How are we call doing this week? At the moment I am well and truly swamped with Uni work. I have all of my end of year portfolios due in on Friday, so things are a little mad on this end. I’ve been working on some of these pieces for months now and no matter how well I planned everything, it stills feels like a mad rush to get them finished.
Due to the volume of Uni work I have at the moment I haven’t been able to get all that much reading done, so no new reviews this week. Rest assured though I’m very close to finishing my current read and I fully intend on writing a post about my thought on it very soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that. But for today’s post I thought it’d be nice to share some of the things I’ve been up to in the past weeks during lockdown. Hopefully it may inspire some of you if you’re feeling bored and want to try something new to pass the time.
What I’ve been doing to pass the time
Learning to juggle
I really wanted to come out of lockdown with a new skill. For years I’ve been super jealous of anyone who could juggle, it was something I always wanted to do but lacked the co-ordination to do it. But with a stupidly large amount of time on my hands I figured now would be as good a time as ever to give it a go.
To start with I didn’t have any juggling balls so had to make do with tinfoil balls in socks. It wasn’t very successful as they were far too light. I got some proper juggling balls on order and practised with my DIY ones until they arrived. Once the proper ones had arrived I was comfortably juggling three ball in a day.
Now that I’ve mastered three balls I’ve started to learn some tricks. I also got my hands on another set so I can start to learn how to juggle with four, five and six balls.
Reading
A few weeks ago I finished reading Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel, what I reviewed (check that out here).
At the moment I’m making my way through surrounded by idiots by Thomas Erikson. It’s a non-fiction book that teaches you about the four behavioural types, red, yellow, green and blue. It’s an interesting topic that I think pretty much everyone could benefit learning about. I’m not going to say loads about it here because I will be writing a full review on it once I’ve finished but I can say that whilst the concept of the book is very interesting, I’m having some mixed thoughts about the book itself.
Animal Crossing
If you’re not an Animal Crossing fan I bet you’re sick to the back teeth of hearing about it by now. If that’s the case you can skip this section and move onto the next one because I’m about to go full fan girl… you have been warned.
I got my hands on the game just over two weeks ago and I adore it. I’ve been a fan of AC for years, I had it on my DS, 3DS, Wii and now my Switch. So far I’m very impressed with New Horizons and it’s my favourite version of the game.
I decided to name my island Imrie and so far it’s home to myself and 10 villagers.
I’m still in the relatively early stages of the game but I have some very big plans for my island. My current project is creating a mystical woods with plenty of water features.
The game has been a welcome distraction from life. I stand my the opinion that Animal Crossing is good for your mental health. It’s been nice to play on it whilst I’ve been under the weather too. It’s been giving me something else to focus on.
Running
Here in the UK we’ve been allowed to go our for one form of exercise each day (although I believe that’s changing today). Seeing as all the gyms are closed I’ve had to take my running off a treadmill and outside instead. I’ve honestly enjoyed being out and about running, it’s been nice to get out of the house and get some fresh air for a bit.
Being able to get out for a run is something that I’m incredibly grateful for. Those of you who have been around for a while may remember that running and exercise in general hasn’t been something I’ve been able to do for one reason or another. So the fact that I can now comfortable run 7km is amazing.
University work
Whilst I may not in Bangor anymore due to lockdown, I still have all my work to be doing. I’ve been chipping away at my end of year work during lockdown. I can’t say it’s been the single most exciting thing going now that I have Animal Crossing to be the ultimate distraction, but it’s something that has to be done.
Balancing writing for my blog and doing my assignments has been a tad challenging. I feel like I’m stuck to my laptop and with so much reading to do as I edit my Irlens has really been playing up. For those of you who are students I think you’ll know what I mean when I say keeping productive and on top of uni work whilst you’re home can require a lot self discipline… especially if you have animal crossing.
There we go, that’s what I’ve been doing to pass the time during lockdown. Does my list look very different to yous, or have you found yourself doing the same stuff as me?
Like I said at the start of the post, my portfolios will all be done by Friday so next week we will be back to normal with the usual bookish talk. But until next week, stay safe.
Cover photo source: Roman Kraft on Unsplash
Lost in the Story 
I’m so impressed with the juggling! It sounds like you have a good balance between keeping busy and letting yourself relax a bit. Good luck with the rest of your portfolios!
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Thank you, although I nearly broke a picture frame the other day so it’s not that impressive.
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Only ‘nearly’ would be a win for me! 😛
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Haha yeah, that’s a more positive way of looking at it.
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I’m still working from home, and it feels overwhelming. Part of that, though is that I tend to not start on major work things until later in the day than I would if I were still working in person, and because of that sometimes I’m not done until 7 or 8 at night. So I don’t think I’m necessarily spending more time working. But I can’t really do my job as effectively from home, and the news just keeps getting more and more discouraging as to when, if ever, things will return to normal.
Yesterday started out a good day. I participated in a drive-by parade for someone special whose birthday was yesterday. I went to my favorite restaurant yesterday. And I was told that the health department shut down their Coca-Cola Freestyle machine because it is out in the open where customers can serve themselves, and they are only serving bottled drinks (more expensive for less drink, of course). It just isn’t the same. That’s something little, I know, and it’s more healthy that way, but that just really set me off into a downward spiral the rest of the day. The government keeps taking away all the little things that make life enjoyable to me. And my plantar fasciitis seems to be coming back even though I haven’t been running.
And… tomorrow I have a tryout for Jeopardy. This should be good news. But instead I’m a complete wreck over it. I don’t know if I even want to be on Jeopardy anymore. I’ve taken the qualifying test five times, and the one time before that they called me back for a tryout, I did terribly. And I’m not in the right frame of mind these days to possibly go on national TV someday and embarrass myself. It worries me that I’m not excited about this. (Do you have Jeopardy over there?)
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Having a disrupted routine where everything is a few hours back can be a real pain, I’m sorry it’s like that at the moment. If it’s any help, here in the UK lockdown has been seriously relaxed and things are looking positive. I know the UK is pretty tiny in comparison to other places round the world, but hopefully bigger populations will find a similar outcome soon. I know it’s hard to stay positive though.
It’s good yesterday had some positives for you. Something that my physio recommended was getting a plastic pop bottle, filling it with water and freezing it. I got a damp towel over it and would roll my foot on that to ease some pain. I’m by no means qualified to offer medical advice, but that really helped me out.
I’m unfamiliar with Jeopardy sorry. I hope it goes well for you though, Im always that annoying positive person who hopes once you get there you feel better about things.
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Not here… a few small things are starting to be relaxed, but the governor and people here keep saying a lot of stuff won’t happen for years, until we have a vaccine, and he keeps warning us that there’s going to be a second wave in the fall because we wanted to open up too early. (And Jeopardy is a trivia game show, it’s been around since the 1960s, I grew up watching it and playing along with the TV.)
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