March 2023 – dangermouse.net

COVID day 9

Feeling mostly better from COVID, I did another rapid antigen test today, expecting it to be clear. But, lo… it tested positive. Apparently my body is fighting it off nicely, but hasn’t vanquished the foe fully yet.

This morning I felt well enough to go on a 2.5k run. I felt like I took it a bit easy, not wanting to strain myself, but I ended up recording exactly the same time as my last pre-COVID run. Although in hindsight, that was probably during the incubation period, before I’d started noticing any symptoms, so I might have been a bit affected then, too.

After the run, I did a housecleaning, since I missed it last weekend due to being sick. Washed the bathroom and shower, vacuumed everywhere, emptied and refilled the damp absorbers.

Also did a long walk with Scully and my wife (who is still home sick from work, of course). And a shorter one in the early evening, when I took the chance to pop into the small local supermarket to buy some biscuits and mascarpone to make myself some pseudo-tiramisu for dessert, since we’re out of any other sort of sweets. I made a variation of this recipe for peanut butter and jam tiramisu. I made it with hot chocolate instead of coffee, because I don’t eat/drink coffee. They’re in the fridge chilling, and I’m looking forward to trying one later this evening.

New content today:

Summarising Star Wars Episode VIII

Today I used the opportunity provided by having a week off ethics classes due to COVID to catch up on some work that I was behind on for Darths & Droids. Normally for each Star Wars movie I go through the video file scene by scene and write a summary of every scene in the film, to use as a reference for planning our story. But when Episode VIII began not too long ago, I didn’t have time to do this, so we’ve been winging it a little bit, with less than our usual preparation work. But it’s getting to a stage of the story where we need to be more careful in planning ahead, so I bit the bullet today and wrote the summary.

This involved about 3 or 4 hours sitting with the ripped video files and winding them forwards and backwards, pausing every few seconds to type out a quick summary of each scene. It’s much slower than just watching the movie.

This morning right after breakfast my wife wanted to take a walk outside to get some fresh air and hopefully help tail end of COVID feel better. We walked with Scully over to the Naremburn bakery where my wife had a coffee, and I had a really nice lamington. We sat on a bench away fro the cafe tables to avoid being too close to anyone. It rained a bit walking there and back, but not too heavily, and it was nice to be out and get Scully some exercise after yesterday when we mostly sat inside all day.

New content today:

COVID day 7

I feel mostly better today, after a better night’s sleep. The last thing is this lingering throat tightness and coughing, which is pretty bad. It’s difficult talking for long without breaking into coughing.

Today I did some real work though. I had to write a report on the ISO Photography Standards meeting I attended in February, for Standards Australia, ahead of our follow-up national meeting on Friday. I’d intended to write it last week, but got cut short by COVID. The meeting was to be held in person in the city, but the project manager contacted me to suggest moving it to Zoom, which I agreed to.

In between writing parts of that report, I went for a walk with my wife (who is feeling a bit better today too) and Scully, trying to beat the heavy rain that fell most of the afternoon.

New content today:

Mending from COVID

I’m definitely on the upswing from my COVID infection. Last night was the best night’s sleep I had since last Wednesday, although unfortunately my wife had a restless one. I think her symptoms are a bit less severe than mine overall. But she’s a few days behind me, and today I felt mostly okay except for sinus congestion and coughing, milder than yesterday.

Today I worked on some Darths & Droids comics, and did some planning for the next Dungeons & Dragons game session with my friends, which will be on 21 April.

I’ve also been spending some time migrating notes from OneNote into Obsidian. I’m deep into a lot of the roleplaying game material now, and reorganising it more logically as I go. Over the years I’ve collected a lot of ideas and tips for running games, writing adventures, house rules, random tables of stuff, and miscellaneous bits and pieces. And migrating them is making me look at them all one by one, and simulating lots of creative ideas in my mind…

New content today:

Scully’s 5th birthday!

Today was the Big 5 for Scully! (Not the big 5-0, just the big 5 🤣) She got a wrapped gift from our neighbours, which she had fun tearing the paper off, revealing a… llamacorn. Yeah, a rainbow coloured llama-unicorn toy. She got into it and gave it a good chew so that was a hit.

I slept poorly during the night. The COVID has moved up to resemble a bad head cold, with blocked sinuses and dripping nose. I could lie on my back without my nose running, but I’m a side sleeper and don’t feel comfortable lying on my back and can’t fall asleep that way. But whenever I rolled into a comfortable positions on my side, my nose would start running within a few seconds and I had to jump out of bed, grab some tissues, and blow my nose. Rinse, repeat.

The annoying thing is I don’t feel especially sick – under the weather certainly, but not a complete mess – but I just can’t get a restful sleep. I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep since I first noticed symptoms on Wednesday. Today I didn’t have any more feverish spells or hot sweats, so I think things are on the mend. I’m hoping I can really conk out and sleep soundly tonight. My sinuses are still badly clogged, but hopefully not as runny as last night.

I decided to cancel ethics classes tomorrow, and also for Tuesday and Wednesday, because now I’ve cancelled more than half a week, so I figured I should just go ahead and cancel a full week’s worth, and shuffle my topics forward a week so none of the students actually miss out on any of the topics. I’m almost certain I won’t be able to go into the university tomorrow to teach Data Engineering there either.

New content today:

COVID day 4

Still feeling pretty miserable, though the symptoms are at least an ever-changing cavalcade of new sensations. Today I woke up with my sinuses and ears blocked. The throat doesn’t feel as gluggy, overtaken by sniffling, nose-blowing, and a general stuffy head. Again the morning was easier, but I developed feverish chills and aching muscles again in the late afternoon. Definitely not a pleasant disease, this.

Today was the New South Wales State election. Fortunately I’d gone up with my wife on Wednesday to a pre-polling station and cast my vote then, so I didn’t have to go do it today. We’ve had a conservative government here for the past 12 years, and looking at the very early results being counted as I type, it looks like a foregone conclusion that they’ll be voted out.

I took Scully for a short walk in the morning while my wife went out to pick up an item she’d ordered. She didn’t tell me about this until she got home with it: It’s a gift for Scully for her 5th birthday, which is tomorrow. It’s a new dog bed sewn out of some of my wife’s old clothes.

The idea is that her scent is all over it, so it’ll be familiar and comfortable for Scully to snuggle on.

Tonight we ordered some Indian food for dinner. We almost never order food delivered, but seeing as I can’t go out to a restaurant and didn’t feel too enthused about cooking myself, we decided it would be a good idea tonight.

New content today:

COVID day 3

Again my symptoms eased off overnight and I felt not too bad in the morning, but they’ve gotten worse again this evening. The main thing is alternating feverish chills with goosebumps and hot flushes with lots of sweating. My throat feels clogged with something like really thick phlegm. I’m coughing occasionally, but too badly, but it doesn’t help the clogged feeling much. I’m glad I don’t have a worse cough. Honestly, I’d rather have a fever than a persistent cough – I hate uncontrollable coughing.

Yesterday I’d cancelled all today’s ethics classes, and I’m glad I did. Teaching kids in this state would have been extremely mentally taxing. I took Scully for a walk a few times. I felt well enough to do that, making sure I didn’t go near anyone while outside. And apart from a little bit of comic writing, I’ve been relaxing and watching some TV.

I started watching the Netflix series Marianne, which is a French horror series. I have the English dub and the English subtitles on, since occasionally a train goes past and it becomes difficult to hear the dialogue for a few seconds. I’ve noticed that the English dialogue and the subtitles are wildly different. Not just a different word here and there, but whole different sentences. Sometimes the dub mentions something while the subtitles leave it out, and vice versa. And I noticed one occasion where the subtitles actually said the exact opposite of what the dialogue said. It’s actually somewhat entertaining to watch just to see the differences.

New content today:

Well, it finally happened

The night was pretty bad with my suspected flu. I was fevery and shivery for a few hours, than got hot. I’m not sure if I slept at all. By this morning I actually felt better. I did two ethics classes, hoping the worst was over. But it crept back over the course of the day.

I just did another COVID RAT test… and it’s positive. I’ve avoided it up until now. I was hoping my streak would continue, but it’s come to an end.

I cancelled tomorrow’s ethics classes, because if I feel like this tomorrow it’ll be a serious struggle.

New content today:

Sick for the first time in ages

Very short update today. I am feeling pretty miserable – feverish, sore throat, light-headed, a bit achey. I did a COVID RAT test and it’s clear, and I don’t have a cough, so I’m thinking it might be the flu.

This is the first time I’ve felt sick in the slightest since pre-COVID. It was a good run while it lasted. Going to get an early night and rest.

New content today:

The Incinerator Cafe

This morning I worked on annotating the slides for one of the science classes I did with the individual student a while back – the one on weather. I planned to do that and the recent one on photography by 10am, but by 10:30 I’d only finished the first one! It takes a lot longer than I realise. After that I had to work on some comics to keep them ticking over.

For lunch I took Scully for a short drive to a new place. I searched for dog-friendly cafes in the area and found one I hadn’t heard of before, The Incinerator Cafe. It’s in an old heritage-listed garbage incinerator building. It was fairly nice, and I had the beef burger.

It was okay sitting outside, as it was cool and very overcast today, though it didn’t rain at all. We’re supposed to get some rain over the next few days, but the temperature will warm up again to around 30°C.

Tonight I’m starting the new week of ethics classes, on the topic of photography. I’m using a lot of my own photos as examples, to discuss the ethics of taking photos of strangers, editing photos in different contexts, photojournalism, and photos as art. I think this will be an easy week, compared to some topics that take a lot more work to get the kids talking about.

New content today: