![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[79/366] the new normal
Mar. 19th, 2020 09:43 pmI had really what's been the most normal day for a week: I had uni and then work.
Uni was a seminar conducted online, with a chat interface and the lecturer could share files. This was actually much more accessible for me (and not just because I only had to get out of bed and turn on my laptop to get to it!); it was nice that rather than it being difficult or impossible to look up an example when it was asked about, a picture of it appeared on the screen next to the chat. Only three students, counting me, turned up which is about as dire as I expected. In-person attendance hadn't been awesome and participation had been even lower.
I was worried I wouldn't have any participation to do since I hadn't done the reading we were discussing, but I managed to skim about 10% of it, guess correct answers to a couple of questions, and respond promptly. And it was one of the lecturers I really like so I wanted her efforts to be appreciated. I did say thank you to her at the end, for putting the work in to make this happen on short notice -- the interface is new to all of us and even on Monday she was still lecturing liike normal. I wasn't there, but it was the last in-person lecture of my entire degree. Funny to think I'm done with all that now already. I didn't realize last Thursday that it'd be the last time I'd ever go to uni. Anyway, the chat interface also has audio and video that we'd decided against using -- this lecturer told us it was glitchy and slow -- but at the end she told us she was going to come on video just for a second to say hello to everybody, and she did, and I was surprised by how touching I found those few seconds of her voice and face. It was just something so normal and associated in my brain with unremarkable things...which have sadly become remarkable lately.
After the seminar, my plan had been to go to work. This also hasn't happened in a couple of weeks, but we made a plan for it yesterday. With a little extra handwashing and conscientiousness, we were basically already following the government guidance for carers. L wanted to go to Tesco, just because he hadn't been outside at all in about six days, but when he said he didn't need anything particularly I said if he wanted a project he could help me with the small shopping list I had been given by Andrew.
It's a big Tesco but it's so close to his house he knows it really well so he was good at helping me find the ready meals. He was also good at remembering things I'd told him, like that I was out of shower gel and worried about finding any more (because after ransacking the regular hand soap people seem to have moved on to this); he found some. I ended up getting everything on my list -- even toilet paper! there was a staff member rationing out 9-packs of Andrex to people among the otherwise-empty aisle (all the kitchen paper towels and Kleenex/tissues had also gone) -- except for bread. I'm going to miss bread! But I was pretty proud of myself. I fucking hate food shopping, and didn't realize how much of it I'd outsourced to Andrew once near-daily walks became a part of him managing his health; he was happy to nip into a shop on the way, and would always go out to the corner shop for me when I wanted a fizzy drink or whatever I suddenly couldn't live without. I'm really going to miss him being able to do that. Shopping is tiring at the best of times, and the empty shelves are both unsettling on a psychical level as well as contributing to how difficult it is for me to find things. We're going to try to get more delivery, but of course that's fraught now too (apparently Sainsburys, who we normally get our online shopping from anyway, are prioritizing disabled people now so hopefully we can figure out how one takes advantage of that). In the meantime, it's down to me. Hopefully we should be okay for a little while now, but I'm much more aware that the top-up shopping for things like milk that was so easy for Andrew before that it was practically invisible to me is now going to have to be my responsibility.
Because I didn't want to get the bus, I walked to and (most of the way) from work as well, which totaled about 1.5 hours. Good for my body and my brain; I had a podcast on but one that I didn't mind zoning out of, and I did a lot of that. I've done some proper meditation too but I've always liked how walking gives my mind a chance to wander and work on things without my conscious interference. It was a lot more than I'm used to, though (I probably walk that much some days, but not in such concentrated bursts) and by about 6pm I realized I hadn't eaten since the cereal bar I had for breakfast, so I was pretty tired. I'm full of good food now (and having a Jaipur), and I am looking forward to bed soon. I really feel like I've earned it.
Uni was a seminar conducted online, with a chat interface and the lecturer could share files. This was actually much more accessible for me (and not just because I only had to get out of bed and turn on my laptop to get to it!); it was nice that rather than it being difficult or impossible to look up an example when it was asked about, a picture of it appeared on the screen next to the chat. Only three students, counting me, turned up which is about as dire as I expected. In-person attendance hadn't been awesome and participation had been even lower.
I was worried I wouldn't have any participation to do since I hadn't done the reading we were discussing, but I managed to skim about 10% of it, guess correct answers to a couple of questions, and respond promptly. And it was one of the lecturers I really like so I wanted her efforts to be appreciated. I did say thank you to her at the end, for putting the work in to make this happen on short notice -- the interface is new to all of us and even on Monday she was still lecturing liike normal. I wasn't there, but it was the last in-person lecture of my entire degree. Funny to think I'm done with all that now already. I didn't realize last Thursday that it'd be the last time I'd ever go to uni. Anyway, the chat interface also has audio and video that we'd decided against using -- this lecturer told us it was glitchy and slow -- but at the end she told us she was going to come on video just for a second to say hello to everybody, and she did, and I was surprised by how touching I found those few seconds of her voice and face. It was just something so normal and associated in my brain with unremarkable things...which have sadly become remarkable lately.
After the seminar, my plan had been to go to work. This also hasn't happened in a couple of weeks, but we made a plan for it yesterday. With a little extra handwashing and conscientiousness, we were basically already following the government guidance for carers. L wanted to go to Tesco, just because he hadn't been outside at all in about six days, but when he said he didn't need anything particularly I said if he wanted a project he could help me with the small shopping list I had been given by Andrew.
It's a big Tesco but it's so close to his house he knows it really well so he was good at helping me find the ready meals. He was also good at remembering things I'd told him, like that I was out of shower gel and worried about finding any more (because after ransacking the regular hand soap people seem to have moved on to this); he found some. I ended up getting everything on my list -- even toilet paper! there was a staff member rationing out 9-packs of Andrex to people among the otherwise-empty aisle (all the kitchen paper towels and Kleenex/tissues had also gone) -- except for bread. I'm going to miss bread! But I was pretty proud of myself. I fucking hate food shopping, and didn't realize how much of it I'd outsourced to Andrew once near-daily walks became a part of him managing his health; he was happy to nip into a shop on the way, and would always go out to the corner shop for me when I wanted a fizzy drink or whatever I suddenly couldn't live without. I'm really going to miss him being able to do that. Shopping is tiring at the best of times, and the empty shelves are both unsettling on a psychical level as well as contributing to how difficult it is for me to find things. We're going to try to get more delivery, but of course that's fraught now too (apparently Sainsburys, who we normally get our online shopping from anyway, are prioritizing disabled people now so hopefully we can figure out how one takes advantage of that). In the meantime, it's down to me. Hopefully we should be okay for a little while now, but I'm much more aware that the top-up shopping for things like milk that was so easy for Andrew before that it was practically invisible to me is now going to have to be my responsibility.
Because I didn't want to get the bus, I walked to and (most of the way) from work as well, which totaled about 1.5 hours. Good for my body and my brain; I had a podcast on but one that I didn't mind zoning out of, and I did a lot of that. I've done some proper meditation too but I've always liked how walking gives my mind a chance to wander and work on things without my conscious interference. It was a lot more than I'm used to, though (I probably walk that much some days, but not in such concentrated bursts) and by about 6pm I realized I hadn't eaten since the cereal bar I had for breakfast, so I was pretty tired. I'm full of good food now (and having a Jaipur), and I am looking forward to bed soon. I really feel like I've earned it.