Self-isolation: what are you most likely to do to pass the time?

[Sarah]

What will you be doing? :)

I'm planning to read and play video games, and the only thing I've stockpiled is library books. I'll be focusing on the group reads. However at the moment I still have to go in to work...

In a survey, 17% of people said they were most likely to read books to pass the time if forced to self-isolate.

I am amazed it's only 17%!! This ranges from 10% (18-25 year olds) up to 28% (age 65+).

This also varies widely based on gender. 21% of women chose reading, compared to 13% of men.

The survey breakdown is here (page 7), although it has some other interesting things to pick apart for those who might be interested.

[Art, Stay home, stay safe.]

Wow, 17% is way lower than what one could expect. I'm planning on reading and catching up on my correspondence, while trying not to focus too much on the news.
Gaming may figure into my schedule but not as much as any other activity. Luckily my partner works from work so we can also binge watch something if we feel like it.

[Gabi]

I wanted to read, but now I see that I have my hands full to get my boys to do their school work and some household chores and not play video games the whole day. o.O

[Antti]

I'm in a similar situation, Gabi. Homeschooling two kids on top of doing my own work from home means that my days are even more packed than before!

[Kalin]

I have a ton of assignments to complete for school, so I'm as busy as before. I'm also reaching out to family, friends, and folks in my community to make sure everyone's doing okay. Helping a friend return to the country and get set up for quarantine.

I would love to be reading, but I'm actually finding it harder to concentrate right now. Maybe it's also because I'm reading Perihelion Summer for our sibling group (Hot of the Presses) and it's booooooring.

[Ed]

I've been working from home for 10 years or more. Very little has changed for me, apart from worrying more. The weather has been cold and gray, so I've not been able to go out for a bike ride (which is still allowed) so I'm a bit stir-crazy.

One weird thing is that now all my neighbors are also home, including the family of four living above me. Luckily, they are quiet most of the time.

My mother (who lives in a different state) is having a tougher time. For unrelated personal reasons she (age 76) now has to take care of two of her great-grandchildren (4 and 8).

At my local library, before it closed: "Though the library has not yet released official numbers on visitors or books checked out, Joseph Alvarez, a library assistant, described it as the busiest he’s ever seen it."

[Ed]

Among the many ways I amuse myself.... Over the last few months, before the current situation, I started watching youtube videos of various people traveling the world, going to all sorts of places I'll probably never go. A great way to learn about the world.

I have a feeling they are about to get stuck somewhere even if they don't voluntarily cease. Some of the places they've visited are densely packed and will have trouble implementing real social distancing.

[Art, Stay home, stay safe.]

Ed wrote: "Among the many ways I amuse myself.... Over the last few months, before the current situation, I started watching youtube videos of various people traveling the world, going to all sorts of places ..."

I was really looking forward to the novel way of experiencing travel using Oculus but it never took off, so I never actually bought one. Videos work great though, even some of the amateur GoPro stuff is amazing at times.

[Art, Stay home, stay safe.]

For those who are interested, MetOpera in NYC is streaming free performances every day. Check out this link:
https://www.metopera.org/

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

Ed wrote: "Among the many ways I amuse myself.... Over the last few months, before the current situation, I started watching youtube videos of various people traveling the world."

If interested there a number of videos about Ukraine from this man: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbNa... some with only soundtrack so no need for subs

[Ed]

Art wrote: "For those who are interested, MetOpera in NYC is streaming free performances every day. "

I'm more into modern opera. (Though I like some old stuff, too.)

I'm looking forward to Great Performances broadcasting Akhnaten on April 5. It's opera plus juggling!

It's on TV, though, not online.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/gp-at-...

[Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning]

Kalin wrote: "Maybe it's also because I'm reading Perihelion Summer for our sibling group (Hot of the Presses) and it's booooooring."

So agree, but at least Perihelion Summer is short-ish

[Allan]

My office has now been told to work from home, so I’ve been doing that starting this week. I don’t like it; I live very close to work and I’m used to interacting with real people. Being home, it’s more difficult to concentrate and I feel isolated. I can’t imagine doing this full time, yet I’ll be doing it for at least the next few weeks. My wife has already filed a harassment claim with HR.

I play in a fantasy hockey experts league and of course that is shut down. I do have the opportunity to read, so I’m keeping my stats steady. I walk and play with my dogs, but I also have severe oak allergies and it’s that season here. Playing guitar, and I probably need to take a couple days and do some painting while the opportunity is there.

[Sarah]

Glad to hear from everyone here. Keep on keeping on, especially those of you with young kids at home.

Art wrote: "while trying not to focus too much on the news."
I'll be happy to switch off from it all. I have to keep up with the news when I'm at work. Time to detox starting from today :)

Ed wrote: "My mother (who lives in a different state) is having a tougher time. For unrelated personal reasons she (age 76) now has to take care of two of her great-grandchildren (4 and 8)."
Wishing them all the best. This will be a tough time for grandparents for sure.

Allan wrote: "My wife has already filed a harassment claim with HR."
Haha! Hopefully you can create a bit of distance before you drive her crazy. My partner and I have our desks in different rooms, so here's hoping we won't have any murders at home.

Playing guitar and painting sounds wonderful. I ought to step up my harp practice, but since my lessons have been postponed it's hard to keep a routine. I really have no excuse now, though! (and I'm about to order some new sheet music)

[Art, Stay home, stay safe.]

I've found another thing to take care of while there's time. I'm updating MyBooks with extra bookshelves and folders, something I should've done ages ago.

[Antti]

Got to say, this partial lockdown is really going to mess with my participation in group reads and challenges. The libraries are closed, so I can't get any new books! Well, not if I'm not willing to buy them - but I can't in good conscience buy The Expanse Book Four, for example, while it's just sitting there in the library waiting for me.

[Gabi]

Oh yes. It's not effecting the group reads for me, since my library seldomly had them. But I just started a Narnia-Marathon, cause the library had the audiobooks … and I came exactly till book 1 until they closed.

[Ed]

Antti wrote: "... The libraries are closed, so I can't get any new books! ..."

Doesn't it have e-books?
Don't you have a shelf of unread books at home?

[Antti]

The library does have ebooks and I've got a ton of unread books at home, so there's no danger of having nothing to read.

But I will have trouble getting my hands on the Expanse or Vorkosigan novels, for example, since my library only has those as physical books.

But it's too soon to start worrying about such things: the libraries have been closed only for a couple of days now. It's possible they'll open again in some limited manner (being able to pick up holds, or something), I may finally learn how to use OpenLibrary, or something else.

[Sarah]

Antti wrote: "It's possible they'll open again in some limited manner (being able to pick up holds, or something)"

I've heard of this happening and I applaud those who are so committed to philanthropy. As a librarian the idea does not fill me with glee lol, I'd rather be at home in isolation like the rest of you.

The virus can live for up to three days on paper (though it's highly unlikely), so staff are taking exceptional care to keep books clean, taking people's hold books out to them in the car park and such. But I'd recommend quarantining your new books for a couple of days before starting them.

[Allan]

Open Library is very easy to use, just create an ID and start searching. Lots of older, harder to find, listed books in there. I just finished Silverberg’s “A Time of Changes”, 1968 Hugo winner, a book I’ve never been able to find except there. The one thing to watch out for is duplicate entries. People put different editions in, and they don’t always connect up. So you might have a lot of entries under “Lois McMaster Bujold”, plus a few under “Lois M. Bujold”. Just a made-up example, but if you don’t find something at first, keep looking. You can mark them as Want to Read so that you can get back to them again and build up a list.

[Jemppu]

Same as usual, it seems: SoMe, drawing, YouTube and audio-/ebooks.

I got few DVD movies too recently, which I haven't done in years, but that was before this situation... and I still haven't really gotten around to them that much... remains to be seen, when I will. An option.

Biggest change is the absence of any office commutes: we already had the remote working option, with weekly office meetings, but now we're encouraged to stay home completely.

The more extroverted bunch of our work team seem to be flipping over about it most, coming up with all kinds of 'fun' games online and trying to get you to participate. Hence, this 'social isolation' thing has proven, for me at least, to have far more attempts from people to socialize, than what there usually would be.

[Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning]

I'm mostly just reading and watching stuff. Boring I know. My husband is doing a massive search and destroy of his attic den. I'm not allowed to participate. And we have bad wifi. So that's fun.

If I suddenly disappear, don't worry. The cable was just down a couple of hours and my husband got it back by rebooting the ? modem ? maybe? But we have 25 mbs when we are supposed to have 100. Typical.

If I disappear, don't worry, even if we could get a repair guy, I wouldn't. I shall return at some point.

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

Due to the quarantine I paid my Eve Online accounts and went spinning ships. My last active playing time was almost a decade ago and the game has changed in several unexpected ways.

[Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning]

Have fun! I never have played online games because I am better at things like word games and other untimed stuff. Most games seem to speed up as you go and then I can no longer play them. The amount of games I have played and bought and then couldn't play much longer than the demo! Well, not THAT many as I do tend to learn from my mistakes.

Now if I could just manage to stop reading books that I don't seem to like as I am reading them . . . there are several books in this group that I've quit because no time . . . I need to make time to finish them.

The good news is, the Wifi is running at 111mbs today. At least for now.

[Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning]

The WiFi has conked out repeatedly today and is running at about 25mbs, which would be enough if it didn't keep konking out. I hate Spectrum. Really really hate them.

[Joe]

I am sadly still going to work as normal.. call centers don't have alot of interaction anyway.

If I was home, I would be very happy to have more free time.. some combo of video games, more reading, APBA baseball, and Champions of the Galaxy wrestling would mostly spend my time (besides hanging with the wife and kids, of course)

[Oleksandr, a.k.a. Acorn]

Kateblue wrote: "Have fun! I never have played online games because I am better at things like word games and other untimed stuff. Most games seem to speed up as you go and then I can no longer play them. The amoun..."

I see what you mean and my position is similar. However, EVE is known as "spreadsheets in space" for the fact that fast clicking isn't needed (in 90% of the cases and last 10% can be avoided if you take a non-combat role).

[Bryan, Village Idiot]

We have started week two of working from home. Like a lot of you are saying, I'm busier than normal! We, my wife and I, have a 1 year old, so at least we don't have to home school. He's fun to be with, but he is exhausting. Add my own work and my school work...can I just go back to work please?

[Ed]

Oleksandr wrote: "If interested there a number of videos about Ukraine from this man..."

Thanks. Somehow I didn't see your reply when you originally posted it. I may look into that. I also recently watched the Ukrainian film Volcano (Vulkan) and quite liked it.

Of the 3 guys I've been following, one is stuck in Sri Lanka, one in Pakistan, and one made it back to his home. Sri Lanka doesn't seem like such a bad place to be stuck.

[Gabi]

Week 2 of StayingHome and HomeSchooling. My boys start to hate me … ;-p. The elder one gets a lot of material to work with from his teachers and I have to push him to do something. He's already behind in English. It doesn't help that the little one only got 'maybe' options from his teacher and thus has way less to do.

[Rebecca]

Just went to work-mostly-from-home this week. (My job is essential, but only part of it can only be done onsite) Like a lot of folk, I'm reading, but I'm reading lighter fare, and rereading The Stand Just ran into Tom Cullen and I literally gasped because I had somehow forgotten about him and he's one of my favorite characters.

Getting really annoyed with how kindle is playing with goodreads lately. I know its been going on for months, but you think there'd be a better option than "turn off goodreads" to stop the kindle from marking any book I open as read.

[Art, Stay home, stay safe.]

Rebecca wrote: "rereading The Stand Just ran into Tom Cullen and I literally gasped because I had somehow forgotten about him and he's one of my favorite characters."

M-O-O-N, that's how you spell "great writing"! Laws yes!

[Art, Stay home, stay safe.]

Updated our homepage with a collage if the upcoming reads.
#freetime

[Kalin]

Very cool!

[Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning]

Rebecca wrote: "Getting really annoyed with how kindle is playing with goodreads lately. I know its been going on for months, but you think there'd be a better option than "turn off goodreads" to stop the kindle from marking any book I open as read."

Turn on Airplane Mode? Perhaps?

[Rebecca]

Kate- I've turned the auto updating g off, but I like that it marks stuff done when I finish it because I probably wont remember to