Being crippled by anxiety
My vacation checklist is going terribly.
So far I have…
mopped my floors, but not cleaned anything else
done 2 loads of laundry, not folded
played flute one day, for an hour of random sight reading and scales
not baked a single thing at home
not cooked anything fun, though we did do bossam night yesterday
failed to learn any new skills
played a ton of Stardew Valley but without much progress
I have progressed back to a level of anxiety that is difficult to manage. Mostly, I throw mindless content in my face to keep myself away from a bombardment of bad news every time I pick up my phone. Everything is being handled so poorly, people here don’t take social distancing seriously enough. And how can they, when our own federal government doesn’t? I don’t have any hope left in me. I’ll spare myself from rewriting out all the fears I’m keeping at bay by constant entertainment. At night, it’s hard to keep from crying as soon as I close my eyes and no longer have any means of distracting myself. I feel so overwhelmed, and guilty about it too, because many others are going through much worse in these difficult times.
In general, we wake up too late for me to get anything done. At night, I tire myself out until I can drift off the second I close myself. That’s usually 4 am. Wake up around noon, be unmotivated and depressed and play video games until too hungry, and scavenge for food in the fridge. Repeat cycle of distraction until bed. Feel guilty about wasting my day the entire time. Feel crappy and lethargic in general.
Last week, I was working somewhat - partial shifts at night, where there was nothing to do so I made a few random items for fun and cleaned a lot. I felt so exposed unnecessarily, yet I couldn’t complain about collecting a paycheck for relatively little work. This week, I’m officially furloughed for 3 months. So now, we walk the dog and don’t go anywhere else.
Tomorrow, I want to start having more structure and goals. Wake up earlier, get real things done. I want to make the Korean sweet egg sandwich, but not going out for superfluous grocery runs means I have to start by making my own fluffy white bread, since I missed my chance on my Whole Foods trip yesterday. That travesty in social distancing makes me not want to go anywhere public for a long time anyway.
Bossam, modern style. I talked about it briefly in my old blog. Maybe I’ll write about it here tomorrow. Apple ssamjang, against maangchi’s advice (she insists that bossam pairs with traditional ssamjang, but come on, apple and pork).
Today, I started to translate 还珠格格II. Episode 1 took me almost 10 hours (with lots of distrcations) to just translate very roughly. I’ve always wanted to do it, and to edit and re-release season 1’s subtitles from back in the day. It made the day go by quickly, and that show always brings me back to simpler times and fills me with nostalgia. It ages so poorly yet so well at the same time. I think I’ll continue making subtitles for it to practice my Chinese, and see how far I get by the time the quarantine is over. Probably not very far. Each episode will probably take at least 3 full days dedicated to it to translate, time, proofread, encode, and upload, more for the ones filled with puns. And there are 48 episodes… But it was fun! We’ll see how long it stays fun, hah.