A couple of days ago, my parents and I (and Blair) had a video chat with my brother, Matt, and he brought up (among other things, such as his girlfriend’s new job, The Tiger King, and building a PC) the fact that many people have created quarantine lists for themselves. This would be like a bucket list, but rather than things to do before you die, this is a list of things to do before you are resurrected, forced to once again have your time sucked away by what you now know is a non-essential job, or at least one that can be mostly done from home. For some, the Quarantine List is just a collection of random tasks that would be memorable, worthy of a picture, or maybe even a TikTok. But for me, I’d like to use this time to focus on things that I have been neglecting in my life, but are nonetheless part of who I am.
Here’s my Quarantine List:
- Break some bad habits: This is something I have always struggled with, and something that has become more and more apparent throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. It turns out, I touch my face a lot. Essentially the only thing that Eastern and Western governments have agreed on throughout their 2000 years of conflict is that touching your face is bad when you’re trying to stop the spread of a deadly disease. Of course, I’ve been told since I was young to not touch my face, but like an old dog, here I still am, rubbing my eye, adjusting my glasses, and testing how many knuckles deep into my nose I can get before reaching the treat at the end of the tunnel. But these things, according to my wife, are not the worst of it. The number one culprit is nail-biting. After being shamefully caught time and time again, resulting in a slap on the wrist from not only Blair, but also Snow White Bunny, I decided many moons ago that I would attempt to grow out my nails, and forever rid myself of the addiction that is nail-biting. And yet here I am still today, typing on my laptop with bloody cuticles. So yes, breaking habits is at the top of my list.
- Get fit: It may be just me, but I’ve found that the only time I put any effort into working out is when I’m trying to impress somebody. This has resulted in a profoundly uninteresting trajectory of athletic activity, peaking with me playing 4 different sports at the same time during my awkward middle school phase where I was trying desperately to get a girlfriend, and reaching a nadir now, after I’ve been married for 2 years and feel like impressing popular girls isn’t as important as it used to be. Especially when the only 2 girls I can see during this quarantine period are my mom (who loves me unconditionally) and my wife (who unconditionally loves to make fun of me for being the blob that I have become). So in this state, I need a little bit of extra motivation to stay fit, as my wife’s jibes tend not to cut as deep now that I have so much padding.
- Get creative: Despite my natural tendency toward math and science, the arts have always been a part of my life. From writing a novel in elementary school to a ukulele song in high school, my childhood was rife with artistic endeavors, many of which have how been lost. I don’t wish for my adulthood to be any different. However, the difference now lies in the fact that I have programming skills at my disposal, though my artistic skills may not be on the same level they were when I was a strapping young lad at Reynolds. Nonetheless, being able to program has created new potential outlets for me, which I have truly just begun to explore. A large amount of my time during this quarantine has been devoted to the development of a video game (Alien Wars) with my brother Tim, which would have never been possible before I learned C#. Aside from this, I have also written a rap to memorialize some good times in the past, practiced playing guitar and singing, which could all be used to help build my online profile (which may also, in the future, require some use of programming). All of these things are about expressing myself, and exploring how to present my ideas to the world. The struggle here is that I like so many different types of art and expression that I tend to be unable to really focus on one thing. But at the same time, creativity cannot be rushed, and often comes bursting through a side door at unexpected times, a la Kramer.
- Get smart: While many people have been shocked by the work-from-home life, I have been mostly “working from home” since October, which is when I first started to write up my final PhD thesis. At the beginning, my hope was to submit early, moving on to a job and a future that I could be proud of. But this time working from home has made me realize, if nothing else, that choosing how to prioritize things is not easy. As a PhD student, I felt justified in almost entirely neglecting numbers 1 and 2 on this list for the last 4 years, spending the majority of my time trying to get smart. While on the job, I’ve learned to program in many different languages and environments, how to do machine learning, read research papers, and so on. Outside of my research interests, I took Chinese language classes, read about current events and politics, learned about European culture through friends, networking, events, and travel. And now, being stuck home, most of these things are still available thanks to the internet. But my struggle here is still with which things to prioritize, as attempting too much will only burn me out. I suppose that in this time, it is best to follow what really interests me, rather than trying to do what’s “best for me”, or “most useful”. And yet, I like to think of myself as a fairly practical person, so the things that interest me are often the things that are most useful, and thus I’ve been trying to devote some time to
Through writing this entry, I have come to realize that my Quarantine List is not, in fact, so different from the list of things I would like to do on any day. The only difference lies in the order of priorities. Socializing, for example, has usually taken a large part of my day, as I believe that understanding and connecting with people is often the most beneficial thing you can do to improve both your mental and physical health, which are both crucial to happiness and success. While I have been able to catch up with a few people during this time, I must admit that socializing via Zoom is not the same as getting drinks in person, and thus it has taken a backseat to most of the things on this list. Also, as mentioned before, in recent years I have been mostly neglecting numbers 1 and 2, while focusing on number 4. But now, in this time, I have decided it is best to flip the script, at least for a short while. Of course I may naturally tend away from this, but maybe making this list will help solidify it in my mind, and by the end of the quarantine I may have the longest fingernails known to man.