Life threw a Covidcation at me and I caught with both hands

Well, it isn't everyday that you get a break/vacation for suffering from an infection. Last month, right before I was supposed to get my 2nd COVID vaccine shot, I caught the actual disease. The irony that getting the 2nd shot might have resulted in the same, but milder, symptoms that I suffered for the first few days is something that comforts me. Just saying, when your relatives have just been back from an hospitalisation, it would be recommended delay visits by 2-3 weeks. But then, if it's really close ones, then fuck logic and let's ignore safety precautions. :D

So, my wife and kid had gone over to her place to spend some time with her parents. As usual, I spend the weekends with them and working from our home for the rest of the time. Nothing unusual this time expect for the fact that my MIL wasn't feeling that good during the weekend. She took a self-quarantine as a safety measure, but it wasn't enough. By the time the results came for all of them, it was clear that they had been bit by the Covid bug. As a precaution, I started a self-quarantine at my place after coming back. By Tuesday, it became obvious that I had been infected and the test results that came in on Friday cemented the fact. :D

And that is how, it began. My own 2 week Covidcation. The first few days were bad, having fever, temperature, cold, nose blocks, all the shit that Covid brings with it. Thankfully, my wife had already contacted some doctors regarding the medication and I started taking them. Let me tell you, it isn't fun having to swallow tablets three times a day when you absolutely hate them. I have an upset stomach pretty much every time I start an antibiotics course. That coupled with the discomfort of being sick and weary just makes it harder to bear. If only we could survive Covid like we do the common cold, with minimal medicine and letting the body take its natural path of cleaning itself.

Now that we have set the baseline for the first week, let's come back to why I still call it a Covidcation, or Covid vacation. So all the time I wasn't feeling good, I had my trusty MCOC, a.k.a. Marvel Contest of Champions, to fall back to for comfort. Suddenly, I had like 10 extra hours a day to do whatever I could, within the humanely possible limits of a Covid patient, and no one to stop me from it. And thus it began, my Covidcation, with a bang, err.. cough. 10+ hours of gaming/watching Vikings/Reddit and Kindle. The joy of kicking back your legs and enjoying everything with your mobile. Alongside, no looking at Gmail/Facebook/Instagram/Slack/LinkedIn. Covid laced heavenly pleasure. On a side note, the boring reality of having to measure your oxygen levels every 4-6 hours and taking medicine so that you don't slip into the danger zone, wasn't that happening though. ;)

So overall, 2 weeks well spent, no running the rat race to finish tasks or view those blasted LinkedIn course suggestions giving FOMO attacks. I did realise that I missed work at bit, those zoom meetings, coding sessions, memes and thrill to fix the latest issue on production and I can't wait to be back at doing what I do best, churning out Python code and having fun with my amazing team from all over the world. I did, however, spend sometime on one of my personal projects over the last few days, but not before I was done with my gaming sessions. Just to get back into the groove before I jump into work.

2 weeks of rest are coming to an end soon. I'll be back to WFH and reserving weekends for my "focussed" gaming sessions. :D

Until next time,

This is Jo signing off.

A Short trip to the Garden City

Months have passed since an entry was made here. There were so many things to blog about like our Christmas Celebrations, the QBurst Day celebrations and much more. But then, how could a person as lazy as me update frequently ;)... Anyways, rite now, this is Jo blogging from the Garden City of India, B'lore. To be short and sweet, this is just the alpha of my twp-day trip and there is not much to update for the time being. Just a sec, yes I do have some updates.

I had planned this trip over a whimsical feeling of running away from trivandrum city. Seems like the city is starting to bore, or maybe it's because one of my pillars of support, Sundar, has been away for the past month for training. The dude's got a job as Sorting Assistant in RMS and the best thing is that he's still boozes and smokes, yet he's the class topper. Well leaving that aside, I called Chinju, a.k.a Vishku a.k.a Vivek, a few weeks back when this idea germinated in my mind. He had a weeding, err... wedding last week to attend last week and so the trip had to be postponed for this week. The tickets were booked last monday and here I am, on a Saturday @ Chinju's place. Dude's pretty tired after a session of late night browsing and so is sleeping for the time being. About the journey, it wasn't a drab one but neither that interesting. However the excitement of travelling via bus for such long distance after a gap of around 3 yrs, i think, was enough to keep me in high spirits. We started of from Music College,Thycaud at around 7pm Friday. The fun part is my journey from office to the stop. Anoop Nair, my friend cum driver cum chatbox cum joker cum...., was the one responsible for all the adrenaline shots. He's such a nice driver when it comes to cars but on the bike, he's a speed fiend. But then, comparing to Srijith, he's just a normal biker. Anyways, the dude got me from office to my home in under 30 mins, and then dropped me off at Music College in 15 mins. The escapades while driving are worth a blog entry themselves btu I gonna limit it to just a mention ;). On reaching Thycaud, there was Prabodh from my previous btach Mech. The dude resigned from Accenture and is currently a Customs SI. Just that I was on my to B'lore and he to Chennai with the same aim, meeting friends :D.
After he left, since his bus was 6:30, I called up the Travels and they pointed me to the place where the bus was parked. I got to the place but not before a small wild goose chase around the area. I was just in time, as the driver had brought the bus to the front of the road. While waiting for the bus to start, I called up my friends in B'lore announcing my arrival :). And soon after began the journey.

The seats were good but I was a bit afraid that I would break those levers on which the seats were to be tilted. Thankfully, nothing of that sort happened and after 12 hours of journey, I reach B'lore. Woke up Chinju twice to know how I could reach his place. After I landed, had a cup of tea which, to say the least, was good and then had a 2 min walk to the Hanuman Temple. From there, a small bylane and a left turn was needed to meet up Chinju. Chinju's gone slim, I think, but still he's the same freak who's been with me for the last 16 yrs. Anyways, that ends the current description of my situation till now.

Adios for now,
This is Jo...
Signing off.