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In which it's just me and my cat
Mar. 27th, 2020 10:53 pmMy last post was six days ago, on Saturday.
Over the weekend, our prime minister (hereafter referred to as Jacinda because that's how New Zealand rolls) announced a four-level alert system and told us we were on level two, and what would happen if we reached levels three or four.
I have asthma - mild to moderate so somewhat vulnerable though not technically included in the "stay at home" recommendation under level two. But it seemed a good idea in general and my work is good with this kind of thing, so on Monday I went to work with the plan to just finish up ensuring that our key staff all had mobile devices and instructions to take them home each night, and then I'd start working from home on Tuesday.
Midway through Monday, Jacinda came on for her announcement. I watched it live and I could tell from her tone she was going to ramp it up to level three. And then she ramped it up to level four, and said at the end of Wednesday the whole country would be in lockdown and I think I said "Oh my god" out loud.
So from Tuesday I was working from home and trying to remotely help 40-odd colleagues all set up their own work-from-home systems on a motley range of work computers (their own laptops; laptops I'd reassigned from other people; old tablets I'd got reimaged late last week in a fit of desperation) and personal computers (goodness even knows what) while ITS were still frantically trying to finish getting a more robust VPN set up (they'd also been working on it since at least last week). Trying to talk someone through setting up a VPN, on a device you've never seen, when they're not at all technically inclined, over the phone, is intensely painful. Also my home office is not a very heatable part of the house. By the end of the day I was tired and cold and in a bad fit of the blahs. Visiting my parents for a "last supper" and making a plan to be "lockdown buddies" with my sibling who lives with them (as Jacinda had mentioned if you live alone you could join another household's 'bubble') was a great comfort.
Wednesday was better: it was sunny so though the work was just as hard at least I was warm. And I got to go get my flu vaccine, and my ISP sent a tech to finally after three weeks fix some persistent issues I'd been having with my internet, and my gardener came to mow lawns and trim hedges. The earpiece on my headset disintegrated but that'd be fine, I could crochet a new one. Not sure what to do about my threadbare slippers but I'll think of something.
Thursday was the first official day of lockdown. I was still troubleshooting and had only managed to mark off 6 people out of 40-odd as definitely having access to everything they needed for work. Over lunch I went to the supermarket, which was surreal: I could cross the main road without stopping, and there was no music or announcements over the PA system at all. Then more talking people through accessing Outlook over the web, as the simplest possible prerequisite to getting them instructions to set up a VPN and access share drives. Some of the people were getting stressed by it all so I had to calm them down as well as deal with the technical problems. By the end of the day I was utterly exhausted. I was also hearing suggestions that the "lockdown buddies" rules were stricter than anticipated and since I'd pinned my mental health plans on that I was pretty distressed. I ended up taking meds for a headache and going to bed early without dinner.
[Summary of the rules for New Zealand for the next 4+ weeks, unless you're an essential worker like a nurse or a supermarket shelver:
Anything else? Jacinda says no. The more you think about it, the more restrictive it is. Want to order some books online to get you through? They'll have to come from overseas. Want to post someone a care package to get them through? Post shops aren't open and it's not clear whether couriers will pick up non-essential deliveries.]
Friday, more troubleshooting. It feels endless. I think I reached 12 or maybe 14 people ticked off so really it is making progress. I'm also starting to understand some of the quirks of the systems myself. (Some things obviously need the VPN; others, bless them, only work properly with it off.) But I'd still had it by mid-afternoon so did as I told one of my staff to do and logged off early. With that afternoon time I caught up with a sibling and we trialed a few web-based comms systems. Unfortunately we both have ancient computers, so we've currently had to settle on a text-only Discord server, but will keep investigating options. Have invited the other siblings too, and almost all of them have turned up. [ETA 3 seconds later: all of them have turned up!] So am feeling a bit more settled and hopeful now.
I imagine I'll have many more emotional ups and downs. Because there's the initial questions and adjustments, and things still constantly changing, and the anticipation of loneliness and how to mitigate that. And all this is stress.
And I'm coming up to the time of year I need a holiday anyway so with this on top it'd actually be kind of nice for me if the lockdown was a break. But instead I still have to work my regular job but harder, so not only do I not get to pick up any new hobbies but I'm too exhausted for the normal ones. But at the same time I feel a bit guilty about wishing I didn't have to work, because so many people are losing their jobs or uncertain about keeping them.
This isn't strictly true. I feel it's inappropriate to complain about it because of that. But I also feel it's perfectly valid to wish it. Because like I tell everyone, and everyone needs to know, just because others may have it worse, doesn't mean it's not bad for me/you/everyone right now too. We're all allowed to feel sucky, and we all need to be kind to our brains and get plent of rest and destressing in.
This evening my calendar reminded me to go to the city library's annual booksale tomorrow morning. I'd been planning to go after my Saturday morning swim. I swam last Saturday; that afternoon the pools all closed; this Saturday the whole country will have been closed for three days. I knew something like this could be coming, but not so quickly.
This Monday I was going to take the afternoon off for a massage. That's now cancelled. Today my shoulder's started throwing a wobbly.
Before now I think my most isolating experience was living in a small apartment (bedroom and bathroom and an illicit electric frying pan to cook in) on a New Caledonia high school campus. Once my computer died, and for the three weeks while I waited for my father to ship me a solution, my only contact with home was to walk 40 minutes to the town library and hope a computer was free to email from; then 40 minutes back. Even when I did have the internet in my apartment it was an isolated existence. I had maybe 10 hours of teaching a week. I had a few friends and colleagues. There were geckos and millipedes and too many mosquitoes. I read all of _Les Miserables_ in the original French.
I can't remember the feelings of isolation very well. I know that I began to say that New Caledonia was a lovely place to visit; and that I vowed never to teach English overseas again. (I then reneged on this and taught it in Korea, at an academy which was much more supportive.) I remember how much I relied on emails with home, and how excited I was for an upcoming text chat with the whole family -- and how devastated when they didn't show up for it. I felt utterly abandoned and forgotten. It turned out Dad had had an accident so everyone had to go suddenly to the hospital and they didn't know how desperately I needed for them to have paused for one minute to send me a quick email first. (Yes, half my life later I'm still mad about this.)
I've got better internet this time; we all have. And we're all in the same boat so I don't fear being forgotten the same way. But I can't go to the beach or the zoo or the Phare Amédée so it's kind of swings and roundabouts, you know?
I'll find ways to cope - I think most of us will; and it needs to be done; but it's going to be really hard.
Over the weekend, our prime minister (hereafter referred to as Jacinda because that's how New Zealand rolls) announced a four-level alert system and told us we were on level two, and what would happen if we reached levels three or four.
I have asthma - mild to moderate so somewhat vulnerable though not technically included in the "stay at home" recommendation under level two. But it seemed a good idea in general and my work is good with this kind of thing, so on Monday I went to work with the plan to just finish up ensuring that our key staff all had mobile devices and instructions to take them home each night, and then I'd start working from home on Tuesday.
Midway through Monday, Jacinda came on for her announcement. I watched it live and I could tell from her tone she was going to ramp it up to level three. And then she ramped it up to level four, and said at the end of Wednesday the whole country would be in lockdown and I think I said "Oh my god" out loud.
So from Tuesday I was working from home and trying to remotely help 40-odd colleagues all set up their own work-from-home systems on a motley range of work computers (their own laptops; laptops I'd reassigned from other people; old tablets I'd got reimaged late last week in a fit of desperation) and personal computers (goodness even knows what) while ITS were still frantically trying to finish getting a more robust VPN set up (they'd also been working on it since at least last week). Trying to talk someone through setting up a VPN, on a device you've never seen, when they're not at all technically inclined, over the phone, is intensely painful. Also my home office is not a very heatable part of the house. By the end of the day I was tired and cold and in a bad fit of the blahs. Visiting my parents for a "last supper" and making a plan to be "lockdown buddies" with my sibling who lives with them (as Jacinda had mentioned if you live alone you could join another household's 'bubble') was a great comfort.
Wednesday was better: it was sunny so though the work was just as hard at least I was warm. And I got to go get my flu vaccine, and my ISP sent a tech to finally after three weeks fix some persistent issues I'd been having with my internet, and my gardener came to mow lawns and trim hedges. The earpiece on my headset disintegrated but that'd be fine, I could crochet a new one. Not sure what to do about my threadbare slippers but I'll think of something.
Thursday was the first official day of lockdown. I was still troubleshooting and had only managed to mark off 6 people out of 40-odd as definitely having access to everything they needed for work. Over lunch I went to the supermarket, which was surreal: I could cross the main road without stopping, and there was no music or announcements over the PA system at all. Then more talking people through accessing Outlook over the web, as the simplest possible prerequisite to getting them instructions to set up a VPN and access share drives. Some of the people were getting stressed by it all so I had to calm them down as well as deal with the technical problems. By the end of the day I was utterly exhausted. I was also hearing suggestions that the "lockdown buddies" rules were stricter than anticipated and since I'd pinned my mental health plans on that I was pretty distressed. I ended up taking meds for a headache and going to bed early without dinner.
[Summary of the rules for New Zealand for the next 4+ weeks, unless you're an essential worker like a nurse or a supermarket shelver:
- you can visit a local supermarket or pharmacy, preferably alone; you can even take a bus if strictly necessary for this purpose
- you can leave your house for some exercise each day, alone or with people in your household, but you can't drive to that exercise; keep it local
- you can talk to your neighbour over the fence
Anything else? Jacinda says no. The more you think about it, the more restrictive it is. Want to order some books online to get you through? They'll have to come from overseas. Want to post someone a care package to get them through? Post shops aren't open and it's not clear whether couriers will pick up non-essential deliveries.]
Friday, more troubleshooting. It feels endless. I think I reached 12 or maybe 14 people ticked off so really it is making progress. I'm also starting to understand some of the quirks of the systems myself. (Some things obviously need the VPN; others, bless them, only work properly with it off.) But I'd still had it by mid-afternoon so did as I told one of my staff to do and logged off early. With that afternoon time I caught up with a sibling and we trialed a few web-based comms systems. Unfortunately we both have ancient computers, so we've currently had to settle on a text-only Discord server, but will keep investigating options. Have invited the other siblings too, and almost all of them have turned up. [ETA 3 seconds later: all of them have turned up!] So am feeling a bit more settled and hopeful now.
I imagine I'll have many more emotional ups and downs. Because there's the initial questions and adjustments, and things still constantly changing, and the anticipation of loneliness and how to mitigate that. And all this is stress.
And I'm coming up to the time of year I need a holiday anyway so with this on top it'd actually be kind of nice for me if the lockdown was a break. But instead I still have to work my regular job but harder, so not only do I not get to pick up any new hobbies but I'm too exhausted for the normal ones. But at the same time I feel a bit guilty about wishing I didn't have to work, because so many people are losing their jobs or uncertain about keeping them.
This isn't strictly true. I feel it's inappropriate to complain about it because of that. But I also feel it's perfectly valid to wish it. Because like I tell everyone, and everyone needs to know, just because others may have it worse, doesn't mean it's not bad for me/you/everyone right now too. We're all allowed to feel sucky, and we all need to be kind to our brains and get plent of rest and destressing in.
This evening my calendar reminded me to go to the city library's annual booksale tomorrow morning. I'd been planning to go after my Saturday morning swim. I swam last Saturday; that afternoon the pools all closed; this Saturday the whole country will have been closed for three days. I knew something like this could be coming, but not so quickly.
This Monday I was going to take the afternoon off for a massage. That's now cancelled. Today my shoulder's started throwing a wobbly.
Before now I think my most isolating experience was living in a small apartment (bedroom and bathroom and an illicit electric frying pan to cook in) on a New Caledonia high school campus. Once my computer died, and for the three weeks while I waited for my father to ship me a solution, my only contact with home was to walk 40 minutes to the town library and hope a computer was free to email from; then 40 minutes back. Even when I did have the internet in my apartment it was an isolated existence. I had maybe 10 hours of teaching a week. I had a few friends and colleagues. There were geckos and millipedes and too many mosquitoes. I read all of _Les Miserables_ in the original French.
I can't remember the feelings of isolation very well. I know that I began to say that New Caledonia was a lovely place to visit; and that I vowed never to teach English overseas again. (I then reneged on this and taught it in Korea, at an academy which was much more supportive.) I remember how much I relied on emails with home, and how excited I was for an upcoming text chat with the whole family -- and how devastated when they didn't show up for it. I felt utterly abandoned and forgotten. It turned out Dad had had an accident so everyone had to go suddenly to the hospital and they didn't know how desperately I needed for them to have paused for one minute to send me a quick email first. (Yes, half my life later I'm still mad about this.)
I've got better internet this time; we all have. And we're all in the same boat so I don't fear being forgotten the same way. But I can't go to the beach or the zoo or the Phare Amédée so it's kind of swings and roundabouts, you know?
I'll find ways to cope - I think most of us will; and it needs to be done; but it's going to be really hard.
