This is not game related but if you want to mention what games you have been playing, please feel free. This is mainly a post to see how everybody is doing. Whether it’s dealing with the ever going pandemic, or other concerns within your personal lives, I feel a good check-in in what I consider to be a safe and welcoming community to be a great way of communicating and coming together beyond just our love for this hobby.
~ Prin
I love this! Support is always good.
Been playing Star Wars Squadrons in VR and a bit of Spelunky 2, but been really damn busy because I’ve just started a remote, part-time master’s in artificial intelligence and both my programming and maths are not up to scratch! Also, doing some game freelancing and have a pile of commissions I’m struggling to get through. Nice to still be busy, though, since freelancing budgets were virtually obliterated due to the pandemic.
Meanwhile, living like a hermit with my girlfriend and housemate in the UK and only leave the house for food once a week. Invested in plenty of reusable masks, carbon filters, and goggles. Never take my mask or goggles off and I hold my breath when I have to pass people. People certainly give me looks. 
That said, we all had to help home this unmasked girl who had passed out drunk near our road after going to a local club. We walked back covered in her vomit, so we could well all be infected now.
Essentially, chronically fatigued and low mood most of the time and completely rely on coffee, but getting by.
How’s Michigan at the moment? Heard about the abduction plot!
And hope everyone else is doing okay!
Pandemic-wise, I’m relatively good. I work doing my PhD in atmospheric sciences, which I can do from home perfectly fine while having meetings with my advisors via chat and video. My girlfriend and I have always been on the hermit side and the whole lock-down thing only exacerbated it.
October started with a lot of work, between online conferences, writing a paper and some freelance programming and teaching I foolishly took on the side, I always feel tired. The teaching stuff is particularly draining. This week I had to wake up early and co-lead 3 hours of classes/office hours 3 times. As someone with few prior experience and no social skills, I end up utterly exhausted.
So this month was the absolute worse time for Hades to come out. I want to play it all day every day but I have to work even on weekends!
Now that Argentina is topping the charts as one of the worst countries in terms of covid infections, tests and deaths, and in the middle of a severe economic recession, I’m truly privileged that my main concerns are having too much work and no time to play videogames.
@Alphadoriest , @killerstar, I can certainly understand how busy you both are, with COVID changing how we are accustomed to living and it affecting work and school. It seems no matter where we are located within the world, this virus has impacted us and so I find it important that we all do the best we can to persevere through this and rely on others when need be.
I am not tired so much as constantly busy which doesn’t allow me to really notice my level of tiredness. I have also been assisting a local food bank in Michigan as a member of the Air National Guard since late August, going until the 31st of December, so that has been an adventure, although a much needed one in these times.
I would say all in all in my perspective, Michigan is doing okay, and my Wife and kids are fortunate to not be as affected by the pandemic as others in regards to unemployment, sickness, etc.
Hey you guys! It’s nice to have a view of different lives in these strange days.
I’am from Brazil! And 2020 it’s been a challenge. I’am from a capital on the South - wich used to be rainy and cold these time of the year. But now with all the environment issues ( I’am sorry, crimes ) it’s hot like summer, without any rain. So besides not leaving house much - our schedules are based in the days that has water!
I have an online store - so working from home were already my normal, but I miss the buzzing of fairs and events. I try once in a month to spend the weekend on the beach - it’s a 2 hours travel. And helps me a lot to feel energized.
But I still dont have the cheer to start playing anything long these days. So I am living of short games and of a great lot of horror books.
Yeah it’s tough times. And yet I feel luckier then some. I still have a full time job, I haven’t been ill or know anyone who has been. But COVID and lockdown has been a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions regardless.
We were all sent home at the end of March. For the month of April I had no way of doing my office job, but was still being paid. In a weird way, it was timely. I’d been considering a career break for a while, having worked non-stop full time for over 15 years. I didn’t have a “year out” for travelling when I was younger. It was straight out of collage into work, so weirdly, suddenly being at home and not having to go to work was kind of what I’d wanted for a while!
It got old towards the end of May. It was frustrating how little we could do. But then my work got its act together and we started getting what we needed to work from home. That was better for a while, but due to the nature of my work, I needed to be back in the office to be properly effective. So start of August I went back on a one week on, one week at home basis.
This worked well. I was productive again, everyone was being sensible. Now, COVID is rearing up again and we’re well into a second wave here in the UK, and the progress we were making towards going back to normality has ceased. And that’s making me anxious and frustrated. It’s made worse by the fact I have 2 members of staff I manage, one who’s only just started and the other who’s not been around much longer. If the rest of my colleagues were around, it would be much easier to train and manage my people, but it’s quite the challenge when you’re on your own, trying to keep them busy, enthused, motivated and show them how to do the job, while also staying on top of my own work. My other colleagues have always been supportive, but while they’re not around, they don’t see and I don’t think they understand the pressure i’m under…
So yeah, right now, COVID working sucks balls. It’s cool that we’ve adapted and found ways to make some things work, but it’s far from ideal. I feel bad for my newbies more then anything…
Meanwhile, at home my wife is expecting our first child. It’s exciting and scary. She’s out of work and money is tight, but bills are manageable at the moment. I need a new car. We’ve always lived within our means, but I found myself worrying about money in the future for the first time in a while a couple of nights ago. We’ve been fortunate up till now and we’re lucky to have what we have, but I’m kind of on edge, waiting for something else to break. I can afford to replace my old car in the coming months, but if the roof fell off the house tomorrow… that would be tough.
Phew. I didn’t realise how much I would end up typing. If you got this far, thanks 
I feel better for writing this down. It’ll be interesting to look back in a year’s time.
Hope you’re all well.
This is a very cute thread idea, thank you for it.
Currently im in a bit of a rough patch, constantly feeling overwhelmed, ive been off my meds since a month before COVID and at the start it was alot more manageable, online classes took a bit to adjust but for the longest time i was just begging for a bit of a breather and quarantine kind of gave that to me especially when i got the summer off after my semester ended but now that things are picking up again ive really been getting more and more overwhelmed again.
Ive reached my last year of university for which im very proud of myself cause i didnt think id get this far cause of how terrible my highschool educational experience was with mentall illness stuff, but i did it! and im happy, but im getting hit with alot of “last year regret” where im looking at my degree and thinking “is this really what i want to do for the rest of my life” or feeling like an imposter, like i dont know what im doing and never will, which along with trying to manage an internship for college has been getting to me eventhough i know its fine and its just my brain overthinking.
I think i just need to push through till my workload gets a little lighter, and i might try and get a new prescription once i have time to help my mental state. I’ve been playing a bit of Genshin impact cause its an endless game and because its a gacha game i dont feel bad about not caring about its story/skipping dialogue/not reading the lore lol
Quarantine, oddly enough, has made me the best I have been in a while. Getting a new puppy this year has been blissful. I love him. Graduated high school, but with our classes being online, to me, it doesn’t seem as important or impactful. Got a job as a Doordash driver in July which has 1. gained me a lot more money. I’d say like $2000 per month. $100 per day. 2. Prevented me from getting burnout a lot more effectively.
I was planning on going to a public university, but the tuition there wasn’t lowered, even after making their classes go fully online, so I started my first semester at a community college and I have a lot less work to do than expected so I have more time working.
As for games, I’m playing through the Devil May Cry series, even the black sheep, Devil May Cry 2, Dark Souls, Genshin Impact, Yakuza 0, and Slay the Spire. Slay the Spire, especially. That game is a drug. I’m also planning on upgrading my PC so that it can use the new RTX 3080 well. I think my 1060 is dying out.
Awesome thread idea! Thanks, Prin.
In regards to COVID, I’m pretty lucky that my wife is the main bread earner in the house, so that means we can survive on her wage alone, which is good as I was recently made redundant (not 100% due to COVID, but it was a contributing factor). We’re doing better than a lot of folks I’ve heard from.
However, being jobless, while fun at first, is a bit difficult. I constantly feel guilty for not contributing and the constant rejection is taking its toll. I’m diagnosed with depression which can be hard to deal with at the best of times, but the situation makes it all the more difficult.
Still, I’ve used the time to try and work on some projects. Finally started writing again after the site I used to write for shut down, so that’s fun. Been doing a lot of stuff around the house. Got back into drawing.
I actually don’t mind being at home all the time, I’m a bit of an introvert anyway, but I do miss perusing book stores. Gaming wise I’m still playing through No Man’s Sky. The Origins update has really changed the game and I love exploring. Also currently playing Carrion which is a lot of fun. Other than that I’ve a backlog of games I’m slowly going through.
So yeah, I feel like I can’t complain too much, but it’s still not the best situation.
When I was doing my Masters I got a scholarship that forbid me for working (yeah, insane) so I had to quit my part-time job and my girlfriend was the main breadwinner. I remember feeling weird and guilty at first, but then I realised that I naturally took over household duties, since I had the time, and learnt to find satisfaction in that. My job was cleaning the house, cooking, buying groceries and all that stuff (and working on my thesis of course) and I took great pleasure in my girlfriend not having to do any of that after coming home from work.
I’ve done much the same. I do my best to keep the house in order and I honestly don’t mind it. The guilt doesn’t come from not earning as much as I’ve never earned as much as my wife does (could only ever get temporary jobs, so glad I spent four years at uni) but it’s more I’m not earning at all.
This really resonates with me. My wife works a lot and earns a good amount of money. I work part time and am home more often.
Several of the household duties fall on me which I really enjoy (vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, scooping litter boxes, and cooking when there aren’t left overs).
I’ve said the same thing that it saves her time when she gets home from work not having to clean and such. Being in a relationship is about team work.
I’m pretty good for now
I’m getting a shot on Thursday, which will be good. I wondered how many I’d get on the list before I got it [it was 143]
Most nights, I chat with a small Animal Crossing gang on Discord, which is great!
I think this is something that’s been very good for me, because I used to be very lonely. I finished my 2nd house and should take a bit of a rest from that one FTTB
