#lmao tumblr strikes again with the bad photo quality

[cammadolph]

some phantom thieves of hearts (click for better quality!)

[hollyand-writes]

Quarantine Q&A

I was tagged by the lovely @gremlinquisitor ❤️ Sorry it took me so long to get round to doing this!

Tagging: anyone who feels up to it -- like Erin said in her own post, take care of yourself first, and if you don’t feel like you can talk about this, then please don’t try to force it. ❤️

Are you staying home from work or school?

My husband and I have both been working from home since mid-March. I was already pretty much working from home before that anyway (been doing it for about a decade), so I was used to it and therefore don’t feel my life has changed dramatically. We’re really lucky that our jobs can be done 100% from home -- March and April were really busy months for both of us work-wise, so I think that helped us both cope and feel useful. 

In a weird way, lockdown didn’t/doesn’t upset or stress me out? I think it’s because I had a head start on worrying about the pandemic back in January: I have family in China/HK/SE Asia and I was really, really worried about them for a bit. I follow a few Chinese-language social media accounts of people based in China / East Asia and what was coming out of there was really, really bad -- sometimes worse than what was being reported in Western media -- and people over there were so angry and terrified for months before anyone in the West started worrying about it, I think. 

So, by the time the pandemic hit the UK and lockdown was announced, I think I was just relieved that finally there was something I could “do” about what was going on in the world, if that made sense??? I’d been reading these first-hand anonymous accounts “on the ground” in Chinese for two months by that point, so I felt like I kind of knew what to expect physically and emotionally. (My family and family-friends out there are all fine as far as I know, btw.)

If you’re staying home, who’s with you?

My husband. 9 weeks into lockdown and we’re still very much enjoying having each other around! He misses his colleagues, but he doesn’t miss his commute. We have the odd Zoom party and catch up with his family on FaceTime (it’s weird how it took a pandemic for us to think of video-calling them instead of phoning them), but yeah, he’s been great lockdown company and I love having him home! I don’t want him to go back to work LMAO! 

We work in the same room, but tend to be very good at focusing on our work during the work day, so we don’t really distract each other and give each other space when needed (mentally rather than physically, though; we live in a tiny flat with only like 3 rooms so it’s hard to give each other physical space). We play endless games of Civ6 against the other during breaks from work.

Are you a homebody?

Before 2020? No, not at all. But after lockdown started? I’ve been discovering the delights of just chilling at home with my husband, being busy and in-demand at work, writing, reading books, teaching myself Photoshop (working through an online course LMAO) and playing Civ. 

Also I’ve been really happy about all the money I’m saving from not going out and not buying anything apart from food and books LMAO! 

I’ve not really felt very talkative this year; and after lockdown started, that even extended to many of my real-life friends -- I’ve just felt happy staying at home and not talking to anyone except my husband, for some reason. (As an aside -- sorry to all of you on Tumblr and Discord for not chatting so much -- it’s not personal, it’s just whatever phase I’m going through, both IRL and online!) I’m not depressed or anything, I don’t think -- just happy doing my own thing for a bit.

An event that you were looking forward to that got cancelled.

The one that I was most gutted about was the Euro 2020 football tournament (soccer to you Americans of course) -- I had tickets to go to the final in July. But the organisers said they’ll hold the tournament next year and tickets will be valid, so I don’t feel so bad about it now. 

I miss the gym the most, I think. Everything else has kind of sorted itself out (even cancelled events), but the gym / working-out thing hasn’t. I started doing some home workouts with resistance bands at first, but I’ve fallen out of the habit of that somewhat -- it’s just not the same as having an actual barbell in your hands.

I was also meant to go on holiday to Greece with friends (12 of us) but that’s been cancelled. Funnily enough, when lockdown was announced in the UK I was secretly relieved, because I had a lot of social events lined up and my social life had been so busy up to that point that I was starting to get rather overwhelmed with it all. Turns out I’m an extrovert with a strong introvert streak.

What movies have you watched recently? What shows are you watching?

Hmmmm.... not really so much movies, I think. Aside from Frozen 2 (again). We’re currently working our way more through the 1994 BBC TV series of the classic novel Middlemarch (because I’ve been reading it), but we tend to play Civ, or read, or bake/cook, rather than watch TV.

What music are you listening to?

Gosh, loads, haha! The Frozen 2 soundtrack. Ibiza clubland tunes (to remind me of good times, LOL). Listened to old Eurovision tracks over the weekend (to get me in the spirit, even if Eurovision 2020 was cancelled). Attended virtual concerts that my friends in music bands have been holding. Pretty much everything you can imagine, whenever the mood strikes. Today I was listening to Suede’s Singles.

What are you reading?

Right now I’m reading “Middlemarch” by George Eliot; I’ve been getting through lots of books since February, both fiction and non-fiction.

That said, I’ve not really felt like reading fanfic much -- stopped reading Dragon Age fanfiction in December or January (and completely fell out of the fandom for a while, too) so I’m really behind on every longfic I was following. I’m only just starting to catch up on it all, in May, although I don’t see myself being in fandom/online that much. I’ll get to all your fics eventually! I’m just slow 😄

What are you doing for self-care?

Lots of things, and I think they’re helping because I’ve been coping OK so far (sorry this list is so long!): 

Staying offline -- especially off Tumblr and Discord and Twitter -- more often, which has really helped me get work done (sorry I’ve not been around much, though) and finally getting around to doing all those projects I didn’t have time to do / wasn’t home often enough to do is helping, especially when I can see progress being made 

Weekly therapy sessions -- started these last year when my brother got very seriously ill; the therapy sessions have now moved online via video-call rather than face-to-face and in-person, but I’m still keeping up with them through the pandemic. I haven’t felt like I need it, tbh, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to keep having therapy just in case...

Being grateful for how lucky I am -- I’m still alive and well for now, as are my loved ones, my husband and I are still in jobs / earning money, and things could be a lot worse; for example, at least I’m still able to go for walks in the park: my brother is officially a “vulnerable category” person who has to stay completely indoors and self-isolate for 12 weeks, even though he’s in remission; he can’t even go to the shops to get food

Working -- it’s been really nice sometimes to keep busy. The nature of my work means that unfortunately I can’t completely switch off from the news, so I tend to look at less of the bad and sad news and consume more the “how does the pandemic affect my specific specialism or field” news -- I find that limiting my news consumption is helping

Husband and I go for a walk in the park in the sunshine once a day (it’s been warm and sunny in London ever since lockdown started in March) for like 45 minutes a day. We have a really lovely park and I’ve taken lots of nice nature photos, and have discovered parts of the park and our neighbourhood that we didn’t know before, which has been very exciting 😁

We’ve been cooking and baking a lot more because we’re not commuting, and we’ve got time to cook ourselves nicer / healthier meals, and experimenting with baking puddings and cakes.

Taking multivitamins and fish oil every day, with boosters for Vitamin D3 and magnesium -- I actually think the latter has helped me sleep better and helped with motivation this year, but who knows LOL

FaceTime with husband’s family -- I actually think this lockdown has improved the quality of our relationships there, and they’ve been really happy to chat to us more often than usual

Just... not pushing myself on anything: usually I’m a really chatty and sociable person, but this year I’ve been far less chatty and just not felt so sociable, and just enjoyed being away from people to read and write or whatever. My one and only goal in 2020 is to survive it -- literally, given that there’s a pandemic on, LOL. Anything else is a bonus.