Monday, March 30, 2020
Cabin Fever Yet?
Hey guys, how have you been surviving March? Cabin fever came to my head sometime in the middle of March. I know it is kinda whiny of me talking about cabin fever when Singapore is not on lockdown. I mean there are rules here and new rules and restriction seem to be coming all the time, but you could still do many things outside. The streets are not quiet and daily life still feel very normal. I have been spending more time in my room without seeing people, without moving much, and though I have a feeling it lowers down the stress level, there's that cooped up feeling in me. Since I'm not moving much, I make it a point to try to walk around the tiny park nearby on days when I have to be in my room most of the time.
Last Friday I did feel sad about coronavirus and I thought that was the first. When they took away cinemas even when the cinema was already leaving empty seats between people, I was kinda sad but was okay. When I found out that most flights to Jakarta are not available until I don't know when, which means I couldn't just go home anytime I want to, I told myself to calm down, it's not like there's a need for me to go home immediately. However, it's just with the difficulty of going out of this country and with many countries imposing their own travel restriction and not accepting people, there's really that trapped feeling. It's like though there's no lockdown in Singapore, I feel stuck here. Hearing news that this would take months to pass and maybe even until the end of the year just adds to the despair and last Friday, I kinda burst a bit. The mall nearest to me, the lifeline with the supermarket and places where I get all my food most of everyday started the crowd control measure. I was tired that Friday evening after a day that got me quite pissed and when I saw the long line to enter the mall, I just got really sad. I was too tired to join the line and so I went to McDonald's which is outside and luckily didn't have a queue to enter. God is kind that He gave me someone to vent to. Saw the McDonald's auntie / staff who had seen me during my stressed out tired time asking for milkshake and now we're quite friendly though we don't know each other's name. I waved at her and chatted a bit and I told her about feeling sad with the whole queue to enter the mall. It did feel kinda good to be given someone to talk to. I ended up going to the mall and supermarket Saturday afternoon. I was a bit worried that the supermarket would have a queue on its own to enter, but there wasn't. The supermarket itself was quite crowded that day I was there, I thought it was kinda ironic that even with all the measures, we could still physically bump into each other. The supermarket also had some empty shelves again on Saturday. I guess people now decided to just buy more to reduce the amount of times they need to go to the supermarket with the new entry restriction happening. I know I'm complaining when my situation can be considered lucky. Being stuck in Singapore is not that bad.
So my Japanese class is suspended for at least a month now and in the last composition homework I submitted, I wrote that coronavirus is our shared experience. I couldn't write it well in Japanese and maybe not in English either as I attempt to do now, but you know, think about it. Right now in this world, in every country, a lot of people are experiencing the same concerns and worries regarding coronavirus. I can't recall a singular thing that causes the population of the world to feel the same thing at the same time. Everyone in this world can say, I get you, I understand, when you talk about concerns and difficulties you are experiencing now due to coronavirus. It also made me think that when Wuhan was experiencing this, we kinda didn't give them much sympathy. It was tough what they went through and to be alone in it with people not really getting it, I'm glad that they're better now. Coronavirus is extraordinary or すごい as I wrote in my homework. In that homework, I also wrote that this is perhaps the universe trying to restore balance.
In one of the CNN videos I watched, the reporter was interviewing this Indonesian student who was in Wuhan throughout. My first thought was like, girl what are you doing there? Why didn't you go home with the rest when Indonesians were evacuated? Anyways, she was asked what she's been doing during the lockdown. At the end of the clip she said, it's like God is clearing all our schedule, that we couldn't do many things, so go and talk to God. She's quite wise and a typical Indonesian with our God talk :D Perhaps God has really been wanting for us to talk to Him more and we've been spinning uncontrollably in our life, so He's sending a plague to get us to stop. Everyone must be praying more now. I do worry about my family back home now that there are a lot of cases in Indonesia. I think many Indonesians have concerns if we can handle this. Mom said that Jakarta is quiet and she's been cutting her working hours. She said she might not even go to work today. I asked how they've been coping being stuck at home, the 3 of them :D I think my mom would be so bored. She said my brother seemed to be showing signs of boredom and restlessness. My dad would be fine as I would be as well. We could just stay at home. When I'm home during break, I very often don't even step outside the house.
The number of new cases happening everyday in Indonesia is worrying, but looking at it against the number of total population, it's still small and if you're comparing city to city like Jakarta to Singapore, the number of new cases in Singapore happening each day could be higher than that in Jakarta. Of course there are that worry that there are many undetected cases, so it's good if people in Jakarta out of abundance of fear prefer to stay at home and limit their time in public. When Indonesia started reporting cases, it was very hard for find official information on it, but now the website is pretty good. It's even better than the Singapore's one I think. There's data organized by provinces and if you're just looking for cases in Jakarta, there's a map showing the number of cases in each area, it's very granular, and there's also a breakdown of age and gender. The official site from the ministry of health also has a hoax buster page which is good but also kinda sad seeing the many purposeful misinformation out there :( There are people putting effort to spread falsehood, it's like what the hell?!? Can't you do better with your life?
Well, I hope you guys are doing well. I don't know what we will see at the end of this. One thing I do hope to see is that from now on people will give at least a 1-metre space when queuing. I love that rule. I think one of the thing many people are looking forward to out of this smack down from the universe is getting our freedom back. Hopefully when we do get out this, we will be wiser and better human being.
:) eKa @ 8:16:00 PM •