Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large. 

What will I do

One thing to think about while we are all effectively locked inside our homes is what our lives will look like once we are no longer restricted to our residences. For sure, by that time the coronavirus situation will still be far form over, but at the very least, the many activities we are used to doing before the virus outbreak is going to be available to us again. The question is, then: will we go back to them enthusiastically?

Let’s say the local comedy club reopens: are you going to go? Will you risk being in a room with over a hundred strangers sharing the same air in a tightly packed space? What about concerts? Plays? Theatre? I personally won’t be patronizing those sort of entertainment venues anytime soon, even with the so-called social distancing protocols in affect. Is the inside of an airplane any safer with all of the middle seats unoccupied? It sure doesn’t appear to be.

The more intrepid of us will of course have no qualms about going back out to places and being amongst the crowd as soon as the authorities would allow it. It’s not because these type of people want to die, but rather they believe they are immune to the disease, that they’re healthy enough and well enough that COVID-19 would be ineffective towards them. It’s the same mental power that compels a solider to charge into battle: they seriously do not believe they will be the ones to die. These people know and understand the danger, but think themselves lucky they won’t catch the virus under any circumstances.

I definitely do not have that line of thinking; even after the shelter-in-place order is over, I’ll still be extra cautious about going outside and doing various activities. One thing I really do miss however is seeing my friends in person, and sharing a lovely meal at a restaurant. If there’s one thing I’m eagerly waiting to do again, it’s dining out with the people I care out.

We’ve got 2/3rds of a month to go, as of this writing. God speed.

Might I recommend some reading during this time of quarantine.

A month's extension

Well, it’s officially official now: the shelter-at-home order has been extended until the end of May for the Bay Area’s six counties. In a somewhat surprising move (to me anyways), we will have a third continuous month of quarantine action. If you’d ask me early in March when this all started that we’d be in for lockdown until the beginning of June, I probably would have said “no chance”.

It is surprising that we are in for another month of stay-at-home because San Francisco never really saw the major outbreak that occurred in New York City and in Italy. Undoubtedly due to our early efforts to stop mass gatherings of people and start working from home, coronavirus cases here never increased exponentially, and our area hospitals remain calm and at the ready. Due to these factor I thought the city government may see fit to loosen some of the proverbial strings and gradually dial back in some normalcy. Well, the answer is no; we have 30+ more days of the current status quo.

And I have to say I am quite used to the quarantine situation that we have now. The major change in working from home have turned into something normal, and my weekends are fairly the same given that I’m an introverted shut-in anyways. I am itching for the rest of you to return to your regular lives, and personally I can’t wait to be able to do one of the things I love most in this world: driving. It’s the reason I’m low-key dismayed that San Francisco have move the endpoint one month further. As much as I enjoy being at home, the current situation remains very weird.

I think my mind subconsciously knows this as well; I’ve been having difficulty falling asleep lately, even though I literally have changed nothing with regards to my evening and night routine. I can’t even say it’s stress from work because being relegated to sitting in front of a computer in my room is actually an easier task than during normal times. I think the troubled sleep stems from very subtle anxiety with everything that’s going on outside; no matter what new routine I settle into, it will never feel completely right until the lockdown is over.

April went by unexpectedly quick; what’s another month, really?

Rabbit ears…

I'm made for this

It seems plenty of my peers are taking this coronavirus lockdown opportunity to binge on many televisions shows or plays lots of video games. I am genuinely happy for them because god knows we can use a bit of levity in this current situation. It’s just that I guess I am the odd one out, because even though this quarantine has been going on for over a month, I’ve yet to watch one extra show, or play one single new video game.

The reason is simple: this shelter-in-place living arrangement is absolutely normal for me. Normal in the sense that it’s what I would being doing anyways: staying at home most of the time. My daily routine as an introverted homebody hasn’t really changed: I still have books to read, blogs to write (hello!), and Korean language to study. There’s barely any additional time to fit in a TV series or begin playing Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Admittedly, saving on the commute time to work has allowed me to watch more car-related Youtube videos, but that’s it.

The coronavirus upended things for the rest of you guys, and I hope you will all be able to return to your regularly scheduled programming as quickly as possible. That’s the part that feels abnormal to me: the fact everyone else suddenly converted to my lifestyle. I greatly empathize: I’ve been training for this lockdown scenario my whole life, and the rest of you are mere amateurs. Reports of people getting cabin fever is a foreign concept to me; being cooped indoors is wonderful!

This too shall pass, my friends.

I do miss going outside and doing this, though.

Back from the slumber

Hello, Internet friends. I hope you’ve been well, and the people you love are well, too, given the current circumstances we find ourselves in. It’s been nearly a month since I’ve written on these digital pages, and indeed it has taken that long for me to return to some form of normalcy. Things happened so quickly: from the first news of the coronavirus making it to the San Francisco Bay Area, to the enacting of the shelter-in-place directive that’s been extended to the beginning of May. It was a mad dash to get everything in order for the extended home-stay, the major one being the transition to working from home.

When you are confined to the house every single day of the week, the days do seem to blend in together. You’d wake up and have no idea what day of the week it is, needing a fumbling of the phone to tell you that it is Saturday, a day that you don’t need to login to the web portals at work. For a time, there was no normalcy to be found, even if home life and work life started to become consistent. Because I am consciously aware that it’s not okay on the outside world, no matter how nice it is to jump out of bed and right to the front of the computer screen to start working.

But I’m immensely fortunate; my line of employment at least provides a work-from-home option, rather than the alternative that millions of Americans are currently facing: getting laid off. I try hard to not take this for granted, and it only takes a few scrolls of the twitter feed to remind myself that there are far worse things that can currently happen than being stuck at home, virtually assisting people with the intricacies of Zoom meetings.

As terrible as it may sound, last week was the first time this new normal felt okay, and I was then ready to return to the habits I kept before this whole coronavirus thing happened. Perhaps I may have used the virus outbreak as a crutch and excuse to be lazy, but it wasn’t a complete waste: I took some of the time to get my mental health in order (I finally got around to a bit of Alan Watts). The anxiety is very real, and even though I’m an introverted homebody at heart, the need for everybody else to also stay at home is not something I particularly enjoy.

One of those habits is of course writing on this blog the standard four times a week, and starting today, I’ll be here to fulfill that self-prescribed duty. I’ll catch you all tomorrow.

Spring always come on time.