Quarantine Chronicles: A Photo Log (2 of x)
Straight Talk: I’ve actually gone to work a couple times (albeit much, much less often than my colleagues), so I’m not even sure I can even call these “Quarantine Chronicles” anymore. Just in case you (or future me) are (will be) a stickler about these things.
Day 24
Classy workstation on an ironing board pulled up to the only patch of sunlight in the house.
Was also inspired by a friend who upgraded to a gaming chair to work from home, and did my own little upgrade to deal with bum issues from sitting on crappy chairs and back issues from standing/bending when my bum hurts.
Day 25
The day after I craved chocolate so much, I picked out the chocolate chips from the mint chocolate chip ice cream.
I was also craving fries. And someone else was craving jello...
Day 28
Without commutes, painting is the new excuse to listen to podcasts.
Reference: nkim-doodles, Milsae
Day 29
this was sold out every time I visited the store ... and yet it's finally in my hands ;___;
Day 36
Went from using 0 tablets to using 3 after having these dropped off to set up for work.
Day 39
Went to work to get necessary PPE to go back to work as needed. (Oh wait... does that mean quarantine chronicles are technically over??)
Day 42
Our local grocery store has things so exotic, I didn't they existed outside of VeggieTales.
Day 51
had to move the blanket fort from the living room to the bedroom as we are getting visitors tomorrow.
Day 53
I saw these in the garden the day after watching Kingdom... Although violets are technically edible, never will I ever take risks on purple flowers D:
Day 57
My gaming chair got stolen 🙁
Day 59
Work cake for coworker's birthday got delivered because I'm the only one still working from home :').
Day 60
Somebody requested a quarantine haircut, so cliche.
Sure, this looks pretty gross... but trust me, that which has been removed looks better than that which remains....
Day 66
Ordered delivery from Rustle and Still....it's been a while since we've had something that tasted this good augh!
Day 68
Got a sewing machine from Kijiji to fix all things things bunny broke. It's probably older than your mom.
(Update Day 69: we broke the needle.)
Day 68
A quarantine stretch goal has been to finish all the hard cover/otherwise clumbsy books on the bookshelf aka the ones I can't carry around with me.
From top to bottom: 3/5, 3/5, 4/5, 3.5/5, 1.5/5.
Day 69
Went on a field trip to the local garden center (literally 30m down the street) to pick up extra seedlings for work. My work right now involves looking at a lot of spreadsheet about seedlings, but I could not anticipate how exciting it was to see seedlings in person!
Day 70
Went to work and actually got to do a smidgen of fieldwork! (Another reason to question the legitimacy of these so-called "quarantine chronicles")
I imagine it will be hard for people who get to work from home to go back to work though. Imagine unpaid labour it takes to (a) pack lunches to to go (b) commute to and front work (my bike ride to work is great, though) (c) perform all the extra safety precautions at work, (d) taking showers/doing laundry because you went to work.
Day 70
Learned about iNaturalist and immediately downloaded so someone can verify that these will not turn us into zombies.
Day 71
Virtual birthday card for a special friend. Life hack: making shoddy videos on PowerPoint of all things is MUCH easier than making shoddy videos on Movie Maker. It's a game changer!
Day 72
Just to clarify, this is not our typical lunch.
Typical lunch would be this ... minus the carrots... minus the peanut butter.
Last month was probably the busiest I’ve ever had to be for work… I don’t think I’ve worked this hard since school!
I used to think that people were humble bragging when they complained about “keeping on top of their inbox” at work. For the first time I found myself being the one who’s suffocated by their inbox, waking up anxious about what the inbox might look like after a whole night of harassment, and developing an unhealthy relationship with the vibration of incoming phone calls… Even if it’s a from our neighbours above/below. Actually, any vibrations in general.
For someone who’d never picked up their phone on behalf of their parents’ when they weren’t home, I was suddenly taking calls on the company phone, while keeping someone else on hold, while someone else on hold starts calling me on my personal phone, only to find out someone left a voicemail while they couldn’t reach me.
The thing is, in the time of corona, one has the “reasonable expectation” to have personal space. Given that I feel even more entitled to having alone time that usual, phone calls are uniquely invasive. Phones are basically designed to reach into the confines of my home to sap my precious energy in the very place (and at the very times) I expect to recharge. I’m working from home, but it’s also the most social I’ve ever had to be for work. I even felt myself resenting the Zoom calls and well-meaning “check ins” from friends and family.
Still, I would take this kind of busy-ness over school any day. It’s the busy-ness of being “needed” rather than of self-preservation, a busy-ness that others can benefit from. At the same time, I pains me that globalized capitalism preys on this need to be needed and demands our utmost flexibility to fit into the demands the work makes on us. The flexibility I am able to offer work puts me at an advantage to other candidates with more constraints, thereby increasing the flexibility expected of all workers; flexibility itself becomes self-preservation. In my case, I can consider myself fortunate that my work is appreciated genuinely and compensated accordingly compared to others who work longer thankless-er hours, even though it should be the norm, not the exception.
Bunny Diaries
All this is to say, that time has often measured in bunny pictures.
I know, I know. The only thing more distasteful than having someone’s pet pictures forced into your eyeballs, is having someone insist you see pictures of their babies. Actually, I take that back–there must be a special place in hell for engagement pictures. Wait no, how could I forget about pregnancy pictures??
Anyway, I’ve done you the service of separating the bunny pictures. (And probably did myself the service of salvation from eternal damnation, by my own standards, in the process.)