I'm Bored

As you may have seen from one of my earlier posts, I have been watching a lot of new films during furlough - and I keep doing that til this very day. However, it doesn’t always have to be new movies, I can also occasionally rewatch the ones I have already seen a bunch of times. Movies have for the past few years really been a beacon of light in my life, something I use for both entertainment and as a weapon against depression. There aren’t very many things on this Earth that I love more than I love films.

So I thought.. Why not start a podcast? And that’s exactly what I did. I update it regularly - and the next episode is coming out today! Be sure to check it out:

For about a month now, I have been busy. I cannot believe that it’s been like a month since I stopped just sitting at home. When I was put on furlough, I thought it was the worst thing ever because I really wanted to work- and get a full salary of course. However, during that time I did keep busy - I lost a bunch of weight, I got myself a nice bike, I got interested in the idea of podcasting.

Being on furlough I got so used to just waking up whenever I wanted to. Knowing myself it was still fairly early most days - like 8 or 9 AM - but I did enjoy not having to really put on an alarm clock. I got a little too used to being on a temporary holiday for months - that going back to work at the start of September was a bit of a shock. Granted, I don’t have to wake up at 6 AM like I used to to catch the morning train - but 7 AM is still really early. Just ask my niece.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: I don’t live on my own anymore. As of late August my niece has been staying with me. It’s nice to not be alone all the time anymore, but at the same time weird to be in a small apartment such as mine together. We are looking to move however - so hopefully in a few months we will be away from here.

For the next month or so I will be focusing on several things:

1. Finding a new job (as reducements are happening all over the place)

2. Finding a new flat and moving when I can

3. Putting aside money

4. Focusing on my appearance (losing more weight, getting a new haircut).

I have always loved books. As a child they were my key to unknown worlds. When I discovered a good story like the Kalle Blomkvist tales or the Children of the Noisy Village I could read the whole night. However, I didn’t go through stories with as easily as Matilda, and I wasn’t by any means at the top of my class when it came to reading. When we did tests on books like Animal Farm, I had to rely on classmates who HAD read the entire book. Sadly for me, the teacher was too smart and totally failed me when she realised I didn’t know the names of all of the three dogs in the story.

Because it’s with such little details that you see if someone has read. When it comes to the Twilight books, you can ask what the color of Rosalie’s car was or what’s the name of Bella’s mother’s new husband. Attentive readers will know.

I didn’t have such an attention with every story, but I did with some. As I grew to a teenager, a book was always in my bag. People in the bus often saw me with my nose in the book and commented how refreshing it was to see a young person READ. “They never do anymore these days.” they said to me. “Don’t ever lose that.”

I wish I had listened to these words back then. Sadly, looking back now I can say the early reading struggles began for me in high school. In Estonia, one of the biggest exams is writing an essay which is your way to show your viewpoint, maturity and how much you have actually read. I had a lot of the first, a little less of the second and not nearly enough of the third. I had barely finished reading Hamlet, and had not even halfway finished Goethe’s “Faust”. All I really had in my arsenal was some extra reading like Dostoevsky’s “Idiot”. It was great shooting material for sure, a book I still very very much love - but it was nowhere nearly enough.

I chocked. I got nervous. I relied primarily on my writing talent whilst everything else turned out to be so much more important. So when it came to the actual grading, classmates of mine with far less writing talent got high marks and I got an average one. Funnily enough, the best writers in our class alongside with me all got marks that were nowhere near fair.

This did not help to make my relationship with books better, but luckily also didn’t erase my love for literature. When I finally went to uni and studied it, I really loved it. Mind you, I didn’t always finish the class reading - but when I did I had the best time. And even if I had only barely touched a book I was sometimes successfully able to analyze it’s structure. When I did fully read something though, I always got a straight A.

I pushed through a lot of books, sometimes more eagerly and sometimes less so. When it came to my final thesis, I don’t think I read nearly as much as I should have and so I basically ended up with an average grade yet again.

After university, I still sometimes read. However, I came to find that it was easier to actually go through stories with audiobooks - or sometimes even movies or TV shows. I have seen adaptations of stories like Big Little Lies and Me Before You before I ever touched the books. I still have a lot of books, so many I could probably build a throne out of all of them. But I hardly actually use them for what they were meant for.

I do sometimes wonder how I actually ended up studying literature when I hardly ever read these days. Last year I didn’t even finish a book. It seems to me that I have somehow lost a part of myself that I don’t really know how to get back.

When 2020 began, I set myself goals about doing stuff that I used to do. Funnily enough, I have painted. I have made drawings. I have even started to cycle and cook more. I even sing more. But I don’t read.

At the same time I have over 40 audiobooks in my library. I love to listen to others read stories like the Harry Potter Books or the Millennium trilogy. But I miss that voice in my head when I read a book. I miss that imagination I had when I was going through a story. Those things are erased when you let someone else take control of your reading experience.

It’s really sad come to think of that. I know it’s not just me that is struggling. It’s a lot of young people these days. Our attention spans are short, and we cannot commit easily to holding something like a book in our hands for a long time. For past generations books were the main forms of entertainment - but not for us. For us everything is so visual. Youtube videos, movies, TV shows. Binge, binge, binge. You don’t have to imagine anything. You don’t even have to cut open the cake anymore - a piece of it is handed to you just like that.

At the very start of this lockdown I set myself a goal. It was to watch a new movie every day. Whilst perhaps not the most useful of goals, I knew it was something I would be able to do as watching movies is something I really love to do.

I’ve watched close to 900 movies during my lifetime (and yes, I actually counted that). I suppose you could definitely say that I am a movie buff, although I always feel I haven’t watched enough of them to earn that title.Therefore, a challenge like this made sense.

As you can see from the picture above (if you actually bothered to count) I have actually watched 56 movies during the last few months of quarantine. This does not include films that I watched again or ones that I did not finish. Some Netflix movies were just too much for me.

Whilst this overall number may be a tiny bit smaller number than I expected, it is a much higher amount of movies than I would have watched if I wasn’t in quarantine. Above all, it reminds me of the fact that I do actually have the perseverance to take on challenges and complete them.

It’s the early afternoon. I’ve just arrived back from my long walk in the forest - my daily exercise that I cannot do without. I took it a little earlier than usual today, knowing well that the financial future of me and millions of others would be announced live on parliament around lunchtime.

My Whatsapp is going absolutely crazy. The usually quiet group with my colleagues is especially active.

“I’m so happy they will keep it at 80%!” one of them writes. “I was so convinced they would put us on 60%!”

Without a second thought I call my parents. Whilst the phone connects, I shed a few quiet tears and wipe them away the second I hear the familiar voice of my dad. “They extended the furlough scheme til October!” I say, sounding unnaturally chipper. “I’ll get 80% of my pay til then!”

“Until October?” my mum asks. “Why is it taking so long? Everything is already opening up here!”

“Mum,” I say, “It’s a good thing. They could have just axed it or put us on 60%! Believe me - it’s good.”

I love Spider-Man. Love him. Always have, always will. He is single handedly one of the best heroes in the Marvel Universe. But.. I hate spiders.

Spiders are not necessarily the worst bugs you can ever come across. As I was a young girl, the flat I lived in was infested with cockroaches. It got so out of hand that we had to have the flat completely cleaned out several times. I also once saw little worms crawl all over my grandma’s flat which probably freaked me out for a lifetime. 

And yet I was still not prepared for what I experienced yesterday. As I was laying down on my bed, I suddenly saw a little spider crawling towards me at rapid speed! I screamed and jumped out of the bed.

So my first week in furlough is coming to a close. And I must say, what I knew would happen has actually happened. I have been constantly, and sometimes even extremely lazy.

I have watched just a couple new movies this week instead of the usual 10 (at the very least). I have not progressed nearly as well with the cleaning of my flat as I would have liked to. And above all, besides regular walks i have not done as much exercising as I used to.

But the worst of all, I have done something I hoped I would never do during this lockdown. I have been bored.

It’s a sentence I’ve repeated many times. Whether it was genuine or a way of being lazy, I have used this sentence more times than I can count. I lost the track of it a long time ago.

Ever since I was a child there have been about a million things I always wanted to do. Some of them I actually did, some I got started on and never finished. There was a time when my drawers were full of letters to my friends and family that I started writing but didn’t actually send out.

Over time as I progressed with school and eventually work, I didn’t have the time for many things I actually wanted to do. Or at least, I said I didn’t. Whether it was actually cleaning my flat, getting started on that list of recommended films and TV shows, or finally finishing the novel that’s been in my drawer for years. I can tell you for sure: with where I am at the moment Stephen King wouldn’t be proud of me.

I, just like most people in the world, didn’t see COVID19 hitting us so hard at all. I did complain a lot at first, just like many others did - until I realized this is an opportunity for me to finally focus on myself.

Today is my official first day of furlough. I must say it feels weird, as I am used to starting work at 8 am - and today is the first time in months that I’m not. For all I know, this could be going on for months.

And whilst I cannot promise that I will do absolutely everything I always wanted, getting started on it’s own is a massive step forward. I want to keep busy, whilst also allowing myself the holiday I’ve needed for months.

So it has soon almost been a month that I have been at home. A month! I know it’s not that long ago that I was still working in my office but now it honestly feels like it was ages ago.

I’m not going to lie - quite a lot of this time has been filled with laziness. On some days the only useful thing I did was my job. From 8 to 4 I was stuck in my so called “home office” answering calls and e-mails from customers. After that, I mostly just stayed at home.

But it hasn’t all been a waste. Surprisingly, during this month I have already achieved some things that previously seemed impossible.

So I got the news this week. Like many people in the UK, I am now stuck at home unable to work. And for someone who has worked for many years now this is a scary prospect. Not so much financially, as it all came down to this simple question:

What will I do with all this time?

I used to always say: “Oh, I don’t have time for this.”. But now that I have all the time in the world I am not sure what to really do with that. Like almost everyone alive today, I have things that I always wanted to do but never really did. I don’t even know why. This may be the best time ever to do it all.

I have already started with cleaning my flat and I set myself a goal of watching one new movie every day. But there is also reading, writing, baking, drawing, exercising and many other things that I can do now that I have all of this free time.

It all comes down to a question: who do I want to be when the quarantine ends? I’d like to think I’ll be a better version of myself - a more confident and resilient individual.