Dera's Diary

Dear diary, Today is day 35 of quarantine and I have a few updates. My house has officially run out of food. The original way-too-much food phase has expired and now our fridge is emptier than it was pre-corona. My mum has made the bold decision to venture out into the unknown some time soon to restock cause the scarcity is REAL! Just to update y'all, we've also passed the banana bread making, cookie baking and what-should-we-eat-for-dinner phase. The deciding what to eat phase is still reigning. At this point, there's nothing we can make that we haven't already made. It's all about finding new and creative ways to convince our bodies that we're eating something new and exotic while we eat rice for the third time that week! Anyway, I have been pretty consistent with my working out routine ever since we got home. Much thanks should be given to my mum seeing as she is the one who wakes me up so that we can both "torture" ourselves at ungodly hour...

Hello world, So I would like to start of by correcting myself. I haven't spent a full month in quarantine yet. My bad! Today is actually day 28 of quarantine. So almost a month :) I figured out a way to be more productive. Running my life by alarms. An alarm to get myself ready to wake up, an alarm to wake up, an alarm to do chores, an alarm to read...... You get the gist. And it works pretty well. The only problem is sleeping through the alarm.  But I figured out a way through that too. I just make it incredibly loud.  I can't sleep through it. I know there are some people who can sleep through a fire though, and so those people definitely wouldn't benefit from this system I've adopted! I know lots of people (including me) have talked up a storm about the need to stay productive right now. And there is a huge need. But I also want to stress the importance of having fun and being creative. Maybe for you that's keeping up a journal, writing a book, using TikTo...

Dear diary, Today is day 31 of quarantine!!! Month 1 of quarantine- complete! I must say, there is NO place like home. It's been awesome being back. The problem is that I thought being back would correct the horrible sleeping schedule I'd developed in mandatory quarantine. I was so wrong. I'm back home with more access to Netflix, decent food and my own bed. And yet, I'm still sleeping at 4 am and waking up at 2 pm. Major lesson here is that if we're not wise, this entire stay-at-home period could pass by without us really doing anything productive. Don't get me wrong, it's important to look at the positive side of things and to appreciate what this time offers you. If for you that looks like watching Netflix, reading books and getting loads of sleep, that's not a problem. But it's important to prepare for those exams (you never know when they'll be rescheduled) and try to acquire something new right now. Honestly, it's not like you c...

Hello there diary, It's been an interesting week. Day 14 of my quarantine was on Monday, and so the fam and I expected to be going home on Tuesday or that Monday. The hotel we're staying at sends messages to all the rooms through the TV. They started sending messages that we would have to stay for another two weeks because we were in a site that had people that tested positive for the virus. Don't get me wrong, I understand where they were coming from. They didn't want to release us if we could've been exposed. The problem was that they were the ones that said (through those messages) that people could come out to stretch their legs in the middle of the first week (giving people the opportunity to spread and contract whatever). Apart from that, my family and I had maintained minimal contact with people and we didn't come out to "stretch our legs". Like come on guys!!! You can stretch your legs in your room. This is a pandemic for crying out loud!...

Dear diary, Happy new month!!! Today's day 9 of quarantine and there's been a major development: I have officially been tested for COVID-19. I have to be really honest. The test was invasive. At least it felt that way. As far as I knew, you could only be tested through your mouth and from what I saw (in pictures), the stick-like thing goes pretty deep into your mouth. During the test, I found out that you can be tested throuh your nose too. The thing they use looks like metal, but you can bend it. On one end, it's curved, on the other it has a swab. So they put the swab end into your nose and mouth (two different ones of course!). I was really surprised.  For one thing, I wasn't expecting to be tested through my nose and so I was incredibly spooked when the lady used the swab end to explore the far reaches of my nose. Not to creep you guys out or anything, but it felt really foreign and weird and unpleasant.  It wasn't painful, but it definitely wasn't fun...