My pandemic year

2021-Mar-03

It's been a whole damn year.

On 2020-Mar-03, I left work with a headache. I think I'd not slept well the night before or something. I went home and slept on the sofa until my headache went away, then I did some more work. I went into work once more before 2020-Mar-13, then the stay home order came down in BC.

A week or so before my headache, I sat on my bed and confessed to my partner that I was scared by the pandemic. I'd been following the news and gradually buying things. A bag of rice here, some tinned beans there, and so on. Not "panic buying" per-se, but definitely adding maybe $10 or $20 to our shopping bill every week.

Let's recap some of what's happened in my year.

30th birthday

I turned 30 in 2020. We had a small celebration in our flat. There was cake and it was so lovely. We were going to go to the States to a wolf sanctuary, but we cancelled it. I hope we can go when we're vaccinated.

Cancelled events

We missed out on a few big trips.

We were going to go to see the McElroy's in Boston. We had the tickets, but we fortunately held off on the flights.

As mentioned above, we were going to go to the US to see some wolves.

Finally, we had tickets for a concert in Vancouver that got cancelled.

Diagnosis

During this time, my partner starting having "strange panic attacks." They described them as intense episodes of deja vu and fear, after which they forgot the episode happened at all.

Eventually they went to the doctor who sent them to a neurologist. The neurologist said the episodes were probably partial seizures. Nothing to worry about, just make an appointment to confirm. Oh, and if you have more than 3 a day, go to the emergency room.

Well, guess where we ended up? The emergency room of course! I wasn't allowed in the hospital with my partner, so I perched outside on the only dry bench for a few hours. My partner even had a seizure while the doctor was filling out their discharge forms! Such excitement. Chilly, scary excitement.

Moved home

Working from home was difficult. We had a roughly 500 sq ft apartment in Vancouver. I had no desk to work at, no way to put up my extra monitors. My partner was relegated to the bedroom for 8 hours a day, they could hear all my meetings, and had to walk through the "office" to get to the bathroom. The set up was far from ideal. While the building was nice, the rent was excessive, especially for the space. We still had to put up with constant noise from outside -- mostly police and fire.

We decided that we did not enjoy the flat, so we moved out to Victoria, BC. I am now a full-time remote worker. We pay about $100 more in rent and have more than double the floor space. It's quieter, we're closer to lovely green space, and I have an actual desk to work at! As a bonus there are loads of dogs around here. I think we're both much happier out here.

Big product launch

In mid-May we launched a huge product. It was the culmination of a lot of effort from a lot of different folks. I remember sitting on my sofa, wearing a headset, stocked up on coffee, sweating bullets as the launch call went on. I fanatically looked at the dashboards for the parts I was responsible, but it went off (mostly) without issue!

Sadly, roughly 5 people left the team after the launch.

"Graduation"

My uni awarded my Master's degree in 2019. I was scheduled to graduate in 2020-Jan, but because of a work permit mishap, I couldn't leave Canada. I luckily managed to defer my graduation to the summer!

That didn't work out. There was an online graduation where they read everyone's names. I didn't attend because I didn't know it was going to happen. Either way, I have a digital copy of my degree certificate and my transcript. The uni officially gave me a Distinction!

Radio

I started getting back into radio. I used to build radios as a kid and even had some CB radios. I've not got a license, but I have managed to hear some local amateurs on my Retekess TR105 and my RTL-SDR. It's been a lot of fun to tinker in the evening, and I hope to build radios again one day.

Conclusion

A lot has changed this year. Health, work, home, almost everything. My partner and I have lots of plans for when we're vaccinated and the health measures are lifted. We're thinking camping, hikes, brunch, boardgames with friends, visiting home, maybe getting a little dog.

I feel really lucky that so much has gone right for me in such a painful year. I know only one person who's been infected, and they're recovered. Family and friends back in the UK have started getting their vaccines. I will be eternally grateful if we all make it out of this awful time.