Let's face it, the 2020 lockdown is probably one of the significant world events that has happened in our lives. I think it feels a lot more significant to me because it's one I am actually feeling the affects of. Most world events for me happen on a screen, or by word of mouth. This one has had a real impact on my life, and the lives of those close to me.
Because of that, I thought it would be great to write down my experience of this period - so that I have a record of how I felt during this crazy time. For a lot of people this has been a really difficult, and sometimes painful event. I am fortunate that I have had a mostly positive experience of lockdown, and so writing this down helps me reflect on how God has protected me during this time.
Work 🕶
Like most people, Crowd started working from home as soon as lockdown began. This meant we had to move a lot of our comms to digital, which was quite easy considering most of what we do as a global digital ageny is already online. The main thing that changed was our morning round-ups. Normally we as a UK team will congregate in our board room and everyone will sum up what they are doing during the day, and if they need anything from other members of the team. Obviously since we couldn't meet in person, we had to do this in a conference call. This worked well; of course there were some times when internet connections caused problems; but overall was great. Since we were no longer restricted by geographical location, we invited the rest of our global team to join us, which has been a huge positive! Getting to know the wider team through these meetings has been really cool.
Finding a comfortable workspace was a little hard, I started off on our dining room table, but the chairs in there are extremely uncomfortable over long periods of time. Fortuantely, a friend of ours drove me down to the office where I took my desk chair back to our flat and I am now using that at the desk in our bedroom with my big PC & Laptop.
I feel like during the time I have been working from home, I have been at my most productive. I have been working on some really cool projects, and turning over great quality websites in record time. It's strange because there are loads more distractions while working from home, but I have managed to still work really hard as well as endulge myself in some distractions...
Films & Games 🎮
One of the distractions I've allowed for myself is to watch films and play video games. I started off by wathcing all the Star Wars films in order - something I had surprisingly never done! I was interested as to which films took my attention more (having watched all of them many times, I didn't need to concentrate to hard to enjoy them). Episode I & III were surprisingly engaging, as well as episodes IV and V, unsurprisingly. But all the rest just blew past me with very little recognition. I've never tried to rank the Star Wars movies, but I think that speaks to how much I enjoy each film.
Next up was the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Starting with Iron Man, I planned to go through all 22 films in the Infinity Saga. This was definitely a more consistent experience than my Star Wars marathon (in terms of quality). But when I had finished Infinity War and was due to watch Captain Marvel, I lost interest... I guess I just didn't enjoy Captain Marvel that much so couldn't quite motivate myself to watch it. I'll pick it up soon because I know it's worth it to get to Endgame!
So when I finally finish the MCU I think I'll move on to Lord of the Rings. This is a series I have marathoned a lot of times, but I feel like I'm due another run through. The copies I have of those films are the extended editions so it should take upa a fair amount of time.
The Elder Scrolls 📜
Between all my movies, I have been digging really deep into the Elder Scrolls video game series. Skyrim has always been my most favourite video game, so that one has been my main game. I started from scratch with a new modlist at the start of lockdown, and built an incredible character that I am really happy with. For the first time in ages I have been really motivated to move his story forward!
Inspired by my recent discovery of /r/teslore on Reddit, I also picked up the other games in the series for the first time. I didn't get along well with Oblivion, not really sure why, but I took a stab at Morrowind and that stuck - the storyline and the world are really interesting. I even had a go at the Unity remake of Daggerfall, but that proved to be a bit tedious for my modern video game experience.
Exercise
I have never been one for much exercise, only doing a few runs or cycles every now and then. But working from home means I can put some time into it. I saw something, I think it was on Reddit, suggesting that programmers take time while they are waiting for code to compile, or downloads/uploads to complete to do small exercises, like pushups or situps. I have actaully really enjoyed doing it! It's not the most hardcore workout, but it seems to have stuck as a good habit.
Family 👨👩👧👦
I think most people have been able to keep in touch with their family a lot more during lockdown, and I am no exception. My wife & I have been abl to video call our parent's almost every week, and my Grandparents have been arranging larger family calls with my Mum's side of the family, which is nice too. A few of my relative did have COVID, but they coped well and recovered quickly. It seems that more people have time for other people during lockdown than before, which is nice.
We also had my wife's parents visit for Father's day which we spent on the beach and got very sunburned!
Church 🙏
My wife and I attend a local church, the same church we actually met in (although a different building). Obviosuly we cannot meet as a church family in person, so the chruch has been providing pre-recorded services on YouTube for us to use. I have struggled to engage at the beginning, and I still find the music hard to engage with, but the teaching reamins as good as ever. We are both usually invovled in the music at church, so we have had to do some home recordings, which is weird seeing yourself on the screen leading singing.
My wife's job role in the past year has been a voluntary position working with Christian Students in Universities. Since she can no longer meet them in person, she has also been doing a lot of video conferences. We have been live-streaming a sung worship session every Friday evening for her supporters on Facebook, which has been loads of fun! I hope it continues for a while.
We have also been meeting as a 20s-30s group over Zoom, during which I have been leading Bible Studies. These have been a great time to pray and ecourage each other, as well as socialise digitally.
Lockdown life is... Okay?
So, in conclusion my life in lockdown has been kinda okay. It sucks to not be able to see people, but otherwise there have been some positives, and it's been nice to take things easy for a while.