A Canvas of Indifference: Day 25

Day 25: April 20, 2020
Global cases: 2,480,501; Deaths: 170,397
Egypt cases: 3,333; Deaths: 250

Ziad Abdeen
Construction Engineering senior

It’s 12:30pm. I must have missed the 10am alarm, or maybe I woke up and hit snooze? It doesn’t matter either way. Date and time have blended together in this canvas of indifference.

There’s nothing to look forward to except another day with another deadline. I only noticed that I’ve been quarantined for a whole month when I saw a post on Facebook that said the date of the storm that took place early last month. That was the turning point. That’s when we all began the quarantine.

Anyway, I got out of bed an hour later after checking all the notifications on my phone and after replying to all my friends who are doing their best to stay connected. On some days, I wake up having all the energy in the world to go out and socialize. But on other days, I feel like I have no energy to do anything but to sit in bed and watch Netflix all day.

Living alone has never been a huge problem for me; however, the circumstances we’re in have given me a taste of something different – but not the good kind. Usually I’m out all day with some friends, so staying at home for this long is challenging, which is why I’m constantly looking for good coping mechanisms.

One of them is the routine I’ve set for myself. It’s 1:30pm now, so I’ll wash up, make some coffee and breakfast. While doing that, I realize that I forgot to replace the empty toilet paper roll in the bathroom.

Making the same old coffee everyday gets boring, so I add grenadine syrup to spice it up. It’s safe to say that I’m still trying to get the ratios right. There are a lot of dishes that I need to wash before I make breakfast because I absolutely hate piling up the dishes in the sink until it becomes a tower. I wash all of them, and I guess I’m now ready to make some breakfast … but I don’t feel hungry, so I don’t.

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It’s 2pm now. I don’t really know what to do. Well, I know that I should be doing my assignments, but I’m not really in the mood. Something keeps banging in the house, so I take a look out the window and I see a woodpecker banging his beak on my window. He probably sees himself on the outside reflection, so I take a couple of pictures while he’s in the act.

My second coping mechanism: the piano. I left it uncovered yesterday, so the keys are staring me in the face and screaming: PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. So I practice, but not for too long because I’ll just be procrastinating on my assignments.

After getting a bit of practice in and fully waking up, I open my laptop to start one of the two assignments I have due today. I call up a friend to ask for a bit of direction on the assignment. Instead, my laptop decides that I’m not doing my assignments today and freezes. Here I am, finally deciding to be productive and this happens. I put on some King Crimson and stare at my laptop until it decides to work.

It’s now 6:30pm and yes, my assignments did take that long to finish and I’m not even done yet because I still have another one due. I realize how hungry I am now and so I head to the kitchen

Leftover pizza, leftover chicken, leftover pan potatoes… I pick the chicken. I put it into the oven and watch some Netflix while waiting for my food to heat up.

I think to myself, ‘damn, I miss junk food’, but it isn’t the junk food that I largely miss. I largely miss sitting with my friends and having a meal together as we talk about dumb things that happened in University or talk about our courses or maybe even play Arabic cards against humanity. Yes, I can still talk to them on the phone, but after a whole month of doing that, it just isn’t the same.

I feel good now that I’ve finished something; at least one assignment was done. Even though I can now turn my courses into a ‘pass or fail’ option and not have it affect my GPA, I’ve been much more productive. I guess it’s because a lot of stress has been lifted from off of my chest.

Pass or Fail or not, I’m still doing my assignments fully, even if I don’t care about the grade I get.

I finished the chicken and the movie, and I begrudgingly opened my laptop once again to watch the lectures needed to solve my assignment. I put on some music in the background, this time it’s some Chopin from Rosseau, because the absolute silence for long periods of time is quite uncomfortable. I make sure the volume isn’t loud since it’s almost 9pm now, and I don’t want to bother my neighbors.

I just finished my assignment at 11:45 – 15 minutes before the deadline. Honestly, I can’t thank my friend enough for sending his assignment to me so I could have a reference. Otherwise, I would be trying to find all the factors I need from the endless amount of tables we have in engineering.

All day, I thought tomorrow would be Thursday, and that I’d have a lecture at 10am, but actually tomorrow is Tuesday. I sigh a sigh of relief. It’s late and I don’t want to reverse my sleep schedule AGAIN.

Now that I’m done for the day, I can’t help but think about all that’s happening around me. The days pass by, but our lives are on hold. Can this truly be called living? My coping mechanisms are working right now, but for how long? How long are we going to stay like this?

This restlessness is making me overthink, so I just decide to let things flow because there’s nothing I can do now but wait. Wait for the eventual announcement of whether the play I’m acting in will be cancelled or resumed. Wait for the university to announce whether there is going to be a Fall semester in university or not. Wait for my professors to tell me what’s going to happen to my Thesis project now that I can’t resume experimental work.

For a person who plans ahead, I can’t plan a thing because there is no foundation to plan on. Everything is unknown, and I can’t help but feel overwhelmed.

I decide to get comfy as I watch something until I sleep. Hopefully, tomorrow will be different.