Day Thirteen

Day Thirteen of Staying Inside 

   In normal day-to-day life, the little progress I have made since the last time I was here would not be considered as very important by myself. However, I'm takin the small victories. 

   Working from home has been an experience that I did not expect for the last few months of my job. It feels like it's been cruelly cut short and if I had known the end of face-to-face contact was on the way, I would have brought the end-of-semester classroom party forward (which is really just a "let's eat biscuits whilst we sort out your essays session). I hope that when all of this is over, I will still be employed at my current workplace and I can experience a tiny bit of normality there before I move on. I am very tired of grappling with Zoom, because my computer cannot handle 20+ moving images at once and gives up altogether (it used to be a fancy gaming computer but it's pretty old now). I am going to spend some of this week trying to fix it so that my colleagues have the pleasure of seeing my Mickey Mouse wallpaper. If they didn't already see me as a child pretending to be an adult, they will by the time the next staff meeting rolls around. 

   Aside from Work Things, which has the added pleasure of letting me explore Pop Culture for educational purposes, I've been watching Supernatural, clay-modelling, playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, crocheting a chunky cardigan and revisiting childhood books (let's not dive into the psychology of that). I am also exercising reguarly which is something I have never done. 

   I just finished the first season of Supernatural, and I truthfully didn't realise I was going to get so hooked on it. It helps that by "hooked" I mean that I also crochet my cardigan at the same time. It's become a hugely enjoyable combination of activities. Nothing to report on Supernatural yet except I'm enjoying it and that watching with the captions on sometimes makes it more amusing than intended. It is worth noting that the captions are normally at the bottom of the screen, but when I pause it, the pause menu pushes the captions up, which I only found more amusing. 

   I am not quite ready yet to share my clay-modelling updates, but I am taking progress pictures. I've decided to have a go at modelling Legoshi from a recent anime called Beastars. Watching it made me extremely uncomfortable at times, and I'm not entirely sure I'm actually okay with how some of the subject matter is portrayed, but I watched it quite eagerly nonetheless, so there's a reason I wanted to finish it I haven't put my finger on yet. It's definitely a much darker telling of the prey vs. predator story we see in Zootropolis, which is one of my favourite films. I don't believe that stories like this are just for the furry fandom, but I have noticed recoil from non-furry watchers of Beastars. It's an understandable reaction. 

   Animal Crossing: New Horizons is getting me through the endless monotony of the days by providing something different each day. We're not going to talk about the horrifying personification of Easter by the name of Zipper, but I am looking forward to the 13th of April when he goes away. The 13th of April brings other joys though. It is the supposed "end of lockdown" marker. I have doubts that this will truly be the end of the lockdown, but if it is, I will very gladly reunite with my partner. It is his birthday today and I'm devestated that I'm not there, but I ensured that I took many virtual gifts over to his Island in Animal Crossing, to get my appreciation across. 

   When I'm not digging up virtual fossils, creating a cardigan, or working, I am reading and exercising.

   I know the reading is working, because it's the first time in weeks I have felt like reading anything. I re-read Varjak Paw and The Outlaw Varjak Paw by S.F. Said. These were my absolute favourite books growing up (I must have found them when I was about eight years old) and it was a joy to revisit them. I'm hoping to pick up reading again, but it all just feels a bit too overwhelming at the moment, so I won't pile the pressure on myself.

   I know the exercise is working because my muscles hurt if I crochet a bit too vigorously (clearly a scientifcally accurate way of testing results).

   I know my anxiety is working because beneath the aching muscles, working hands, and scrolling of emails, I'm still churning away. All of this is very much an effort to block out the outside world. All of us in this house are too frightened to go outside, and we have all stayed on one side of the front door. I am very much hoping that by the time the lockdown lifts, I will have regained the courage to Go Outside.

Stay safe saplings x