard the things to make French toast: eggs, bread, and milk. And then for this pandemic, for some inexplicable reason, it was also toilet paper.
Elizabeth
It's weird.
Teresa Roberson
Were Mexicans also hoarding certain things?
Elizabeth
I saw, I noticed that we like, I have never seen the stores empty here. Like so then every week. Like I went to the ramp up, like there's a ramp up like the week before, so I think it was like right when the States was getting hit. We hadn't got hit really yet. Like we're still like either under testing or under reporting or maybe we just don't have a lot of cases. But like right when you guys were getting hit, that's when like, some people were getting like paranoid. They're panicking. So,I went to, I did go to, ended up going to Sam's that weekend, which was horrible experience, but like, I'm like I never, Sam's was still had everything. The grocery stores still had everything. There were some people buying a lot of stuff at Sam's obviously, but like the things at the grocery store, I noticed that were out. We end up being out of bananas.
Teresa Roberson
Bananas?
Elizabeth
Bananas, you know, like, all right, we were outta bananas. We were out of all the masa to make tortillas, which makes sense to me.
Teresa Roberson
Okay, that does. That's a staple.
Elizabeth
Yeah, we were out of all the flour, which I'm assuming people are making flour tortillas. Um, the cereals, like we had, we still had cereal, but I could tell the cereal aisle was hit. The pasta was almost completely gone. Like when I got there. It was only the imported expensive box that was left. Like everything else had been cleared out. No pasta sauce, like zero pasta sauce, which was like a little surprising to me. And there were no tostadas left. There were no tortillas left. You know the stereotypical, like Mexican, you know, stuff. Yeah, that was what we were out of. But like even still there was all, there's still traces of each one of those you know except for the, the tortilla masa and the flour like that was gone, but everything else there was like, even if it was picked over, there was still food and like when I went back next week, like it stopped. So, I think ah, but we are out of things everywhere like no masks, no alcohol, like rubbing alcohol, no hand gel, no bleach, or we have bleach, but you don't have like the Clorox wipes or the Lysol and that's like, long gone so. Luckily,one of my friends like he, he's from Holland, and he's kind of like a paranoid guy anyways. And he saw it like happening, I guess hitting Europe first. And he ended up buying like a case of masks and a case of like rubbing alcohol and hand gel and he like gave some to like all of his friends. So, that was really cool. So…
Teresa Roberson
Oh, that was sweet.
Elizabeth
Yeah, he gave me like an N95 mask, which was nice and he's up to the grocery store and he gave me like a little thing of hand gel and a little thing of alcohol, so I could like create more hand gel. Like he sent me recipes.
Teresa Roberson
Speaking of creation. Another reason you and I have been friends for a decade is that we're both artists and creative and I remember before you moved to Mexico, you gifted me, I think two bags of wonderful stuff costumes, a blend of costume fabric and just everything to make costuming, which I absolutely love. Are you looking at ways to make your own masks?
Elizabeth
You know, I've thought about it. I've looked at a couple of different designs. Like since I have my own, I haven't really done it, but I think I might do it this weekend because like, for example, like I still occasionally ride my bike or going out just because I, I'm really horrible about staying home and I'm trying to stay away from people, but like, I don't want to ride my bike with like, the really, N95 masks. I want to save that the grocery store. So, like I think that if I don't use a bandana, then I'll probably end up making my own mask. Like, I live in a private neighborhood right now. And there's like, there's a park in front of my house like a basketball court, tennis court. And I saw the saddest thing yesterday, I saw a little girl. She was like four, and she was riding down like riding her tricycle with like a mask on. And I was like, like, like, the saddest thing to see. Like I understand like, I'm grateful for parents for caring about the basics, you know, it was like…
Teresa Roberson
I think with your show, sewing skills, you have your sewing machine with you, right?
Elizabeth
Yeah, I brought my sewing machine with me.
Teresa Roberson
I was gonna say you could whip up some really cute masks.
Elizabeth
Yeah, I probably could. I I don't have any like fabrics, but I could just have enough clothing that I could rip apart and like mix them.
Teresa Roberson
Especially the cotton clothing.
Elizabeth
Yeah the cotton clothing. I have a ton of cotton clothing that like if you're at the beach and like hot weather just like you go through your clothes so fast you know you're wearing them. So, that then I was also looking like different people are buying like like the vacuum filters and then you can combine that with fabric you know to make a durable more like mask that filters a little bit better and then also saw people that were making masks go like cotton mask that go over like your surgical mask. So that way you can like protected a little bit hopefully like it lasts a little bit longer. What about yourself, did you create any of your own? Did you make any?
Teresa Roberson
You know what? I thought about it, but I'm I just tried to be really good about not touching my face as soon as I walk as soon as I get in the house, I go straight to my bathroom sink and wash my hands and I asked my roommate to do the same. It's like don't touch anything, just make a beeline because we have our separate bathrooms. This is like wash your hands in your bathroom. Don't use the kitchen sink. And I was gonna ask you, now we say stay six feet apart. Now Mexico use metrics. So that's about two meters.
Elizabeth
They say meter and a half.
Teresa Roberson
Meter and a half. That's what I was trying to figure out is like that's about two meters.
Elizabeth
Like two meters would be like six feet, seven inches, whatever. They say meter and a half. But like, so Mexico is more of a culture who would wear a mask regardless. Like cause they had H1N1. We had swine flu pretty, pretty hard in 2008. And a couple of different things. So, like, like you'll see a lot of people wearing masks at the store. I went I had to go actually make it yesterday, yesterday by the bank. Ended up not going to the bank because there was a line of like, 30 people.
Teresa Roberson
Oh wow.
Elizabeth
Yeah, I was like, I don't know what's happening but I'm not going to the bank. I don't need it that bad. I did the wire transfer and stuff, but I ate that $40 wire transfer feels like, ah it's not worth it.
Teresa Roberson
Well here we can't physically go inside a bank. We have to go to the drive thru.
Elizabeth
Okay, yeah, see we don't have drive throughs at least where I live. Like this was people like they think they were trying to use the ATM. A lot of people I think get paid in cash or like check and they deposit it through the ATM. So, and since it was like the 2nd, or you know, I think people trying to make deposits to their accounts, but like they were like, lined up around the building. I guess my point was to that is like I would say about a third of them were wearing the masks, you know, and if you go to the store use about a third of the people in the grocery store using. I mean, they're not obviously not a lot of people don't have like the N95 masks or whatever. But you'll see people with like just a wide variety of like, whatever.
Teresa Roberson
Okay, let me ask you this: are restaurants allowing people to eat inside them?
Elizabeth
No, I don't think so. Like everything's pretty much closed. Like last week, I did a bike ride. Ended up going down the street that has not much on it. And I saw, I was shocked that they had a restaurant open. But everybody was sitting outside on the patio like because here like most restaurants have outdoor seating. So that one they did have outdoor seating. So, I was just pretty shocked that they were even open because I thought that all non-essentials was supposed to close already. Um…
Teresa Roberson
For us it's just to go or take out.
Elizabeth
They have a delivery service that we've used a couple of times that they'll pick up pretty much everywhere, but I know that some of the restaurants like that we call to order from like they didn't eat, they weren't available for like delivery. So,I think most everything's closed. I was told I think it's only that the beaches officially closed. And they had military on the beach so that you run everybody off.
Teresa Roberson
Wow, to enforce it.
Elizabeth
Like people are people just like, the problem about Mexico is like, I don't have this problem, but like, there's the attitude always of like, "Oh, don't worry, everything's gonna be okay." Like, and that's great. That's great. But like, and this sort of scenario is really potentially very dangerous, right, and like, harmful to other people. So, there's a lot of people like, "Oh, don't worry, it's okay." So, people are like, "Oh, it's not even that dangerous, because more people die from flu and diabetes." But like, when you try to explain to them, they're like, yeah, but this is like, much more contagious. And then like, you don't have to have like something to be contagious. And then like, it's not overwhelming, like the hospital. Yeah. But like, it's hard to explain all this stuff in like, a couple sentences. Like, the explanation is very long, and people don't want to listen. So, it's like, there's those people or there's a lot of people who don't even believe it's real. Like, and that's like, really…
Teresa Roberson
Wow.
Elizabeth
A lot of people like don't think it's real. And if you read anything about the articles about the President, I can send you onethat a friend sent me. The Health Minister got on last week, he's like, "Don't go anywhere for 30 days." You know the President like, honestly, you know, he was like still like going on tours and like kissing babies. He, he kissed like gave a saludos de besos to the mother of El Chapo like the famous drug kingpin or narco. He kisses 91-year-old mother on the cheek last week.
Teresa Roberson
Oh, my goodness.
Elizabeth
Like, what are you doing? Like, why would you even do that? If anything happened to his mother, like, you're gone and aside from that, like, being the mother of a like the most famous narco of our times. Like, don't you, shouldn't get close to anybody that old. And then you'll see videos with like, touching and hugging kids. And people offered him hand sanitizer. He's like, "No, I don't want any." He's like standing like, shoulder to shoulder with people.
Teresa Roberson
Wow.
Elizabeth
And like when the United States was starting to like, restrict borders and do different stuff, he was like, oh, people are worried about hugging and should hug people. You should live your normal life, but keep consuming and keep going out.
Teresa Roberson
Oh, yeah, because he's thinking about the economy and business people.
Elizabeth
I think, I well, I don't know what the statistics are in the States, but I've only known Mexico's. I've seen it recently. They said that over 70 million people make their living, they depend on the day to day living through work. So, like 70 million people have to work each day to eat that day. And so, it was that population everybody's really worried about because they have no resources otherwise, right, like they have so it's like, they don't have any resources. And like, there's not, to my knowledge, I don't know. I don't really know anything about homeless shelters or like food banks here. Like I don't think it's like so much of a thing. You know, I'm not saying that doesn't exist. I just don't know.
Teresa Roberson
Right, right, because you work from home.
Elizabeth
I work from home. Yeah.
Teresa Roberson
You don't really have to go out and about and…
Elizabeth
No, I don't have to go out and about.
Teresa Roberson
You have local counterparts? Are all your coworkers in the States or…
Elizabeth
I have coworkers in the States and Canada and then Europe as well. So those are the ones I work with mostly. We have some across Asia, but I don't I don't work with anybody from Asia directly. We, I have one of my coworkers that I talked to in a daily basis. He's in Spain, you know, so he, he's been doing, he's been a quarantine with his family for a long time now. And then I have a couple of coworkers in the UK and they're telling me kind of what's going on over there, you know. And then we do have an office in Verona, Italy, and some of our developers are there. We serve, what a company does is occasionally we'll find companies and we will purchase them and then we retain their their employees as part of us.
Teresa Roberson
Okay.
Elizabeth
So, so we that's how we got the Canadian offices and got the Verona office. That we’ll buy these companies and keep people.
Teresa Roberson
This pandemic has affected work?
Elizabeth
No.
Teresa Roberson
The work itself?
Elizabeth
Not really. Like it's, it's like I feel bad about it, but like we had, like one of the strongest like endings of our first quarter, like ever, you know. And then like the second quarter is actually looking pretty good for us and like, I'm like super busy right now. Like, I know that so I, I helped design software that does data management. So specifically, it helps like, organize large corporations or companies’ data. So, they can like normalize it and they and they can understand what the business users and like understand what it is. And then they can like feed it to dashboards and charting and stuff. And like one interesting thing I was told, that I was proud about, is that we, like I'm not going to say the name, but we recently sold like a software licensing like a very good deal to a large research hospital. Part of their initiative is to, to use it to like define and normalize all the data they have surrounding COVID-19. And then feed that to dashboards, so they can see trending. And it's trending for like, so there are research and like facility that treats people. So, they're going to use it to clean up the data and push the dashboards to see like, when they need to order more supplies and like where the weak points are, and like what they're using and see the trends and stuff. And then they also can, like, start graphing, like all the data.
Teresa Roberson
So, to inform logistics is what you're…
Elizabeth
Yeah, so it's like, so it's for their internal purposes. So, they understand like how to like better order supplies and like predict when they're gonna run out of what. And then it's also to like start charting the data they're finding from their patients and kind of understanding a little bit more about the disease and how they can treat it.
Teresa Roberson
So that's interesting, because what I, my initial thought, when I asked that question was, "Oh, this has has this triggered a migraine, but you're coping very well.
Elizabeth
Actually really, like…
Teresa Roberson
Professionally.
Elizabeth
Yeah, professionally, it's like the best part of my life right now.
Teresa Roberson
Cause you're on the front lines. Well, that makes me feel happy to know I have a good friend who's on the front lines of helping provide a solution.
Elizabeth
I feel good like, at least I'm contributing to something, you know, and like, I swear, if I didn't have like my work to keep me busy, I'd be losing my mind. Because like, if I'm not working, I'm like, out of the house 90% of the time. Either I'm at the beach or diving or working out or downtown or with friends or doing something, but now it's just like, at the house all the time. It's very, very lonely, right? It's very isolated. Like, luckily I talk to you and I talk to my friends and like, you know, we have different interactions, but it's just like super hard, you know, to be alone. So, it's just like, I guess like, it's like, it's like all the the memes and stuff are going around like the extroverts versus introverts and like, everybody's coping, you know?
Teresa Roberson
That's awesome. Well, Elizabeth, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy day to talk to me.
Elizabeth
My pleasure always.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai