All following crow content is original content by me
Hey there, Hive community, it's been a while.
My activity on here has been tapering off for a while, for a multitude of reasons. A big one being that I lost the majority of my readers - my fiction stories just stopped getting any comments. The payout stayed stable, but the interaction had mostly vanished and with it went my motivation to write.
Then the pandemic happened, things became even harder with everyone being stressed out and me trying to somehow finish my MSc degree online.
In October I then started my PhD. Luckily, research was classified as essential which allowed me to still go to the lab every day.
It's a weird time to start a PhD. The campus is deserted and so far I haven't seen the lower half of the faces of my lab mates - as we're all wearing masks.
It's become harder and harder to interact with people, and my mental health has been dropping considerably since the new year began. Ireland has been in a 5km lockdown since Christmas, and there is no end in sight with the numbers rising and the vaccination process being very slow.
I haven't been writing, not even the academic stuff I should be working on. Like so many others, I'm burnt out but there aren't really any options to recover - can't go abroad, can't even go and see the ocean that surrounds me because it's outside my 5km.
The only thing I've been doing regularly is feeding the jackdaws on campus. They absolutely love peanuts and have started to wait for me to come to feed them. Slowly, they stop being afraid of me and are willing to come closer and closer for their treats.
I doubt things will change any time soon. Current projections say that the majority of adults in Ireland should be vaccinated by the end of June - if vaccine supply works out. But that's still a very long time to go, and even then I will need time to recover from all that has been going on.
Will I be back here to give you my fiction stories?
I don't know.
I have already decided that this year there won't be an April Fools joke from me, I didn't have the ideas or energy to make one. Maybe next year? We will see.
That's it from me for now. I hope you're all doing as okay as you can under the current circumstances. I will be around, whenever inspiration strikes.
Signature by @atopy
Hi Suesa! The truth is that I doubt you remember me because I didn't interact much with you here, but I met you on steem.chat (now openhive.chat) with my account @flaws (I don't remember if you started following me). It's really a bit nostalgic to see your name here, because you, apsu, thevil and gtg were the users that were always active and now that I'm back, I see that you guys are not as active as before :(
It's cool that you are at least considerably well, I also started university (I'm only in my second trimester, im noob), so any advice you want to give me (more than the ones you already gave me before), are more than welcome.
If you plan to come back, I'll be sure to always give your content a look (even though I'm not a scientist, I'll do my best to understand). Sending you a hug <3
Hey there!
I actually vaguely remember your nickname, although I can't claim to remember what we talked about.
The chat had gotten to much for me at one point, so I had to move away for a bit. Maybe I'll return one day! Although I would first have to get up to date with Hive again, as I don't think I'd be of any use right now.
The best advice for university is to remind yourself that you're doing this FOR yourself. It's easy to think "Oh, I am studying for this exam and nothing else" but that's not true. It was only yesterday that I needed something (for my PhD) that I learned in my very first semester (for my BSc)! Learn for the future, not the next exam.
It's nice to know that there are people around who'd read my content :)
I hope you can come back soon. I know you were always keeping busy studying, I hope it's not too hard for me, but as long as you have free time, I'm sure you're more than welcome here.
Nice to hear from you. Ireland really has a 5 KM lockdown, where you are not allowed to go outside that limit? That simply would not work for where I live, no place to shop with in 5 km for us.
I loved the pictures, the short vid of the two coming in kind of looked like a race to the goody, poor guy from NW looks like he lost the race.
Going grocery shopping counts as essential, and you're allowed to leave the 5km for essential reasons. Otherwise I'd be stuck 500m outside my lab!
They actually announced today that from April 12th, we'll be allowed to travel within our county or within 20km if it's crossing county borders. So something to look forward to! Still doesn't allow me to see the ocean though, which makes me sad.
The crows are super fun, and there are usually more of them than I have peanuts. This scarcity may be contributing to them getting braver, as they only get the peanut if they dare to come close enough.
I enjoy watching the antics of the crows and ravens in Alaska, they always put on a pretty good fun show to watch.
Hey!😃 Awesome to see you here again! As boring as many things are these days, it's still cool to see familiar names pop up again, so I guess we still have that to add to each other's otherwise dull circumstances😛.
You're certainly not the only one having a rough time the past year. Although I guess the pandemic hits people differently. I've just had a few weeks in isolation myself after testing positive for covid, and still suffering from lingering headaches, tiredness and sense of constant brain-fog. But I've found that posting more consistently here actually helps as long as it is I'm the form of simple journaling where I merely "document" what I already think and experience, rather than pushing myself to "invent" something. Just a tip;).
Hope to see more from you sooner rather than later, and hope you both are doing well:)
Oh, and it's not long ago that I got a few fun reminders from google photos of what happened 3 years ago😁
Oh my, I'm sorry to hear that you caught covid! A friend of mine got hit after Christmas (exposure at work) and took pretty long to recover.
I am not sure people would enjoy my journaling, I've been going through a pretty bad mental health patch and am currently trying to get some antidepressants.
But maybe I will give it a shot when something nice happens! Just kinda miss writing fiction, but I don't have the focus for it at the moment.
Hi Sue. nice to see you here again.
Hey :)
It's been a while.
It's good you feed and offer friendship to these little dinosaurs. Certainly wouldn't want them to go extinct again.
Not worried about them going extinct, I'm building myself an army here!
Planning to take on the Cats and end the war once and for all?
Please, the cats are also allies.
Trying to overthrow the Irish government, paving my eventual way to world domination.
They'll never see it coming.
yeah... the pandemic burn out is real, I feel it, too.
good to know your academic career is at least able to progress... and fingers crossed we won't have to get too used to that awful "new normal"... well... fingers crossed...
What comes first, the end of the pandemic or my viva?
Really, really hope the end of the pandemic.
well, very first there will be perfectly tamed crows following you around campus... everything else, we'll just have to keep those fingers crossed I guess.
I got them to the current level (come closer than 1m to get their peanuts, wait around for me in the same spot) within 4 weeks. Who knows what I can accomplish in 4 years!
Ireland will fear me.
lol... can't help but picturing your post-footer-avatar-figurine with that same facial expression and a flock of combat-crows following you around.
I kinda want that drawn. But like this pose, with crows flocking around me:
Nice to see you're still here!
I haven't posted much (at all) this year either. Ironically, I've been busier than ever. I'm just a humble tobacconist but it turns out people really like to smoke pipes and cigars during a pandemic. Business has been bonkers. I'm grateful, but exhausted.
Your stories are one of the reasons I loved this place and I always pop over when I check in.
Sorry to hear you're struggling with your mental health. It must take a lot to keep pushing towards your academic goals when you're not feeling well. I applaud you for that!
I'm very glad to hear that your business is going well! For so many it isn't. Still, make sure you don't burn yourself out!
If creativity strikes me again, I will post it here, promised! <3
"All following crow content is original content by me"
Now that should be enough to draw anyone in! 😄
Gotta keep the standards high!
Awww, hang in there, It's going to get better, june is not that far away !
💚
Really hope that time line works out
Cool to see something by an OG from back in the day! I hope you find the encouragement and inspiration to get back to writing... first your school stuff; then the fiction stuff.
Hey, I think I've seen you around before but you might be new around. Welcome on Hive! Willkommen!
:'D
Why is this bread talking to me