I am sorry if this seems off topic as it is not 100% related to write.as, but since the World is upside-down at the moment, I just thought I’d reach out.
I don’t comment often, but I read the forums every day, and I am wondering how everyone in this community is doing at the moment.
I am in North Italy, this is my 4th week of lockdown (1st week was voluntary as I have a friend who is a doctor in a hospital and was telling me already how important it is to stay home), and “the outside” is really scary, but I am extremely thankful that my job can be done remotely and I have my family close to me.
We had to interrupt our D&D sessions right at the end of our Ravenloft campaign though…
Nice thought. And I feel for Italy, you guys had it the worst. Hope things get stabilized sooner.
I am in Turkey where it has been two weeks since the first incident has been reported (Right now there are 1236 confirmed cases and 30 deaths). People in general and especially the elderly has problems with following the quarantine. As a result 65 years and older people have been banned from leaving their homes. The measures are getting stricter each time people refuse to follow prior advisories. I am sorry to say that people are not really aware of how serious the situation is. I don’t want to call this “natural selection” but seriously amount of negligence and stupidity in people is unbelievable. Your mayors said it the best.
Yeah, with everything that is happening, there has been a big “shift” with the way people communicate.
We have several politicians who have become memes because they kind of have thrown all formality out the window - which, to be honest, make sense.
And even at work all communication has become a lot friendlier.
This is actually something that I hope we get to keep once the crisis is all over.
Being here and watching other Countries react so slowly is a little frustrating - it feels like I am from the future, even if just a couple of weeks, but people just don’t want to believe how severe this will be.
I am keeping my fingers crossed that we have bought enough time for other Countries to face this situation better than we are doing.
Not off-topic at all @Melyanna! Thanks for creating this – I think we all need it.
Thanks goodness you’re alright. I have a friend living in Rome & he was telling me how eerie it’s been. He looks out on what’s usually a bustling city and sees it completely empty. How has it been to do work solely remotely for almost a month? Have you gotten more done? I wonder if you could still try to do your D&D campaign through video chat? Might be a little weird at first but it could work!
We’re buckled down here in the states – have been slowly getting the stay at home orders but not to the extreme cases as in other countries with fines & all. My fiancée & I have had to postpone our wedding that was scheduled for this June. It’s the right thing to do in these present circumstances. Doesn’t make the decision any easier though.
All of this makes me think of how to make the web a more cozy place in such times – how to make it an extension of the home I know solely inhabit. Everybody here on the forum contributes to that sense of coziness so I want to let y’all know that I genuinely & sincerely appreciate it!
Wow, I am sorry to hear that you have to postpone your wedding!
I hope you can claim back the money you might have already spent on reservations and so on.
Working remotely seems fine in the beginning, but it gets progressively more difficult as you start missing human interaction (we are all using our cameras now, and I am a bit of an introvert, yet I kind of miss the office).
Productivity is actually really high. The time I would spend commuting I have turned into work time, and I don’t really have much to do anyway, so I just pick up my work emails when I am bored. This is probably not wise, but honestly, at this point I am kind of using work as a distraction from… “reality”.
As for D&D, we didn’t want to try playing remotely at first (we are the same bunch of friends who have been playing together since high school!).
But now we miss our sessions too much, so we’ll try playing over a zoom meeting next week.
I found, at least on the digital spaces I am in, that people are gentler, and everything is a bit friendlier, more personal.
(But I should say I pick my online spaces very well to keep away from the trolls).
I am in Texas. My employer allowed me and other devs to start working from home last week, thank goodness. We are under “stay at home/shelter in place” orders here. I haven’t gone out of the house except to buy food and other necessities for the past 2 weeks. I don’t miss driving to and from work, but after a few days of working from home, you kinda start to miss seeing your coworker’s faces. I don’t want to start going back to the office, I really like this work from home setup, but I wish that we could get over this pandemic soon.
Nice one. I live in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. People still! find it quite hard to stick to the rules we need to live by to stop spreading the virus. Although luckily it seems that more and more people take it serious now. It took some time though. Our government is one step away from total lock down, depending if we can finally stick to ALL the rules. Maybe it is typical Dutch, being not used to a government telling us exactly what to do and throughout the past decades showing less and less respect to people that we now have to depend on so much. We might learn and change our attitude, fingers crossed.
I wish everyone out there the best dealing with this weird situation, which might even turn into something good, who knows… All of you here: be safe, keep your sanity and stay healthy and be kind to every lost soul looking for a safe space, a friendly word or a smile.
Thank you for sharing.
This part I especially relate with:
(I actually relate with everything you wrote in that post, but this bit stands out for me).
the fact that i find apocalyptic language really weird and voyeuristic and often privileged and off-putting, the fact that i probably engage in it too, the fact that i don’t mean to disregard the very real suffering that people worldwide are and have been experiencing,
Och, @cjeller1592! Congratulations on your engagement and may patience and fortitude be solid companions on your longer-than-expected journey toward marriage!
My https://deaconpatrick.org/ has become a hub of faith and COVID-19 info that I’ve found, and thoughts I’ve had regarding it. I also explore, through parable fiction (Catholic, as I’m a Catholic deacon) life striving to live faith while on stay-at-home, homeschooling, fasting from public Mass, and more at https://shepherdsandhalos.org/
Prayers for all here. May the healing balm of peace wrap you in health and joy.
Thanks for the thoughts & prayers @DeaconPatrick! Glad to see that you’ve been using this time to post more on your blogs too. I can’t help but think of this current moment as a time where we can do more nesting & homemaking, especially online.
We just received official stay at home orders here where I live in the US so we’re hunkering down here.
Anybody have any coping strategies for lockdown so far that are helping them? Exercise, in whatever form you can get it, has been crucial so far for me.
I try to stick to a “normal” routine as much as I can: wake up early even if there is no commute, exercise, meditation, breakfast and then get to work.
I even try to get my usual average of daily steps on, though it’s actually quite hard.
I am using the “commute time” for reading, drawing, and journaling.
And whenever I catch myself thinking of the most negative aspects of this situation, I try to shift my mind to the time I have been “given back” in a way.
That is not to say that I am making light of what is going on, quite the opposite, but thinking of things I can’t control gives me anxiety (actual panic attacks) and is pointless anyway.
With my coworkers we now have more channels to share silly or uplifting stuff than actual work channels. That doesn’t do much for me personally, but I know it is helping others a lot.
Och, aye, @cjeller1592. I’d been focusing on fiction for quite a while, which requires writing my first draft pencil to paper for better flow of thought. Interestingly, likely because of my bludgeoned brain, I can first draft on a mechanical keyboard for non-fiction. Grin.
We’ve been stay at home for years, so the transition has been relatively mild for us.
One future topic is reconciliation (small ‘r’) for living in close quarters.
I live in a small town in England. It is eerily quiet. I am aware of many others who aren’t as lucky as me, however. I’m delighted I have a garden. All those poor folks living in flats, or in London.
hello, glad to see people on W.a reaching out, discussing what is going on in the world. Italy had CV19 bad for quite a time, as America does now. Glad to hear you are staying safe and inside, Melyanna. Same here. Inside most days, no social interaction for me since March 12, I believe. Strange times.
