(no subject)
Dear diary, it has been almost a week since I finished isolation.
The good news is that I'm alive and well and did not get sick. The bad news is that this week (the world, the country) has been absolutely bonkers.
Isolation really damaged my mental health in a way that a global pandemic and being unemployed for the first time since undergrad did not manage to do. It really shook me, mostly because of how loss-of-control it felt, where I was at home and I got a call and suddenly I was "in prison" for almost a week and suddenly time ceased to have meaning and all my plans were forfeit and well.
I knew I'd need time to mentally recover, but of course, the day before I finished isolation we went into a loose national lockdown, where most workplaces were still operating as usual and public transport functioned as usual.
I'm very glad that I spent that week doing permissible things like seeing friends and going out for walks every day. I REALLY needed that. And then as the weekend (and Yom Kippur) came near, we went into a stricter lockdown, with almost no movement allowed and most workplaces closed.
They announced it about 36 hours before it went into effect, and I scrambled to make the best of that time. I went to the beach, to say goodbye to the sea (by the time lockdown is lifted entirely it'll probably be too cold for me to enjoy its charms), I saw friends (one-on-one of course), I went home to see my parents, who I hadn't seen in a while because of isolation and now wouldn't see again because of lockdown.
Everything in these times of pandemic is a wager and a risk, but I have to say making the best of these 36 hours, even though in an ideal world I should have stayed home entirely, has really, really helped my mental health. It would have been better if I'd had just one more day of relative freedom to experience the outside world, but even as it is, it gave me so much peace and patience for the coming weeks, such a mental reset from the damage done during isolation.
*
I also... and this is extremely weird to say, got offered a job at the Ministry of Health?????? It's very weird. I'm only tangentially qualified for it, and the hours/commute would be hell, and I just kept assuming that, despite being recommended to them, if I was honest about my qualifications they'd tell me the position wasn't relevant for me???
But instead I got a follow up interview (today, on a weekend) from the Head of Epidemiology (!!!!) at the MoH who, after about a 15 minute chat (during which I was actually interviewed by some other senior doctor who didn't introduce themselves except by name) basically offered me a job and said they'd send over a proposed contract with salary and things spelled out in the next week.
I was very ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! about this, because I was VERY HONEST about being only tangentially qualified, but you know. I don't really know what to do (a friend told me to send a CV for this position, and I felt bad not doing it, and was sure I'd get rejected, but then....... this......... happened???)
The problem is, the actual terms really are shit, in terms of HOW MUCH work they'd need me to do, and also the impossible commute to the office, but I just... I keep not even considering it seriously because at every stage I didn't think I had a shot.
Anyway, because it's a government job they'll let me know salary and terms based on various objective criteria (and, because the MoH is Quite Stressed right now, depending on how they decide to bill this role), and I assume it'll be nowhere near worth the amount of work they need me to do (especially since it'll be a lot of hard work AND a steep learning curve for me at the start) and I'll use that opportunity to politely decline.
But it just... feels very weird to say no to work, when one is unemployed during the pandemic. Friends keep telling me - listen, you have unemployment benefits for a good few months yet, this is the kind of job you take when you're out of money and you're desperate. You're not either of those things at this point.
And in counter, my brain keeps whispering - what if this is the only job you'll ever get offered? What if this is your only chance, and you'll say no, and end up settling, six months from now, for something more boring, with fewer benefits?
My mom responded to this with - well, you've had anxiety since you were a kid, so what else is new. LOLOL.
Anyway, it's all very weird and disorienting.
*
Let's talk about entertaining things I'm consuming!
1. Thanks to a rec from
roga I watched Blood & Water, a South African TV show (6 episodes) that's currently available on Netflix. I enjoyed it and would recommend if you're looking for new things to enjoy.
It's a high school drama set in Cape Town where Puleng, the 16 year old protag, grew up in a family where her older sister was kidnapped as a baby, and the family never really got over that loss. At a party thrown by a swanky rich kid, she sees a rich, popular girl who is suspiciously similar to her missing sister.
To investigate this and bring her family some peace, Puleng arranges to transfer to the swanky, rich-kids school so she can befriend this older girl and try and figure out the truth.
Overall it has all the trappings of a teen show (love triangles, parents kept in the dark, school elections, the school paper, etc) and I'm pretty sure the actors (at least most of them) are well into their 20s, but at the same time all the aspects I don't enjoy about teen shows were relatively minor here, and the fact that it's set in a country I know so little about def made up for it.
Obviously this is a stylized, idealized version of SA, not a documentary, but still the mix of languages, the cast, the class differences, the specific cultural mix SA has, all of it was really great to see, packaged in a light hearted teen show.
I especially loved that teenagers drink and smoke pot and it's not a big deal, that they can legally drink before they can drive (same as in Israel! God I'm so tired of the reverse in English speaking teen shows), that there's a level of assumed physical intimacy that felt very familiar, and that the show is really good at incorporating social media.
It's rare to see teen shows do that well, and here it felt both totally different from how it worked when I was a kid, and utterly familiar because ultimately the experiences and dynamics are the same.
I also really enjoyed the way the show dealt with queerness (and a bit with polyamory!) and the way it portrayed strong, meaningful friendships between boys and girls that never included any romantic elements.
2. There's a lot of good The Old Guard fic out there, and I particularly enjoyed this one lately. One of those "casual, intense, consent-heavy BDSM" fics that I haven't read a ton of in this fandom:
Free Falling (9198 words) by TheIneffableLily
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Nicky | Nicolo di Genova/Other(s)
Characters: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Nicky | Nicolo di Genova
Additional Tags: BDSM, BDSM Scene, Top Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Bottom Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Bondage, Spreader Bars, Oral Sex, Safe Sane and Consensual, Safewords, safe sex, Nipple Play, Kissing, Rebound Sex
Summary:
“Anyway,” Joe said, “that’s what a spreader bar is. In answer to your question.”
“Right,” Nicky said. “Thank you.”
“I’ll put this away, then.”
Joe turned around to return the spreader bar to the bottom drawer of his closet.
And Nicky found himself saying, “Don’t put it away just yet.”
3. Finally, a thing I've enjoyed a lot less than I'd hoped to. I've been meaning to try a book by TJ Klune, since a lot of people seemed to be enjoying his work, and someone recced The House in the Cerulean Sea as "m/m romance where the protag gets together with a widower with kids", which, is sort of a correct description? But...
I feel like the book has no plot, and most of its enjoyment relies on the reader finding pre-pubescent kids really, really cute by virtue of them just being kids, and like, 60% of the way into the book... I do not enjoy just reading about kids being kids that much (especially when I'm stuck in the head of an adult). The romance has still not really arrived either, and slow burn is not my jam on a good day, specially when nothing else in the book is that interesting to me.
So, if you've liked TJ Klune's other works, is there anything you'd recommend that has other tropes maybe? Or just more plot? Right now I feel like I'm reading the world's most adorable and boring kidfic.
comments on Dreamwidth
The good news is that I'm alive and well and did not get sick. The bad news is that this week (the world, the country) has been absolutely bonkers.
Isolation really damaged my mental health in a way that a global pandemic and being unemployed for the first time since undergrad did not manage to do. It really shook me, mostly because of how loss-of-control it felt, where I was at home and I got a call and suddenly I was "in prison" for almost a week and suddenly time ceased to have meaning and all my plans were forfeit and well.
I knew I'd need time to mentally recover, but of course, the day before I finished isolation we went into a loose national lockdown, where most workplaces were still operating as usual and public transport functioned as usual.
I'm very glad that I spent that week doing permissible things like seeing friends and going out for walks every day. I REALLY needed that. And then as the weekend (and Yom Kippur) came near, we went into a stricter lockdown, with almost no movement allowed and most workplaces closed.
They announced it about 36 hours before it went into effect, and I scrambled to make the best of that time. I went to the beach, to say goodbye to the sea (by the time lockdown is lifted entirely it'll probably be too cold for me to enjoy its charms), I saw friends (one-on-one of course), I went home to see my parents, who I hadn't seen in a while because of isolation and now wouldn't see again because of lockdown.
Everything in these times of pandemic is a wager and a risk, but I have to say making the best of these 36 hours, even though in an ideal world I should have stayed home entirely, has really, really helped my mental health. It would have been better if I'd had just one more day of relative freedom to experience the outside world, but even as it is, it gave me so much peace and patience for the coming weeks, such a mental reset from the damage done during isolation.
*
I also... and this is extremely weird to say, got offered a job at the Ministry of Health?????? It's very weird. I'm only tangentially qualified for it, and the hours/commute would be hell, and I just kept assuming that, despite being recommended to them, if I was honest about my qualifications they'd tell me the position wasn't relevant for me???
But instead I got a follow up interview (today, on a weekend) from the Head of Epidemiology (!!!!) at the MoH who, after about a 15 minute chat (during which I was actually interviewed by some other senior doctor who didn't introduce themselves except by name) basically offered me a job and said they'd send over a proposed contract with salary and things spelled out in the next week.
I was very ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! about this, because I was VERY HONEST about being only tangentially qualified, but you know. I don't really know what to do (a friend told me to send a CV for this position, and I felt bad not doing it, and was sure I'd get rejected, but then....... this......... happened???)
The problem is, the actual terms really are shit, in terms of HOW MUCH work they'd need me to do, and also the impossible commute to the office, but I just... I keep not even considering it seriously because at every stage I didn't think I had a shot.
Anyway, because it's a government job they'll let me know salary and terms based on various objective criteria (and, because the MoH is Quite Stressed right now, depending on how they decide to bill this role), and I assume it'll be nowhere near worth the amount of work they need me to do (especially since it'll be a lot of hard work AND a steep learning curve for me at the start) and I'll use that opportunity to politely decline.
But it just... feels very weird to say no to work, when one is unemployed during the pandemic. Friends keep telling me - listen, you have unemployment benefits for a good few months yet, this is the kind of job you take when you're out of money and you're desperate. You're not either of those things at this point.
And in counter, my brain keeps whispering - what if this is the only job you'll ever get offered? What if this is your only chance, and you'll say no, and end up settling, six months from now, for something more boring, with fewer benefits?
My mom responded to this with - well, you've had anxiety since you were a kid, so what else is new. LOLOL.
Anyway, it's all very weird and disorienting.
*
Let's talk about entertaining things I'm consuming!
1. Thanks to a rec from
roga I watched Blood & Water, a South African TV show (6 episodes) that's currently available on Netflix. I enjoyed it and would recommend if you're looking for new things to enjoy.
It's a high school drama set in Cape Town where Puleng, the 16 year old protag, grew up in a family where her older sister was kidnapped as a baby, and the family never really got over that loss. At a party thrown by a swanky rich kid, she sees a rich, popular girl who is suspiciously similar to her missing sister.
To investigate this and bring her family some peace, Puleng arranges to transfer to the swanky, rich-kids school so she can befriend this older girl and try and figure out the truth.
Overall it has all the trappings of a teen show (love triangles, parents kept in the dark, school elections, the school paper, etc) and I'm pretty sure the actors (at least most of them) are well into their 20s, but at the same time all the aspects I don't enjoy about teen shows were relatively minor here, and the fact that it's set in a country I know so little about def made up for it.
Obviously this is a stylized, idealized version of SA, not a documentary, but still the mix of languages, the cast, the class differences, the specific cultural mix SA has, all of it was really great to see, packaged in a light hearted teen show.
I especially loved that teenagers drink and smoke pot and it's not a big deal, that they can legally drink before they can drive (same as in Israel! God I'm so tired of the reverse in English speaking teen shows), that there's a level of assumed physical intimacy that felt very familiar, and that the show is really good at incorporating social media.
It's rare to see teen shows do that well, and here it felt both totally different from how it worked when I was a kid, and utterly familiar because ultimately the experiences and dynamics are the same.
I also really enjoyed the way the show dealt with queerness (and a bit with polyamory!) and the way it portrayed strong, meaningful friendships between boys and girls that never included any romantic elements.
2. There's a lot of good The Old Guard fic out there, and I particularly enjoyed this one lately. One of those "casual, intense, consent-heavy BDSM" fics that I haven't read a ton of in this fandom:
Free Falling (9198 words) by TheIneffableLily
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Nicky | Nicolo di Genova/Other(s)
Characters: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Nicky | Nicolo di Genova
Additional Tags: BDSM, BDSM Scene, Top Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Bottom Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Bondage, Spreader Bars, Oral Sex, Safe Sane and Consensual, Safewords, safe sex, Nipple Play, Kissing, Rebound Sex
Summary:
“Anyway,” Joe said, “that’s what a spreader bar is. In answer to your question.”
“Right,” Nicky said. “Thank you.”
“I’ll put this away, then.”
Joe turned around to return the spreader bar to the bottom drawer of his closet.
And Nicky found himself saying, “Don’t put it away just yet.”
3. Finally, a thing I've enjoyed a lot less than I'd hoped to. I've been meaning to try a book by TJ Klune, since a lot of people seemed to be enjoying his work, and someone recced The House in the Cerulean Sea as "m/m romance where the protag gets together with a widower with kids", which, is sort of a correct description? But...
I feel like the book has no plot, and most of its enjoyment relies on the reader finding pre-pubescent kids really, really cute by virtue of them just being kids, and like, 60% of the way into the book... I do not enjoy just reading about kids being kids that much (especially when I'm stuck in the head of an adult). The romance has still not really arrived either, and slow burn is not my jam on a good day, specially when nothing else in the book is that interesting to me.
So, if you've liked TJ Klune's other works, is there anything you'd recommend that has other tropes maybe? Or just more plot? Right now I feel like I'm reading the world's most adorable and boring kidfic.
comments on Dreamwidth