I know it's been a (long) while since my last entry and, without trying to sound too contrarian, it hasn't much to do with the pandemic but more to do with the things that I've picked up since my last entry. Well, my last real entry.
I stopped trying to force myself to update this blog with things that mattered less and less to me the more I tried to care. Throughout these past months, I have had a few things I thought I could write about but I made myself focus on my research first. Thankfully, I have been experiencing great progress with my PhD and I'm looking forward to finishing everything on time.
I hate to admit that I was not severely affected by the long-term lockdowns. I have always been somewhat disinterested in spending my time outside, forever pointlessly losing myself in the illusion of being part of an active society. I always knew that my talents were better suited to my workspace at home, talking to myself and sticking to a timetable I've planned ahead for months. Sure, the majority of people couldn't work from home because of the kind of job sectors they were involved, and those who could, simply refused. I like to believe that I thrived in my house arrest and I have two research papers to prove it.
The greatest change to my daily routine slowly emerged after a few weeks into the major lockdown back in March. Before, I would be too busy teaching during the day and then planning or studying for my next lesson at night. I had no time to play my games, whether alone or with my group of friends that I have been playing with for years now. On weekends, I would use my downtime to catch up on Netflix and movies. But after I finished my teaching contract and focused solely on my research, I found myself frequently exhausted at the end of the day after spending all my waking hours doing work. This included both day time and night time.
As the weeks went by and my mind started to melt, I had to force myself to take a break once in a while to not have a repeat of the mental breakdown that I had while I was in Paris back in 2016. I had been working non-stop for 12 hours a day while I was in Germany and on the way back home, I had planned to visit Paris but I couldn't enjoy myself fully because I was in such a bad mental state. I did not want to fall into such a pit again so I reworked my daily routines to allow for some reprieve during the evening. This is when I got back in to playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
It was fun to get back into my long-abandoned hobby and I had been doing quite well. This routine of working during the day and gaming at night pulled me through some slumps I had through the months. But gaming on my ageing Macbook Pro meant that I was inhibited by bad all-round performance. Previously, I had sworn off buying a PC, mainly because my work requires mobility and fluidity and my Macbook could technically run the games that I wanted to play quite well at the start. With age, the capabilities of my Macbook began to decrease and the thought of procuring a dedicated gaming PC started to creep into my mind.
I had voiced my intentions of buying a PC to my brothers and Fariq provided me with some PC specs that he had intended with his build. At the time, I had zero understanding of what each component meant or what anything had to do with everything. I was lost and I was frustrated to the point that I began a new research: PC gaming and building. Now, my days were spent on formal languages while my nights were spent on gaining as much knowledge and information on PC parts, builds, comparisons, upgrades, benefits, reviews and plenty more. In a matter of months, I had gone from PC novice to PC addict. I have gone through hours of refining my perfect PC build, picking every little bit of information that would help me not only build the optimal computer, but the most cost-effective one. I used Fariq's specs as my baseline and have turned it into what is now something totally different. All that's left was to buy a PC, and that needed money, which I don't have enough of.
So I was stuck with my existing Macbook and I needed to find ways to slowly build up to the PC of my dreams. First, I upgraded my peripherals, which were my keyboard and mouse. It was high time I adopted a wireless setup and the Logitech G913 TKL had just been announced. It was perfect. The pre-order launch bundled the keyboard with a wireless mouse, the G604. As expensive as it was, the value truly outweighed the cost so I dived headfirst into the start of my new setup.
I had also been struggling with the small size of the Macbook screen, often relying on the living room TV as my second display. Although it meant I could multitask, such as write my papers while watching some TV shows, it also meant that I had to sit on the floor for long periods of time and I couldn't do work from the comfort of my own room.
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