Lockdown/Covid Check In
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@paekakboyz said in Lockdown Check In:
@mn5 rebuilding empathy, or developing it after your formative years is pretty bloody hard. Wood's story is pretty amazing.
I know a few people who know him pretty well. He was definitely a bit of a bad boy at school as I vaguely remember. To do what he did and completely change as he did in prison is damn impressive. I couldn’t even imagine myself doing the same. As it says in the article he was held back in primary school ?? ( despite being a year below me he is actually a couple of months older ) so I think getting the degrees is what amazes me the most.
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Got up to Queensland. Warmer weather, friends and families, drinks, sunsets and log fires.
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Is the travel bubble with Cook Islands still open? Might make an ok holiday.
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@nostrildamus yeah and likely to remain so as they've not had a case and are pretty much all vaccinated now - on Raro at least.
Personally I like Raro but I've been there three times previously. I simply can't get excited by the prospect of a 4th trip. Same has been true of the travel I've done within NZ since COVID. Nice but overly familiar so doesn't really do it. I want the excitement of new places and experiences. Sadly the sorts of places I want to go are the ones being hammered by COVID.
Which sort of puts my own small personal issues into perspective
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@antipodean said in Lockdown Check In:
log fires
I walked into the Ravenshoe pub one August in shorts and a tee shirt and got told to close the bloody door it's freezing by the locals who were all dressed for an Antarctic expedition with a log fire roaring.
It was 25
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@dogmeat said in Lockdown Check In:
@antipodean said in Lockdown Check In:
log fires
I walked into the Ravenshoe pub one August in shorts and a tee shirt and got told to close the bloody door it's freezing by the locals who were all dressed for an Antarctic expedition with a log fire roaring.
It was 25
i was up there a week ago and it was a fucking freezing 16 in the middle of the day
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@taniwharugby said in Lockdown Check In:
I talk to people in the US and UK know that most people in NZ simply have no idea how bad it is in some places.
I've noticed this as well. A good friend of mine is a nurse in the UK, she got pregnant early on in the pandemic so was pulled off the wards when things were crazy (which made her parents very happy) but she gave me a good overview of the numbers involved and how much of the health resources were devoted to Covid. My mates in the US have been in lockdown more often and for longer than I've experienced in Oz.
I also have a friend who is an epidemiologist, well, he was, he does some sort of data mining now obviously for the waaaay better coin. I'm befuddled that people out there will trust the word of random engineers, first year MD's, Youtube personalities etc over the people who dedicate their lives to studying the spread of contagious diseases or working in public health.
I'm never going to be in the let it rip (pre high vaccination numbers) camp. The women in my family all live long lives, my great great grandmother and great grandmother managed to fight off various flus and other ailments so that I got to spend a lot of time with them as a kid. If they had succumbed to a 1970s version of Covid where the govt said let it rip I would have missed spending that time with them, and hearing stories about the old days. (All the men in my family die young of heart attacks so that's why they don't get a mention).
In all honesty, this latest lockdown in Sydney doesn't bother me on a personal level. I'm fine working from home. I get to walk in the sun during the middle of the day, which if I was working in the office I'd miss and be walking late afternoon in the shade/dark. It was my birthday on Sunday, the fairly lax lockdown rules here meant I could catch up with two friends for a walk (and coffee and cake) at separate times and some other friends brought me over a roast and pudding.
I've now had two trips to Malaysia, the Bluesfest, a trip to QLD at Xmas to see my mother, and three trips to NZ cancelled, including one that was cancelled two days out from the most recent lockdown.
I miss travel, but I don't feel it's my god's given right to travel. My socio-economic circumstances mean that I can travel, but there's a bunch of people in NZ and Oz who don't do too much or any overseas travel. I've missed the tangi/funeral of two of my aunties which genuinely sucks but did stuff with my Sydney based cousins as a replacement and for one of them watched a livestream.
A mate of mine's tourism business went under, and a family tourism business is on hiatus so that sucks. In the case of the mate a bunch of us friends of his in the early days decided to try and put savings aside during the pandemic to have a pool of money so he can restart when things return to some sort of normalcy. Luckily his wife has a decent job so he hasn't been on the breadline.
TBH, the most I've ever got depressed during this time has been reading the Fern and seeing a whole bunch of posters I genuinely like have opinions on things that are diametrically opposed to me and me not being able to understand how they hold that opinion.
Like anyone else I get annoyed with the various govts down here, but in the main I think they've done a good job, especially as a high metric for me is keeping deaths to a low level. I know that some argue that keeping deaths down causes mental health problems/other health problems etc, but I don't think it's zero sum. I know a lot of effort was put into mental health messaging and services last year (as I work tangentially to that sector) to help meet those needs. Yeah like everyone I wish the vaccine rollouts in NZ and Oz was faster but it's not like both countries are sitting on their hands, they're trying to get it done - B for effort, C for application so far, but hopefully things ramp up and most people get vaccinated by the end of the year.
I understand that not everyone feels the same as I do, I understand that some people are doing it tougher - but this is genuinely how I feel at this lockdown check-in time so thought I'd fire off my verbal diarrhoea as this thread has had a bump.
- I don't really have the inclination to shitfight anyone about any of my points, so likely wont, but not saying you can't disagree with them in the thread if you want to.
TLDR read - I'm doing fine.
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@dogmeat said in Lockdown Check In:
@nostrildamus yeah and likely to remain so as they've not had a case and are pretty much all vaccinated now - on Raro at least.
Personally I like Raro but I've been there three times previously. I simply can't get excited by the prospect of a 4th trip. Same has been true of the travel I've done within NZ since COVID. Nice but overly familiar so doesn't really do it. I want the excitement of new places and experiences. Sadly the sorts of places I want to go are the ones being hammered by COVID.
Which sort of puts my own small personal issues into perspective
I've been to Raro lots, I'll happily head there as soon as I'm able too. I do all the same things every time too. But it's stuff I like to do so is relaxing for me.
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@dogmeat said in Lockdown Check In:
@nostrildamus yeah and likely to remain so as they've not had a case and are pretty much all vaccinated now - on Raro at least.
Personally I like Raro but I've been there three times previously. I simply can't get excited by the prospect of a 4th trip. Same has been true of the travel I've done within NZ since COVID. Nice but overly familiar so doesn't really do it. I want the excitement of new places and experiences. Sadly the sorts of places I want to go are the ones being hammered by COVID.
Which sort of puts my own small personal issues into perspective
I'm not in NZ (at least for a couple of days) but I thought you could leave the country? Are there massive queues to get back in like Australia?
I ask as I have a travel exemption to work overseas from Australia in the Northern Hemisphere but the only economic way to return is via NZ and MIQ in NZ (if they let me). -
@nepia I'm not very good at switching off. Sitting on a pool or by the beach doesn't do it for me at all unfortunately. I need input. I'm one of those annoying types who is on the streets at 8:00 a.m. and don't get back to the hotel until midnight having walked 30 km's. My brain won't switch off and craves new experiences.
Other than that you have described my position in your post pretty well. COVID isn't the thing that's shitting me - it's the cherry on the top of a whole host of other issues.
@nostrildamus MIQ in NZ is booked out months in advance.
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As hard as things have been for us all since early last year, life as we know it is so different now it’s hard to remember what it once was. So many have had their lives turned upside down.
Does make you think of what people went through from 1939 - 1945 ( and beyond)
Surely we don’t have it as bad as they did.
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@dogmeat said in Lockdown Check In:
@nepia I'm not very good at switching off. Sitting on a pool or by the beach doesn't do it for me at all unfortunately. I need input. I'm one of those annoying types who is on the streets at 8:00 a.m. and don't get back to the hotel until midnight having walked 30 km's. My brain won't switch off and craves new experiences.
Other than that you have described my position in your post pretty well. COVID isn't the thing that's shitting me - it's the cherry on the top of a whole host of other issues.
@nostrildamus MIQ in NZ is booked out months in advance.
I guess with Raro I'm generally doing stuff as opposed to "just" sitting on the beach. Usually try and do focused stuff per day - go to mini putt, hike over the centre of the island, cycle round the island, do a tour. In between all that is snorkelling, swimming, eating and eating. Drink more than I normally do.
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@mariner4life said in Lockdown Check In:
While I was cut off from the world the other week, and feeling very relaxed, I made a conscious decision
I am now all about letting shit go. I was wasting far too much energy being angry at shit that I had zero control over. No one was affected but me. So what's the point?
I'm barely looking at the news. And even if I did, it is just to read, I am not reacting. It's the other stuff that is harder, not getting upset by traffic, shit like that. And yelling at the kids less.
Covid is fucked. Governments are fucked. But they don't care about me so I don't care about them.
Embrace the peace bros
I've started to re-embrace a favourite short poem:
See the happy moron,
He doesn't give a damn.
I wish I was a moron.
My god, perhaps I am! -
@mariner4life said in Lockdown Check In:
@bones said in Lockdown Check In:
@mariner4life said in Lockdown Check In:
While I was cut off from the world the other week, and feeling very relaxed, I made a conscious decision
I am now all about letting shit go. I was wasting far too much energy being angry at shit that I had zero control over. No one was affected but me. So what's the point?
I'm barely looking at the news. And even if I did, it is just to read, I am not reacting. It's the other stuff that is harder, not getting upset by traffic, shit like that. And yelling at the kids less.
Covid is fucked. Governments are fucked. But they don't care about me so I don't care about them.
Embrace the peace bros
Just wait until ALB gets left out of the team to face Aus.
Would not give a shit
Yeah good one mate. Thumbs up.
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@nostrildamus said in Lockdown Check In:
Is the travel bubble with Cook Islands still open? Might make an ok holiday.
Damn you. Had to cancel our 8 night stay in Raro yesterday 😞
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@nostrildamus yeah, well, I'm going to Longleat in August. Boomfa.