The thing about #stayhome is its interchangeability with #staythesame. I’m practically a stay home type of person and I only go out for walks, outdoor sketching, or for some retail therapy, to name my usual daily’s, but most of the time with my present PhD life, stay home is not an option. It’s a lifestyle. There are several aspects of this life that were upgraded though, all worth mentioning in this blog post.
(1) Learning a new video conferencinf app (Zoom) and doing online webinars for sketching. As most of the people transition to be with me in my #stayhome lifestyle, more people also learn new ways of communicating- whilst a new skill to most of us. Zoom has been great, or might I say exciting. Its features made me communicate while sharing my screen during my m online webinars for sketching (a thing I can only do before through Google hangouts but through zoom, other members can also share annotations real time and i really needed that feature THANK YOU ZOOM), doodling in real time when I share my webinar to friends, and being creative with my backgrounds. The latter was what kept me staying in Zoom, and I think most of my friends who meet me in that virtual space has seen my crazy leaps and travels to villas around the world, to wonderful interior spaces, to thematic gardens that I’ve been to or wish to be at this Springtime. At the end of the day, the silverlining in not traveling has actually given me time to reflect and recall the wonderful adventures I had through Zoom as the platform. I’d probably be there more often than possible really. (2) My indoor repurposed potpourri and edible re-gardening skills (using repurposed milk cartons and food cans). As I see more garbage bins fill-up daily in my student accommodation (as these are my daily view from my window), the battle to go #zerowaste kicked in and ergo, my new love for repurposing and re-gardening. I presently enjoy this new skill of not throwing my veggie “trash” to replant them and now they’re blooming, feeding me again with new greens and showing off with some new flowers. So far, been successful with spring onions, lettuce, pakchoi, garlic and some chili (still a baby plant). My Thyme, Basil, and Curly Parsley are also still alive after being with me for the whole #stayhome season and i’m basically green-fed for weeks now, as they also continuously feed me with new leaves every week. This will also not happen if I did not repurpose my milk cartons and cans as well. Less trash is love. Aside from the re-gardening, i also realise the massive food waste I’ve been making from eating so much orange and lemon daily so i’ve gone thinking of ways to repurpose them as well- now my new skill of drying fruits and flowers for my homemade DIY potpourri. This is probably the funniest activity, picking up random flowers, foliage, and mechanics and especially thinking of ways to repurpose all the flowers that I try to buy to spruce up my room but has now wilted after a week or so. At the end of the day, it extends the marvellous beauty of the petals while making me enjoy the scents of my room oils longer. No need for oil reed diffusers. (3) More synced watching sessions and scheduled regular calls and zoom sessions with organisations, colleagues, and friends. So as we tried doing it as a “barkada”, now most of my friends would encourage everyone to do the same, which is more synchronised than ever. I get to spend and talk about wonderful stories and get updated with them more. On the organisation perspective, I also get to enjoy and see more people regularly (usually every Tuesday with the Academy in Scotland), and some friday’s/monday’s for the young urbanists or Academy in London. I also enjoyed getting a bit of feedback from the kids in GG. I’m basically overjoyed to see more people while not really leaving my PhD post- which is my table haha. (4) Cooking sessions with my rice cooker. I have now mastered making “puto cheese” in less than an hour, made rice cooker chocolate cake with fudge (which i made for Easter Sunday), searing ribeye and sirloin steak in a rice cooker and cooking my steak perfectly well. I also learned how to do jackfruit adobo, being a recent highlight of my cooking life, as well as other skills like upgrading my soup cans with pasta, creating chicken pot, etc. I’m basically alive and fed thanks to my rice cooker. Ofcourse, learning this is not possible without some cooking show inspirations- my favorite being Ready Steady Cook and the Great British Menu (but haven’t really made one from that show because they’re all PRO, and i’m just a PRO-crastinator.😂) (4) Scheduled weekly walks from the constant gym dates with June. So as the gym is closed while in the interim, June and I have not stopped and moved outdoors to enjoy our exercises through walks while “social distancing”. We’ve done a lot of city walks, beach walks, mountain and hill hikes, and basically all the enjoyable crazy stops for the wonderful adventures we get thanks to Mother Nature. It makes me happy that the landscape soldiers on despite our non-existence and at the same time, happy as it got a breather from all the man-made chaos. Sometimes I feel selfish to think Nature should actually get this more often every year- a time to heal so we can live again. Just a thought. (5) More outdoorsy “time together” options and updating while “social distancing” with R. As we also need to focus on our work, and holidays are not as constant for us both, we now realise how fun it is to take longer walks skipping the car just to go to Tesco, also doing our regular tea sesh outside at his home’s balcony and just slow down when we both can. At this present crazy adulting, the only way to move forward is to just PAUSE... and stopping through our regular crazy banter and calls as well as walks (when he can get off from work almost every month now Except during this #stayhome and it’s taking its toll on the temporality of our shared experiences). I think I learned and presently learning a lot of new software and apps as well, including the ease of the tablet- no need for the mouse when i work on my laptop. This stay home is a good way to also learn new things- online courses included. “In an endless garden of flowers, I see you running. In the filters of Spring, I see you smiling. B.” This. And that so far, is my #stayhome life. Documenting it in a blog is a nice reflective practice as BJ announced a #stayalert directive for us here. Change is again, happening. And I’m not sure if I would like it. |
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Lifeisatravelogue by CDSNadal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. |