Context

The world is going through the Covid-19 pandemic right now and it has brought the world to its knees. We've been under lockdown for more than a month. It started during the last week of March and we are already at the Middle of May.

There is no sign of this pandemic stopping anytime soon. There are just a bunc of theories.

Work

Things are quite bad overall. A bunch of people I know have been fired or know someone who has been fired. Some companies are doing good, some are doing bad. I am not sure how most companies will come out of this.

We went complete remote about a week before the official lockdown started and so far my colleagues at our HR team and our internal systems has been very very helpful. They are doing everything they can and I could not ask for more.

Work seems ot have increased during the lockdown. The site is seeing an increase in traffick due to some advertisement champaigns etc etc. All of this is veyr new to me. I had no idea that advertisements were so effective. Regardless, it is very interesting and I am personally quite glad that the container platform here is working as intended. We are also onboarding a lot of new services in the container ecosystem. Its is quite fun.

Work has increased though. Previously when we used to go to office we could choose when to sign off, but recently with working from home I am clocking 12-hour days on an average. It's been really hectic.

Personal Finance

I am a very conservative person when it comes to personal finance. I dont like speding money. I started to put some money in various Mutual Funds from Jan, 2020. This was after I had suffitient money saved for my rainy-day-fund.

During the lockdown, I caught a stupid mistake in my calculation and I realized that I did not have enough money in my rainy-day store for a year, so I pulled back some money from the Mutual Funds, with some losses. Lesson Learnt.

Normal Life

I quite like being isolated. I've been weaning myself off of Social Media steadily for about 3 months now. Instagram and facebook were the first to go. Followed by less dependence on Twitter and Reddit and Whatsapp. On certain days I can pass an entire day without talking to a single living soul.

I've been reading a bit more these days. I have a decent amount of time, now with working from home etc etc. Im getting less time to read than before, but its okay.

I developed a lower-back ache about 2 weeks back and henceforth I started exercising regularly. The back pain is better.

I started talking to my college friends again. Its been rather nice to talk to them.

Food

I have always had a weird relationship with food. I got a bunch fo supplies to last me a good couple of weeks of isolation and that they did. However my supplies are about to run away so I am rationing now.

For the first month, I lived mostly on Bread and Peanut Butter Sandwiches. I used to toast them sometimes with Margarine. And oats. We get "just add hot water" type oats here. I prefer these to instant noodles. To augment the nutritional value, I also add peas and vegetables to them.

I tried experimenting with eggs and meat and I have to say, it is considerably more work than the value they provide.

Since this lockdown is not coming to an end anytime soon, I am trying a different sort of cooking than my traditional "boil everything together with salt". I am adding beans to the mix. They are quite nutritious.

That is all for today. Thanks for reading. Let's hope that we get through this mess quickly.