Tag: self-care

Experiments

100 Days to 2021

Posted on by Samyak

So, I’ve been really busy lately with a lot of things. Most of them are around schoolwork and hunt for internships.

September would probably be the first month since the start of this blog, when I won’t post anything: I said to myself, sadly. Habits are hard to break, you see, good or bad. And when you’re on a roll, it’s hard as well as bitter to go away, just like that.

But then again, I thought: what if I could post about what’s going on in my life, more like a status update instead of a well-thought post. So, here I am, taking 5 minutes off my schedule and doing just that.

As always, I find it a bit uncomfortable sharing the specifics of what I’m upto; all I can say is: it’s just a lot of things. Some of you might know, rest of you would have no clue whatsoever. I’ll let you know in due time, most probably.

Also, I just got reminded from a Reddit post which said that we only have 100 days before the New Year 2021 (you’ve been waiting for it, no?). That’s probably a little sad and exciting at the same time. Sad because most of us barely went anywhere but between rooms of our closed homes, in this weird time of lockdown. At the same time, it’s exciting because we are hoping for better things to come. You see, it’s the hope of things, not the things themselves, which excite us. Because once you get that thing, the rush is over.

I have a lot of things in my head. My head’s going to explode with all those ideas in the shower. I try and keep a note of most of them. Also, I observed that I get these ideas when I’m trying to avoid them the most, for I know I won’t have the time to attend to them. Kind of funny, really.

I have probably spent 10 minutes instead of the intended 5 over this post. A lot of new things coming up, I assure ya’. For now, though, I gotta scoot. I only have 100 days for this year. It has been great for me, so far.

Take care of yourself while I try to make things for myself even better.

And if you really want to take something away from this post, here’s it. Make resolutions for the next 100 days. Use habit tracking apps or bullet journals to track your progress. Don’t make overambitious goals, but keep them challenging. Stop kidding me, you should always have enough time for yourself.

I’m sticking to completing my 2020 New Year’s Resolutions and doing all the work that I have at hand. After all, that’s all I can possibly do.

Till then,
Breathe

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Experiences

Quarantine survival kit

Posted on by Samyak

You have only got once in a lifetime opportunity to stay at home, lying in front of the TV to save the world. Don’t screw this up!

-Some WhatsApp story

Hey!

Hope you are doing well.

Do I even need to tell you how bleeped up we are at this point in time? Have you ever seen something that motivated such mass action, let alone in your lives, but in your history books? So much so, that governments around the globe are pleading to people on their knees, to avoid going out and stay at home. Hell, they even cancelled F1! (Breaking news: Virtual Grand Prix!)

Well, it’s happening – all before our very eyes. We can have stories for a tragic novel set in a corona-stricken Venice! Just imagine telling your kids (rather emphatically) about how these times were like!

Even though there’s not a vaccine available so far, there’s a lot which can be done to contain it. Social distancing – I know this is the umpteenth time you are coming across this term today, but really, that’s our only hope right now!

But some things are easier said than done – and this is one of them. While you may feel suffocated inside your own home, there’s nothing much you can do. But once we habituate ourselves to the silence, things should get better, and you’ll make it through – you will find something or the other to while away your time. And that would suck too, well, at least a bit, if you waste it away entirely.

Learning from my past mistakes, I decided to make some use of this time. And guess what? Things have been going great so far! So, here’s a list of things I have been doing, probably you can try something out:

  1. Exercising – To avoid making this year’s fitness resolutions harder to achieve, I am trying to stay in shape. While it may seem comfortable not to do anything but slouch on the couch watching Netflix, the body feels bad when the things are over. Needless to say, it also makes you look bad. I have also made a running group on WhatsApp with a cool name with friends, where we share our running stats of the day!
  2. Reading – I was lagging behind my reading goals for this year. So, it was a golden opportunity to catch up on some reading.
  3. Writing – I got off track during my midsem examinations. Got off schedule this week too, I’m a lazy bum, after all. But there are things queued up and ready to come in some time!
  4. Resting – I felt pretty worked up for the past couple of months. Need to get into a schedule and give this mind a reboot. Other than wandering about YouTube, I am also watching random episodes of Tom and Jerry for probably the thousandth time.
  5. Other cool stuff – I’m currently going through The Nature of Code. It basically involves making simple physics simulations on Processing. Wanted to do this for a long time. Keeping in mind my mistakes of the past, I am also pushing all my work to GitHub. I also deleted my Instagram account.

Here’s a bunch of cool resources which could help you get in the groove. It contains this list of companies that have made some of their services free of cost. Though their motive is understandable, for now, it’s a win-win for all of us!

(Note that I am not promoting any of the products in any manner. Not this time, at least!)

  • This is a limited offer. Codeacademy is offering its Pro membership to the first 10000 students who avail this offer. Codeacademy is a renowned platform to learn the basics of a variety of coding languages.
  • PluralSight is a coding platform with special emphasis on skill development for professionals. Nevertheless, I love its user interface. The service is FREE for the month of April! All you have to do is make a free account and reap the benefits.
  • Audible Stories – A collection of audiobooks for children and teens. It contains some fine classics too. You don’t even need an account to access these!
  • Scribd – A collection of books, audiobooks, PDF documents, music sheets and Snapshots (a collection of concise book summaries). I particularly like this because their accessible library is much bigger than audible at this point. They have kept a 30-day free trial on their services for this month.
  • Headspace‘s Weathering the Storm collection of guided meditations. They have also made their services free for students and school staff in the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
  • Adobe is giving 2-month access to Creative Cloud. Here’s a little article which shows you how to do it, just in case you’re interested.
  • Since MOOC platforms such as Coursera, edX have made a lot of their content free and accessible to a broad audience, you can head over to Class Central and choose your favourites among thousands of courses on dozens of MOOC platforms.
  • It’s a good time to learn a new language. There are dozens of high-quality, free apps such as Duolingo, Drops, Babbel and Beelinguapp which make learning fun and effective. Even though I have heard a lot about the other three, I have only tried learning French on Duolingo, so far. C’est tres bien!

Here’s a small list of interesting sources of information about the outbreak, which can give us a bird’s eye view on the situation and also things we should do at this point (and why):

  • Bill Gates has been actively involved with COVID-19 response by specifically pumping in $100M through his foundation. They recently conducted an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit, which is summarized here, in his blog. He answers several important-yet-unanswered questions which are lingering in the minds of many. (For those of you who don’t know, Bill said in his 2015 TED Talk that we were unprepared for a pandemic and that could cause worldwide distress, something which is happening right now!)
  • This article by Elemental can help you distinguish between the seasonal flu and Covid-19.
  • Kurzgesagt’s video on how coronavirus spreads and what can we do about it. They are widely known for their amazing illustrations and reliable sourcing of information.
  • An interesting (yet insightful) video by Mark Rober, who shows how easily germs (in our case, the virus) spread, and also how important it is to wash hands.
  • Imperial College London’s course on Coursera about the science behind the disease; this is a tad formal as compared to the ones mentioned above.

I’d be very grateful if you can tell me some other services/resources which could help people with their current, strangely-closeted lives. It’s a crucial time, and we need to hold back our temptations and act with caution. There’s so much on this list already that you won’t need anything else to do if you populate your day well enough. And yeah, there’s always the option to fall back to your bed and get some shut-eye!

So, here we go. This was an attempt to collect useful stuff, and it did take a lot of time to research and document. I’ll try to keep this space as up-to-date as possible. We have some 10 days before getting back to college and sure, we can do a whole lot before going back.

Till then,

Wash your hands!

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