I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm checking in from Provence in the countryside. I live outside a small village full of people I've become quite fond of, therefore I try to keep my quarantine so I can stay healthy should anyone need help. Carrying my paperwork is a bore and too often I forget, but I'd rather be here during a pandemic than anywhere else.
What are y'all reading? I may have filled my Kindle with pandemic books back in January which is now a choice that I regret!!! Currently finishing up Kim Stanley Robinson's "Years of Rice and Salt" (alternate history sci-fi imagining world history if the Black Plague had wiped out Europe) and Laura Spinney's "Pale Rider" about the 1918 flu. Would LOVE to read something ELSE after I'm done so chime in. On the other hand, I am a huge epidemiology nerd so if you DO want books related to that, I have a list of recs. (Spillover by David Quammen is a great place to start considering *waves hands* all of this - one of our greatest living science writers focuses on diseases which "spill over" from animals into humans. Sound familiar?)
Hello, beloved listeners! I hope you're all relatively safe and sound. Tell me how things are going. What are conditions like where you are? What's your biggest daily struggle? Is your neighborhood doing anything particularly weird or entertaining in response to this?
Checking in from Sydney Australia. Trying my hardest to be on of the 80% that stays home to flatten the curve so hospitals can manage. Not easy when I live in an apartment. I am reading a biography of Jean Genet and also Journal of Anne Frank. She stayed away for two years. Me only two days. I am loving the Women of War series. Very interesting.
Checking in from BC. I relocated last week to spend my “staying in place” with my parents instead of staying in my apartment on my own for who knows how long. Numbers in BC (and Canada) are much better than in most places but still some people don’t understand social distancing (a lot of people turned up in parks and beaches over this weekend despite being told to stay at home (when nothing is open I guess people go to the park). My place of employment shut down on the 17th and being single and no kids and not employed in an essential service allowance me to do this (my sister and only sibling is a NICU nurse is essential; a colleague of hers came down with it through interaction outside of work, but fortunately my sister wasn’t in contact with the nurse and had to therefore calm down the nurses that had). I’m reading a lot and watching TV and going for one walk a day and my anxiety is through the roof. Trying not to consume too much commentary. And yes people are hoarding in BC as well; one guy cleaned out a meat case a grocery store in northern B.C. and didn’t return any of the meat.
Checking in from San Mateo in the Bay Area. My wife and I work at SFO but fortunately we are both able to work from home. The airport is a very strange place these days - it reminds me a lot of the days after 9/11. There are still people flying in and out, but passenger traffic has been reduced to a trickle.
My relatives in France report the same things there as we've seen here - people stockpiling food, toilet paper and cleaning supplies. My cousin in Alsace has a nice potager in her garden so they're set for vegetables ;). They are all also working from home.
I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm checking in from Provence in the countryside. I live outside a small village full of people I've become quite fond of, therefore I try to keep my quarantine so I can stay healthy should anyone need help. Carrying my paperwork is a bore and too often I forget, but I'd rather be here during a pandemic than anywhere else.
This seems to be an appropriate time. I just began reading « La Peste » (The Plague) by Albert Camus.
What are y'all reading? I may have filled my Kindle with pandemic books back in January which is now a choice that I regret!!! Currently finishing up Kim Stanley Robinson's "Years of Rice and Salt" (alternate history sci-fi imagining world history if the Black Plague had wiped out Europe) and Laura Spinney's "Pale Rider" about the 1918 flu. Would LOVE to read something ELSE after I'm done so chime in. On the other hand, I am a huge epidemiology nerd so if you DO want books related to that, I have a list of recs. (Spillover by David Quammen is a great place to start considering *waves hands* all of this - one of our greatest living science writers focuses on diseases which "spill over" from animals into humans. Sound familiar?)
Hello, beloved listeners! I hope you're all relatively safe and sound. Tell me how things are going. What are conditions like where you are? What's your biggest daily struggle? Is your neighborhood doing anything particularly weird or entertaining in response to this?
Checking in from Sydney Australia. Trying my hardest to be on of the 80% that stays home to flatten the curve so hospitals can manage. Not easy when I live in an apartment. I am reading a biography of Jean Genet and also Journal of Anne Frank. She stayed away for two years. Me only two days. I am loving the Women of War series. Very interesting.
Checking in from BC. I relocated last week to spend my “staying in place” with my parents instead of staying in my apartment on my own for who knows how long. Numbers in BC (and Canada) are much better than in most places but still some people don’t understand social distancing (a lot of people turned up in parks and beaches over this weekend despite being told to stay at home (when nothing is open I guess people go to the park). My place of employment shut down on the 17th and being single and no kids and not employed in an essential service allowance me to do this (my sister and only sibling is a NICU nurse is essential; a colleague of hers came down with it through interaction outside of work, but fortunately my sister wasn’t in contact with the nurse and had to therefore calm down the nurses that had). I’m reading a lot and watching TV and going for one walk a day and my anxiety is through the roof. Trying not to consume too much commentary. And yes people are hoarding in BC as well; one guy cleaned out a meat case a grocery store in northern B.C. and didn’t return any of the meat.
Checking in from San Mateo in the Bay Area. My wife and I work at SFO but fortunately we are both able to work from home. The airport is a very strange place these days - it reminds me a lot of the days after 9/11. There are still people flying in and out, but passenger traffic has been reduced to a trickle.
My relatives in France report the same things there as we've seen here - people stockpiling food, toilet paper and cleaning supplies. My cousin in Alsace has a nice potager in her garden so they're set for vegetables ;). They are all also working from home.
This is getting to people. They are overstressed right now.