In Quarantine 2020

Story by gioweeargao

July 01, 2020

I never would've guessed I'd get to live this lifetime experiencing a pandemic. Ahh, these are scary odd times. I will definitely want to remember this. 🐣

This setup seems quite familiar

This is quite like every summer I had back when I was still in school. It was spending all day in my room and the main difference is now I have a lot of snacks to eat 🐽. (Okay and aircon in my room 💸)

I really enjoyed the idea of not going out, specially because of my social anxiety. As much as I miss my friends and going out to eat chicken wings, I would somehow prefer this isolation.

Long Distance

This is probably the only thing that I hate about this setup. Not just because my love languages are quality time and physical touch, but because I hate changing routines. Our routine before this was spend every waking moments together and separate for the night, literally just to sleep 💤.

This quarantine took away the most constant thing in my life and it felt like I'm going crazy 👻

Add to that is the fact that we are in the process of changing this sleeping arrangement. If this were to happen a few months from now, we'd be in quarantine together and I wouldn't be writing (ranting) about this now 🙃.

New normal: Constant call

What we currently do to compensate is that we are now always in a call, even during work. It does not necessarily mean we are constantly talking to each other. It just means that we can always hear each other and our surroundings.

This way it's like we're together. We can rant about anything real time, because someone is listening. I can hear all of his family members in the background shout at each other. I can hear his 4 year old nephew mimic him every time he tells me "goodbye, I love you." He can hear my cough every time I eat my chocolate. And he can hear me sing 🎙 which I do all the time because it helps me focus.

This will do for now 💆🏻‍♀️

Work from Home

In our company, we agreed that I wasn't too important to receive a machine to use at home for work, specially because I am a new employee (it was just my first month). I was okay with that because my original plan after leaving TORO was rest. I wanted that rest so much that I already bragged about it to everybody I know 📢. In the end that did not happen, so this might be another chance to have it.

Two days later, my boyfriend (yes we work together again) arrived at our house to deliver my machine and we all don't know why 🙄

Anyway, in the end I'm glad I did not end up on forced leave. I never would've guessed the initial 15 day quarantine would last longer than a month. I've witnessed how the company handled the issues and how little by little our already small team had slowly become smaller because we had to do budget cuts. I got lucky and I wish I could say the same for others.

And now I have also learned how awesome working from home can be 🤘🏼. I used to think remote work is not for me (I might not be as productive), until I had no choice but to live it. Now I'm 100% sure I never want to leave the house again.

Healthy habits gone

I had given up on all my rules.

Water and Coffee only since 2017. I've been buying juice and soft drinks out of boredom lately.
Less chocolate. This one is a rule from my doctor because of my PCOS. Very hard.
No dinner or veggies for dinner. I am either very consistent or I have no care for this there's no in between. It just happens I don't care at the moment.
Exercise. And the only form of exercise I can manage to do consistently is run (okay, mostly walk), in a park. Currently fooling myself by saying I need to buy a treadmill in order to get my life together.
I even stopped using skincare and my skin got bad again.

I wanna say I'm still one of those who never gains weight despite lack of healthy choices but that's just denial. My priority at the moment is to be less stressed with this setup and it just so happens that what makes things seems better is comfort food 🍫🐽.

Minor update (June 2020)

After seeing the result of no rules and hating it, I am starting to fix my life again. Bought skincare products I already tried before, been consistent with it for a month now and the results are crazy good 😍.

I also inconsistently skip dinner now whenever I can and hope it makes a difference🤞🏼.

Bored in the house

From complaining I have no time for my books and shows to ending up with all the time in the world.

Books

I have a lot of unread books in my room now, mostly from Big Bad Wolf book sale, but I admit I wasn't as interested in those so I wasn't into much reading when quarantine started.

Books I finished:

Poemsia by Lang Leav
A World Between Us by Lydia Syson
Fan Girl by Rainbow Rowell
The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright
A Series of Unfortunate Events (books 1 to 13) by Lemony Snicket
The Other Woman by Jane Green

Books I did not finish:

Inferno by Dante Alighieri (It was very hard to read 🤧)
Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece by Gustav Schwab (a more detailed account than the mythology book I read last year, this is literally so heavy I find it hard to breath if the book is not positioned right)

Currently reading:

All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Binge

Shows I've finished (not necessarily started during this time):

Bojack Horseman ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Queer Eye ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (but now they released a new season I haven't kept up yet 🙄)
Next In Fashion
Modern Family
The Big Bang Theory (finally finished!!)
Fresh Prince of Bel Air
Never Have I Ever
The Good Place ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Brooklyn 99
Fuller House

Shows I tried to watch but I still find the main character annoying although I'm so close to being hooked:

Community

Currently watching:

A Series of Unfortunate Events season 3

The most memorable one is probably Bojack Horseman. My life has been changed from that show. Who would've thought that I'd relate way too much to a cartoon? To a horse 🐴? It was that good I will probably never stop talking about it now. All thanks to a bestie who didn't stop annoying me to watch it.

I was hoping I won't run out of things to watch because I'm only into vain reality shows and comedies, but I did 👎🏼. Now back to my books!

Online shopping

Nothing like a good retail therapy to make a girl happy ✨

And it's not just for clothes anymore, it's more on food. Tried so many local businesses that I knew I would've neglected if I could go out. Now I have more things to crave for weekly 🐽

Life without Starbucks, Potato Corner and Brownies doesn't seem so bad after all.

Watch the government fail

...and watch everybody else fight in social media 💆🏻‍♀️. I am very much bothered by those who kept on making excuses for the government and for those who are neutral and complain instead about our (valid) complaints. I unfollowed/unfriended so many accounts because I couldn't handle the negativity. It was so toxic that at one point I almost deleted my Facebook and Twitter apps in my phone.

It was also very sad that some of my close friends are on the other side 💔🙉

So many inconsistencies. So many fragile egos. Not enough effort.

Highlights:

The president granted special powers + 200 billion peso.
The president's late night shows where he does not tackle the issues we are waiting for him to talk about 🤷🏻‍♀️.
Koko Pimentel breaks social distancing protocols in the hospital. Asks for compassion.
Police killing and arresting innocent people
Birthday party for a high rank PNP guy. Was not removed from position despite breaking rules.
ABS-CBN shut down
Spokesperson defining "mass testing" as testing everyone (to change the topic)
- and admitting the government is not doing anything about it.
Spokesperson got mad at a CNN journalist for their previous headline which was correct.
- Same guy says the headline was changed the next day (it was not) and he is not going to apologize publicly for how he humiliated the journalist.
DOH secretary announces we are already on the second wave of covid cases when we haven't flattened the curve yet.
Chinese nationals prioritized again and again
Our "utang" (debt) had a total of trillions after only a few months
Anti-terrorism bill passed by the House of Representatives way too fast
- this bill can be easily abused by the authorities and use it to anyone calling out the government
- the same way they are all already abusing their powers
Spokesperson congratulating the country for proving wrong the projected 40 thousand positive covid cases by end of June
- We were at about 36 to 37 thousand 🙄
  - Meanwhile current backlog amounts to more than 10 thousand cases 🤷🏻‍♀️

All of this mess and it still feels like the worst is yet to come. ☔️

When I started to write this draft, I didn't expect the quarantine to last this long in my country. And now all of us are still clueless as when will it end because we're still at the top of the first wave 🌊

So I am deciding to publish this now, randomly. Also, yes I am publishing this before the anti-terrorism bill automatically becomes a law on July 9 2020 👻.