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Apr. 1st, 2020 04:12 pmasdjkhask. I checked my 'professional' email, which I barely ever do, and it turns out my work had been emailing me updates through there. Not any of the things I was calling my boss about, but one thing I was going to call him about. It turns out I have been officially furloughed, and apparently will be receiving 100% of my usual wages on my next payday. Which is nice. In many ways, I'll be getting more this month than usual, because I won't have to buy a £100 train pass. They said they hope this situation will continue, but they'll have to wait and see how things progress and if anything changes with the government. But it's a pleasant surprise for this month at least, and a small weight off my mind.
I think my dizziness the other day was indeed from staring at computer screens for too long. I suspected as much from when I went into my bedroom and immediately felt better. I figured it was either the start of agoraphobia, and only really feeling anxiety-free in my bedroom - or it was because my curtains were closed and I didn't have to look at sunlight. From the way it felt I felt like it was very much the latter. So I'm trying to cut down on my PC time. It's tough. All I really want to do is distract myself, and flipping around the internet pages is very distracting. Actually just existing in the house feels a bit more like being in the real world. Which is very frightening. Especially right now. I think mum's getting quietly more anxious about things, and the more we hear about doctors dying and NHS staff not having the proper equipment, the more scary it is. What's the point of an hour's shopping and some applause if you're not actually going to give your medical staff the equipment they need to stay - well, alive or safe? It pisses me off. More and more now. It's such lip service. We voted for years for a government that cut up and cut up and cut up the NHS, and now we want it to save us. At great cost to the people who work there, potentially. My local town used to have its own hospital. Now we don't even have an A&E. Just an Urgent Treatment Centre, which is basically where the GPs send you to if you have a minor problem they don't deal with. Most of the old hospital is now a building site. They didn't even use the land for anything else. Think how much help those extra beds might have been. And now it's all just focused on the one hospital in Wakefield. Which is big, but presumably not big enough. I don't know.
I've been watching the October Faction on Netflix, which is based on a comic book I read the first volume of a long time ago, and it's nice. Sort of in the Stranger Things vein, of a small town with weird things happening in it, and some people know and some people don't. I like the characters, but it's a little weird going through it knowing one of the big twists, which they revealed at the end of the first book. I feel like it was pretty easy to guess in the book though, so maybe it wouldn't have made that much difference. And I feel like I am going to start buying things online. I'm umming and aahing about it, but the lockdown doesn't seem anymore severe this week than it did last week (although that might soon change), and the government are still very much encouraging online business. I'm probably only going to go with smaller, independent shops that probably have small teams, and I've been emailing them just to ask them what precautions they're taking for their staff. I feel like I want to yell about the rights of delivery people, who we're all relying on very much right now. But I don't think I'd get an honest answer if I did, no matter who I spoke to, right now. Maybe it's wrong, but this lockdown really is starting to look like it will last for months, and I just feel like there's no point putting it off. And there's things, like book launches in the next few month, which I'd like to support if I'm interested in buying the books anyway. All I can do is try to check if who I'm buying from is being responsible, not go crazy and order five things at once, and just hope for the best. It's odd to try to think about what the country's going to look like in a few months' time.
I think my dizziness the other day was indeed from staring at computer screens for too long. I suspected as much from when I went into my bedroom and immediately felt better. I figured it was either the start of agoraphobia, and only really feeling anxiety-free in my bedroom - or it was because my curtains were closed and I didn't have to look at sunlight. From the way it felt I felt like it was very much the latter. So I'm trying to cut down on my PC time. It's tough. All I really want to do is distract myself, and flipping around the internet pages is very distracting. Actually just existing in the house feels a bit more like being in the real world. Which is very frightening. Especially right now. I think mum's getting quietly more anxious about things, and the more we hear about doctors dying and NHS staff not having the proper equipment, the more scary it is. What's the point of an hour's shopping and some applause if you're not actually going to give your medical staff the equipment they need to stay - well, alive or safe? It pisses me off. More and more now. It's such lip service. We voted for years for a government that cut up and cut up and cut up the NHS, and now we want it to save us. At great cost to the people who work there, potentially. My local town used to have its own hospital. Now we don't even have an A&E. Just an Urgent Treatment Centre, which is basically where the GPs send you to if you have a minor problem they don't deal with. Most of the old hospital is now a building site. They didn't even use the land for anything else. Think how much help those extra beds might have been. And now it's all just focused on the one hospital in Wakefield. Which is big, but presumably not big enough. I don't know.
I've been watching the October Faction on Netflix, which is based on a comic book I read the first volume of a long time ago, and it's nice. Sort of in the Stranger Things vein, of a small town with weird things happening in it, and some people know and some people don't. I like the characters, but it's a little weird going through it knowing one of the big twists, which they revealed at the end of the first book. I feel like it was pretty easy to guess in the book though, so maybe it wouldn't have made that much difference. And I feel like I am going to start buying things online. I'm umming and aahing about it, but the lockdown doesn't seem anymore severe this week than it did last week (although that might soon change), and the government are still very much encouraging online business. I'm probably only going to go with smaller, independent shops that probably have small teams, and I've been emailing them just to ask them what precautions they're taking for their staff. I feel like I want to yell about the rights of delivery people, who we're all relying on very much right now. But I don't think I'd get an honest answer if I did, no matter who I spoke to, right now. Maybe it's wrong, but this lockdown really is starting to look like it will last for months, and I just feel like there's no point putting it off. And there's things, like book launches in the next few month, which I'd like to support if I'm interested in buying the books anyway. All I can do is try to check if who I'm buying from is being responsible, not go crazy and order five things at once, and just hope for the best. It's odd to try to think about what the country's going to look like in a few months' time.
