The effects of the Covid lockdowns and 'work-from-home' on me

 1) No out of country, out of province vacations: We would go out of country (India, UK, France, Mexico, Cuba, etc) at least once a year but zero since Covid(C). We would travel to USA to visit family at least 2-3 times and zero since C. This has possibly saved us a few thousand dollars but left us feeling terribly bored and apathetic. But we did visit a lot of Provincial parks in summer of this year and so that is a positive. The favorite of mine was the Sandbanks one in Picton county. I loved the sands there! I also loved the Rock Glen Conservation area primarily because I loved finding the beautiful fossils which are millions of years old!

2) Gained at least 3 kgs of weight and my husband who never had a stomach before has a round big belly now: I have not exercised more to compensate for the reduced activity due to C ; I have not reduced my food intake because 'I am expending less energy' because I am not 'going to work'. This has lead to weight gain. As a consequence of  weight gain, I finally started Yoga for the first time in my life. But after a few days I stopped. I believe that my knees which,  were hurting  sporadically before, started hurting  more consistently after I started Yoga. 

3) I feel my brain is slowing down. 

I am not able to remember (immediate and recent memory is affected) For example, I go down to get something from the kitchen..I see unwashed dishes and start washing them, then do something else (Stimulus driven behaviour than goal directed behaviour!) and come back...without fetching the object I went down for!

I take a longer time to plan and then the planning is of poor quality and more errors. I seem to have forgotten important details or steps in the sequence of the plan and end up taking more time to do things or more errors.

I have become more clumsy...I seem to bump into things or not grasp an object by being off course by a few cms. I know there is a term for this in neuropsychology, but I can't recall it at present. 

I have tried (inconsistently of course! I lack the discipline to be consistent and persistent and hard-working) the following to exercise my brain. For the first time I did 100 piece jigsaw puzzles and am still doing them. I am reading articles on my subject. I am learning new recipes. I am creating stories to tell my nephew. I am reading a lot of novels.

4) We got our garage fixed. (This cost way more than it should as we hired a guy who charges a lot per hour but is so slow!)

5)I have sort of cleaned my basement and for the first time in my life, threw out some things...which is a tiny but difficult effort toward reducing my hoarding tendencies...one small step toward sanity and away from the madness of hoarding.

6) We have not bought any clothes since March 2020 and I have tried my best to avoid buying other things too these past ten months. I suppose, this has lead to more savings  which has gone towards our mortgage.

7) I have finally decided to start private practice..the sheer boredom of working less when working from home has lead to this decision. I had toyed with the idea of private practice for many months or even years but now this boredom has forced me to get off my lazy ass and start.

8) I am unable to comment on the impact of C on my relationships within and outside my family. I don't think it has changed much. I still keep in touch with friends and family on phone. Thankfully my relationship with my husband with whom I am now, 24/7 is still good. I know that sadly, some people are feeling stifled at home, stuck with their family members without a break and some relationships have been negatively impacted. I am missing getting together with friends but in Toronto, I have very very few friends whom I visit/ invite home. However in India, I had a lot more friends, the ones you visit/invite home.

9)Wearing the mask :I dislike wearing it but I do wear it. I believe I look prettier with the mask on! I look younger and as the mask covers my bad/indifferent nose and I believe I have nice eyes which is the only part of the face visible with the mask on!

10) I have learnt a lot about myself. My strengths and weaknesses. The fact that  I was under the false belief that retirement would be full of fun, relaxation, doing my favorite things, etc. I realize that I really need to go to work to have a sense of purpose. I really need to have a routine 'imposed' on me as I do not have the self-discipline to impose a routine on myself. I realize that I need work to enjoy a break (like weekend). That endless weekends or free time is not fun at all. 

I am looking forward to the TV shows(comedies), movies, novels(crime) which will have this Covid year woven into them. I am trying to recall any novel or story with a Covid like thing influencing the lives of people. For some reason, I cannot understand why...a short story and a novel keep coming to my mind in the context of Covid's impact on us...but there is nothing like Covid in them. The lotus eater by W.Somerset Maugham and The lord of the flies by William Golding. 

I know there are novels, stories and movies with a Covid like scenario but nothing comes to mind now...I have never read any of them or cannot recall at this point in time. I wonder if novels written around the time of the Spanish Flu have depicted life impacted in similar ways as due to Covid?

If one read the article "Epidemics and pandemics in India throughout history: a review article by G.Swetha, Anantha Eashwar and S.Gopalakrishnan in the Indian journal of public health research and development, Jan 2019, one can see that Covid is not the first. I wonder what novels in India, cover life of ordinary people at times of pandemics.

Some novels set in times of pandemics and epidemics similar to Covid are to be found in article at this link below 

https://www.vulture.com/article/best-pandemic-books.html

The novels listed in above link are (if the link does not open for you) below

A journal of the plague year by Daniel Defoe

Pale horse pale rider by Katherine Anne Porter

The plague by Albert Camus

The Andromeda strain by Michael Crichton

The stand by Stephen King

Love in the time of cholera by Gabriel Marquez

Journal of the plague years by Norman Spinrad

There are a few more in this list but I feel too lazy to continue!

The link below give novels in Pandemic times in India

https://www.purplepencilproject.com/disease-pandemics-indian-literature/

some of the novels in this list are

A ballad of remittent fever by Ashoke Mukhopadhyay

A life misspent by Suryakant Tripathi Nirala

The final contagion by Tim Murari

Twilight in Delhi by Ahmed Ali

The Calcutta chromosome by Amitav Ghosh

The other novels in the list are not in English.

Help! I have developed addiction during Covid!

Hooked to  an over-the-top violence and nude-sex scenes filled show on Crave and cannot seem to stop my watching binge!

The show is Banshee starring Antony Starr. I cannot stomach this degree of gore and violence and avoid shows with gore. But for this show, I am able to manage to tolerate the gore (I close my eyes, mute the sound and take brief peeks to check if the scene is over) and continue watching this show. 

I am analyzing myself here to understand why I am hooked to this show. 

With the value/ethics of working from 9-5, Monday to Friday, deeply instilled in me, I have been going through a vague sense of guilt on and off since the start of Covid and 'work-from-home' style of working.  (though I have NO reason to feel guilty) I try to feel less guilty by reading books about my subject to 'update my repertoire of skills and be well versed in the latest knowledge in the field'. Also I do some household chores to reduce this guilt. In the past, I would watch, 'guilt-free' shows in the evenings after I return from work. Even now, I watch shows in the evenings though I am at home all day due to Covid lockdown.  I keep myself busy in the day-time by doing household chores and reading novels, news and of course my work related books. However, since I started binging on Banshee, I have started watching this show in the mornings when I wake! I feel terribly guilty about it, but cannot resist.  I am so hooked! 

Reasons why I like this show and why I am hooked;

Good acting

Good looking actors

Hoon Lee, the actor who plays the role of Job: I absolutely loved this guy! I have never seen someone like this character before and to me, a lot of the show's charm comes from Job.

Good script

The sparse talk: I absolutely loved the 'lessness' of talk on this show. Indian movies should take a cue from this. Indian shows' characters take 100 words to say  something which can be said in 10.

The quiet rural setting

The fact that there are a few Amish 'bad' apples which is shocking to me. (Am I so naive that I think all Amish people are good? Yes. I am that naive. It's like believing in fairy stories and mythology and fantasy novels. I feel good, optimistic and continue to enjoy this world instead of being cynical and distrusting.) 

The fast-pace of the plot:I think this is the chief reason for me to continue to be hooked to this show. There is never a dull moment with this.

The unrealism of the plot: I think this is a crucial reason I am watching it despite the violence and gore. I know, it's too unreal to be true and so I am not feeling disturbed by it. Often, in many crime shows, the realism disturbs me and the entertainment value is vastly reduced for me. 

What I did not like about this show: Brought up as a goody two shoes, I  cannot accept the continuing thievery of the main characters; I simply cannot stand or even understand how one of the lead female characters goes from being a mildly rebellious teenager who broke a few of her Amish family's rules to what she rapidly changed into and started doing...as a psychologist, I cannot see where that change came from, with such speed!

I hope I don't see any show like this for at least a few months. I need time to regurgitate this show in my mind, build my own fantasies around it and wallow in the scenes. I will be ready for a similar such show after 6 months maybe?

Watching Novine (The newspaper) on netflix lead me to explore crime fiction from the Balkans

 I enjoyed the show Novine (The newspaper) a Croatian crime show on Netflix. It was thrilling and thankfully, not too many deaths. I loved the realism of the show. This piqued my curiosity about crime fiction from East European regions. After googling, I discovered and borrowed the following books from Toronto public library. The chief reason I am interested in crime fiction from other countries is to know their society, culture, the 'psychology' of the common man there and of course the underbelly of the country. 

Of the ones I read, I really enjoyed the trilogy of Alen Mattich's Marko Della Torre series  set in Yugoslavia, Croatia , Serbia that is

Zagreb cowboy

Killing pilgrim

The heart of hell

I finished but enjoyed to a lesser extent Tom Callaghan's A spring betrayal set in Kyrgyzstan. This is probably the first book set in this unknown country I have read. It was horrifying to discover (and confirm by reading about actual crime rates in this country) the types of crimes in this country and very sad that the corruption lets the perpetrators go scot-free. 

I  read The exiled by Hiekkapelto Kati which is about a female police officer (brought up in Finland but from Serbia)  set in a part of Serbia bordering Hungary. One realizes the impact of refugee-immigrants from African, Asian and East European countries as one reads this book.  I can't say I liked the book much but did learn a tiny bit about what life/culture in Serbia-Hungary is like. 

I have borrowed and yet to read

Zagreb noir

Lie in the dark by Dan Fesperman

Tom Callaghan's A killing winter

The more I read crime fiction from these mysterious countries,(mysterious as they hardly ever figure in the news as much as say USA, UK, India, China, Saudi Arabia, etc)  the  more thankful I am that to be in a democratic and more transparent country like Canada. 

The governments in these countries seem to be so utterly rotten, corrupt, powerful and controlling, that the common man, in order to survive, may have to lose both his ethics and sanity! If one is a female or poor or marginalized in anyway, one may as well be dead in these countries!

Native Canadian art at a Scotia bank in Downtown Toronto

 

Puppet made of coloured paper for a darling nephew by my darling husband.

 

Seen on Pape avenue...Dec 2020

 

My darling cat, napping in the mild December sun!

 

Seen at Ontario Lake by the beaches