Saturday, 25 April 2020. 8.30 a.m. 2,071 second-year students high school diploma students went to entrance examination to take one of the university's Degrees courses. Just 24 hours earlier, Mirta Vera, an employee at the Admissions Office service, was nervous and anxious that the whole system that had been set up for the online exams would work correctly. It was the first time it had been done and it had to go well. They only had that one chance. "It was a challenge. I smile now when I talk about it but I remember the meetings with IT and with Reyes, the General Manager, in which we laughed as much as we cried. It was a question of setting up a system from scratch, which also required very specific technical and security conditions. Mirta does not want to pass up the opportunity to thank IT Services for all of their hard work and support at work . "They went all out for us. In addition to the entire platform, they set up a chat so that we could communicate with the candidates in case there were any problems during the test. From those days I take away the work as a team and the effort of everyone. The camaraderie. Also nerves and sleepless hours. At home we did our 'family preview': my daughters connected from different devices to check that everything was going well.
On the day of the exam, the entire Admissions Office team worked in person at the university. "When we saw that the morning tests went smoothly, we were more relaxed to face the Medicine pre-exam, scheduled for the afternoon. It was a day of intense work and also a day of reunion among classmates after a month and a half of confinement. At eight o'clock in the evening, we all said goodbye again, with sorrow. We were returning to confinement in our homes.
Mirta remembers those weeks with affection and the joy of being with the whole family, her husband and three daughters. "Every day it was up to each of us to choose a film: we watched everything from Frozen to Gone with the Wind. We tried to stay active. We did the whole subject of videos and signed up for various challenges. Through video calls, house parties, etc, we were very close and on contact with the rest of the family. There were also 'fights' to get the wifi bandwidth, especially when there was an exam".
Mirta tells of that feeling of not giving credit to what was going on. "My husband was the only one who left the house to do the shopping at home and at my parents' house. And, as if we lived in a bubble, when he came back, my daughters and I would ask him what he had seen, if he had met anyone, what was going on 'outside'".

Ten days after arriving at her home in Vigo as soon as the first state of emergency was declared in Spain, Raquel García received a call proposing that she go to Clínica Universidad de Navarra in Madrid to alleviate the collapse caused by the outbreak of the pandemic. She was in her final year of nursing and accepted without even consulting her mother. If I can go and help," she said to herself, "I don't know what I'm doing at home doing nothing. That's what I studied nursing for. Her mother was very afraid, but she didn't tell her, because she was also proud of her daughter.
The Madrid clinic has a capacity for 30 patients, but at that time there were 60, all of them suffering from covid. Raquel and three other friends of hers, budding nurses, moved into a hotel and every day they put on their PIDs to attend to the infected, some of them critically ill. Some days I would arrive at the hotel reception desk," says Raquel, "and I would say, 'I can't.' And I would cry and think, 'What a shame. And I would cry and think: 'How hard it is that there are patients going through these moments alone, some of them dying, and to see that I can't do more, that I can't do everything! agreement On the first day of work, back in her room, she also thought: "How awful, I don't even know the names of the patients". And that made me suffer a lot," he adds, "because it gave me the feeling that I wasn't doing my workjob properly".
He immediately realised position how important his presence was for the patients. "They are alone and the only people they see are their roommates and us, and they see our eyes, that's all! One foreign patient, very disoriented, held her hand and kissed the latex glove, grateful. Another drew pictures of her. A third, an oncology patient who "didn't die because God didn't want him to", asked her to sit down and talk to him: he wanted to know who was looking after him. I was impressed," she says, "because he was almost more concerned about getting to know me than I was about getting to know him.
Madrid was a turning point for Raquel. For her relationship with her friends, which became unexpectedly closer; for her professional training ー "it helped me a lot to grow, to learn, to trust myself... It was, as it were, that last month of internships that I didn't have "ー; and, above all, for her life staff. "Whether you like it or not, being so close to death, to suffering, has an impact on you, it makes you think about your life and your fate". She would undoubtedly do it again. Nor does she hesitate when she says that she now values much more the presence of her family and friends and the joy of being able to take a walk by the sea.

Rafa de Miguel de los Pinos, a 40-year-old from Pamplona, married and father of two children aged 6 and 9, points out three major challenges that confinement put in his way.
First of all: the University's activity could not stop. Although IT started preparing applications days before, it was that weekend of March 13 when the system had to be ready so that all University employees could telework from home and teaching would continue remotely.
"Those were days of intense work and a lot of tension. There was an avalanche of requests and everyone needed theirs by now. There are 36 of us on the IT team and we gave our all to channel the avalanche of requests. They were immediate needs that we tried to manage quickly and delicately but above all with great caution because we could not in any way lose security at the University and expose ourselves to a computer attack," recalls Rafa.
And that's when the VPN came into our lives: a secure connection from campus to our homes, which proved vital for many services working with data or critical applications.
"The conference s were getting longer. You had to take care of the kids at home, too, and you took the opportunity to work once they were already in bed. The truth is that I was surprised by my children's reaction. They adapted immediately to the status. Both my wife and I were able to telework at home and split the time to be with them," he says.
The second challenge: on April 25, we had to set up the entire device so that the entrance examination for Degree would be online. "We had never faced a status like this before. We set up a system in record time, from scratch, and it had to go well that day. We worked side by side with Admission and, in addition to the device for taking the exam, we set up an entire chat support channel to communicate and resolve technical issues and doubts with the candidates. The experience was useful for the May exams.
And the third challenge. After the end of the course, it was time to think about what the next one would be like: face-to-face, online, hybrid teaching ? The third option was chosen. A decision that required an economic investment and the coordinated work of several Departments. "We had to equip the 230 classrooms and other spaces so that classes could be face-to-face but also remote. It was a risky bet, a very important investment in software licenses and audiovisual equipment, but we got it right. We left Closed with enough foresight and thank goodness, because in May the stocks in the markets were exhausted: there were no microphones, laptops, webcams, etc., that had a minimum quality by then," says Rafa.
"At the technological level, the confinement managed to implement in a few weeks what a year ago would have taken us years. It also allowed the University's services and Departments to work in a fully coordinated way. IT, Events, Works and Maintenance, management of Spaces, Quality and Innovation, Risk Prevention, etc., we are no longer Departments separated to form a solid team to move forward in this status", he concludes.  

The start of the confinement coincided with the closing of one of the most important calls for industrial projects for Ceit. "We didn't even have time to breathe and we found ourselves with all the groups reorganising for teleworking", recalls Jose M. Rodríguez-Ibabe. In addition, it is important to bear in mind the great weight that the activity of laboratory has in the case of this research center, which was initially at a minimum. "There were moments and weeks of great uncertainty", stresses its executive president. They also did not know how their industrial partners would react and whether, as a result of the new status, some projects would be left at Fail. Nevertheless, José María says that the best thing was to observe how the entire staff of Ceit reacted "exceptionally" on a day-to-day basis.
With great effort, many people managed to combine family situations (caring for children and the elderly) with the progress of the projects without any delays in their execution, and all this while maintaining contact with the partners. "In short, I have to admit that even if it had not been planned in advance, it would not have worked out so well". In recent months, the relationship with clients and project partners has changed radically. "It is true that sometimes we have lost the freshness and the opportunity of direct contacts, but I think that part of this experience of meetings via Teams or Zoom is here to stay".
At staff, he acknowledges that the first few weeks were hard and complicated, "because of the uncertainties that we couldn't estimate how they would affect us". Then, as the days went by and Ceit took on an almost normal pulse, "the satisfaction and pride of belonging to this house more than compensated for everything that had gone before. I sincerely believe that as a centre we have come out of this statusstronger". And finally, what affects him most are all the restrictions that we have not been able to overcome in order to get together with the whole family. "Quite a few celebrations and family customs are falling by the wayside, and here Skype financial aid does very little to overcome these barriers", concludes Jose M. Rodriguez-Ibabe with resignation.

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"The colour green, more hope than ever".

"Those months of confinement were pure adrenaline. None of us knew what we were facing, what it was like and how long it was going to last," says Ana Belén Rodríguez Mourille, a doctor and part of the Service team at Health & Safety Office. Ana Belén, 47 years old, married and mother of three children aged 14, 13 and 7, was in charge of registering and monitoring all the colleagues at the Pamplona Clinic who fell ill. Dr. Arancha Gil did the same at the Madrid headquarters. On her desk, Ana Belén remembers an Excel sheet full of tables with the names of professionals who had been infected or who were close contacts, entire families who had to be isolated in their homes, separating the healthy from the sick and assessing, above all, how to protect the most vulnerable, the elderly or those with pathologies. "I even drew plans of my colleagues' houses to see how we could proceed to isolate the healthy people from the infected: the rooms they had, the bathrooms... It was very hard, because you get to know all these people, you put a face to them. The only one contact with the sanitary was us". The area medical service at Health & Safety Office monitored the diagnosed cases on a daily basis, assessed their condition and determined the need to go to the emergency room in the event of a worsening. "We left status with the information we had available at the time. I looked daily at the information that arrived from the Ministry but the protocols were constantly changing, but we got out," he recalls. The colour phosphorescent green took on a very special meaning during those months of confinement that continues today. "It's an ugly green, I don't know why we chose that one, maybe it was because of green hope", Ana explains. The people who had been discharged from the hospital and had overcome their illness were reflected in green on those excellency tables. "She would arrive every morning in high spirits. Today we are going to go green a lot, she would say. Sometimes you succeeded, but there were days when, far from discharging people, you had yet another line of people with covid," she says. Ana lived those days of confinement "confined" to the clinic. "My husband often travels, but during those weeks he was teleworking at home, and thanks to that, my children were cared for because for us the priority status was at the Clinic. "I just remember printing out and download their weekly homework guides, knowing that they were connected online with the high school keeping their class rhythms as normal. I didn't really realise how much they had done and what I had missed until well into May. They never reproached me for anything. I am infinitely grateful," she says. Ana Rodríguez did not have to worry about covid cases in her family environment. "The harshness of the disease did not touch me in a close way. In that sense, I was calm. 

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Jaime Paredes was in his fourth year of Architecture when the pandemic broke out. Ecuadorian, he decided to stay in Pamplona in March 2020 and in the end could not see his family until Christmas: in total, one year. That year he was the student sub-delegate at the University alongside Rafael Pérez Araluce, the delegate. When the University suspended his class activity, Jaime was in charge of two things: that the teaching should continue its course and that no one should feel alone. He did the former as a delegate, and the latter more as a necessity.
Although it wasn't our responsibility, nor was it ever our responsibility," he explains, "keeping an eye on our colleagues became something that mattered to us: to see if they felt alone, who was here and who wasn't? There were those who had no one! He was especially concerned with the first-year students, who had not yet acquired the habits of university students and status was too extraordinary for each one of them to manage on their own.
The hardest thing for him was the uncertainty of what would happen and when he would be able to see his family again. He was also struck, at the beginning of his confinement, by the story of a student who was infected and in whose family two people died. That was when he realised that this was serious and he set out to do his best to make things as good as possible for his companions.

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"The year we laughed the most, the year we cried the most".

On 31 December 2020, Teresa Grandal asked her six children, aged between 3 and 14, what they had enjoyed most about the year that was about to end. And, to her surprise, they answered "the confinement". "When there started to be a lot of news about coronavirus on TV, one of them said to me in fear that dad and I would die if we caught the coronavirus. In this sense, I think that for them the confinement meant safety: if we were all at home, nothing bad could happen to us," she says.
Teresa began the confinement with anxiety: days before, she had confirmed that she was contact close to a positive case and had to be isolated in her house for fifteen days, watching her children through a glass window. In the same period of time, one of her sisters, a doctor in Madrid, was also infected and the only support she could give her was by telephone. "My husband had a few tenths of a fever those days and I have a son who has asthma. From the department de Salud they came to do a PCR test at our house. We were all negative, thank God.
Teresa recalls that those were weeks in which fear was palpable. "I didn't go out for 50 days. It was my husband who went shopping and when he came back we disinfected everything. After these moments, Teresa remembers a "very lively" confinement in her house: in addition to the conference of work intense, the eight of them spent time together. "The living room became a multi-purpose space: we went to mass in the living room, played sports, watched a series or two. Besides, I am lucky that my husband is a teacher at high school and he took full responsibility for the children's homework".
Teresa Grandal has been the programs of study coordinator for School Nursing since September 2019. Humanist of training, she previously worked at the department of bibliometrics of the Library Services. "Nursing is the science of caring for the person, I think there is a good match with a humanist like me," she says. After a year of pandemic, the pairing has turned into absolute admiration. "At School we have experienced the pandemic on the front line. It has been the year I have cried and laughed the most in my life. I have met teachers who left everything and went to work in the ICU; students who volunteered to disinfect ambulances, to sew masks. We were asked for nurses to go to old people's homes and we received beautiful letters in which the sick people admired the fact that students of 20 years old looked after them with such humanity and professionalism. The students were not afraid, I think they thought it was the right thing to do. They didn't experience the beginning of the pandemic like a person on the street.
Teresa recalls that the first alerts were raised when, a couple of weeks before the confinement, the students were forbidden to continue doing internships in health centres and residences. As coordinator of programs of study, she was going to be in charge of looking after the students and being their link with the teachers and with School. "It was a team effort, for the whole School. We tried to be very involved with the students, especially with the fourth year students. It's a generation that deserves a lot". She recalls the webinar they organised for them with the singer from group La Habitación Roja, on the occasion of World Nursing Day, on 12 May, the day they were to be given their uniforms and take the nursing oath; or the video she herself recorded with Ana Choperena to encourage them for the exams. "My main concern was that they should feel that we are there". 

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"I never thought we would experience a status like this. I thought it was the media that magnified the news about the coronavirus. Until that Friday, when it became clear that confinement was imminent, I took stock of all the materials I was going to need to be able to work from home. Above all, I was worried that I wouldn't lack anything to be able to prepare the classes", says Carolina Ugarte, professor of management and Organization of Educational Centers, Professional Competences and Orientation partner-professional of the School of Education and Psychology.
Carolina points out that for her, and for all teachers in general, the confinement came at a time of intense work , in the middle of the second semester. "I had an entire subject left to teach. As the weeks progressed, I realized that I had forgotten material I needed for classes. The University was open at very specific times, my husband worked every morning and I, with my five children, couldn't move from home." She managed to get to her office and pick up what she needed. Then she breathed a sigh of relief, but the hard part came next: teaching the online classes. "In my house, with children still very young, locking myself in a room to teach the online classes was impossible. So I dedicated myself to preparing all the material and using ADI as the main support, as well as maintaining contact by email. However, I didn't want to lose contact with my students, to be able to listen to them, solve doubts, etc. I decided to organize a seminar by zoom to solve this issue. It was 45 minutes locked in a room, with my husband 'policing' the door with some furniture so that the children couldn't interrupt," she recalls. She bought a computer and was grateful to have a good network wifi at home. "Those were very intense weeks. I was able to telework in the afternoons, when my husband was at home and doing permanent containment work."
Carolina does not want to keep only those moments of tension and stress. She admits that during her confinement she experienced some really nice moments with her family: preparing pancakes with one of her daughters for a snack, taking advantage of the time she spent with her eldest son to tidy up the garden, having breakfast together, enjoying a portable swimming pool during the first days of heat. At final, living together.
During those first weeks, she also had to experience the illness of close relatives. "My in-laws live in Malaga and both were infected in the same month of March. They were hospitalized, but thank God they got over the disease. Every day we called my sister-in-law to give us the report. We could not go to see them, but she almost had a harder time because, being in Malaga, she could not see her parents either. If there is one thing I take away from these months of confinement, it is the value of family and friends, of what is important, which always remains, despite the distance".

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"Towards an uncertain working future".

At first, confinement seemed like a good idea. He was in the last year of his double Degree in Philology Hispanic and Journalism, he had exams, papers and two TFGs pending. "It's almost better to be left at home for two weeks", he said to himself. It seemed like a relief for him to be able to work better. So, academically, he took advantage of the time he spent locked up to work and fill in his programs of study and was not fully aware of the seriousness of what was happening, until one day he realised that it was forbidden to leave the house and he began to see the dark side of status.
For this very reason, as soon as he finished the course he entered a phase of very intense stress because he had to look for his first employment and all the selection processes in which he was participating went down the drain due to the pandemic. She panicked and assumed she would spend the whole year in the village. But during the summer, the opportunity to work in Tantaka opened up, so she jumped at it. Since September she has been working at the University's solidarity time bank, and there she realised what a wave of solidarity such a difficult moment in our history had awakened.  

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"A portable blackboard in the bedroom".

Juana Fernández Rodríguez, 39 years old, married, mother of two daughters aged four and one and a half years, is a teacher at School of Sciences, in the Degrees at Chemistry and Environmental Sciences. "We are ready for change". This is one of the conclusions she draws after a year of pandemic.
"The first thing I thought when classes were suspended is: I have to adapt now. My goal was that my students wouldn't lose an hour of time and motivation". Faced with status uncertainty, Juana contacted the Quality and Innovation service and on Friday, with the classrooms closed, she taught her first session by meet with a portable whiteboard from laboratory. Two days later, she directly installed a similar board on the wall of her bedroom at home. "With a baby and a three-year-old, the bedroom was the quietest room in the house," she says. "My daughters adapted and understood: when mum closed the door, she was 'with her children' class and couldn't be disturbed. However, they were not used to seeing me working from home for so many hours at a time and when I sat at the computer they would make twenty trips demanding my attention".
Juana Fernández moved the classroom to her home and she could explain the development of a problem or a theoretical concept to her students or do handicrafts with cotton wool with her little ones.
Above all, she values the "spectacular and understanding reaction" of all her students. "Not a single one missed class and it was nice to see where they were studying. Some introduced their pets and they met my daughters. We share closeness, beyond the classes". In general, she believes that "it gave the students confidence to see the teacher live several times a week during that time of insecurity". Uncertainty came at exam time, she recalls. "You want to be fair and not being invigilated creates a bit of uncertainty. But the exam was creative, based on your own ideas, based on the subjects taught, and it worked quite well. Juana acknowledges that, in general, people are tired. "We are better than last year, but we still have a long way to go to get back to normality.