At the end of my last post, I said:

I think I got sick. I’ve been congested and had a scratchy throat for 24+ hours now. I’m going to rally today and try to get some food and cold medicine to hopefully stop this before the weekend is over. Needless to say I’ll be masking extra carefully.

Well, I had COVID-19. I still have it! So this post will probably not be super interesting. I posted on Mastodon asking about isolation timelines. From what I’ve read, it seems like minimum responsible time to exit isolation is next Saturday. Two of my suitemates have COVID now, but in the interest of not increasing viral load, I’ll be continuing to mask when leaving my room (thank god I have a single).

Monday #

Last night I went on a walk for the first time. I wasn’t coughing, the elevators weren’t busy (took the stairs down anyway), and it was late at night. It helped so much. I’m really feeling stir crazy. This is my first time being substantially sick in a long time.¹ I’m going to turn the masked walk into a nightly thing, since it was so helpful. I only have one window, and it’s north facing, so I get no direct sunlight (Mount Sinai reflects some at me though in the late afternoon), and my window only opens a couple inches (my suitemate described my room as Norwegian prisoncore).

Showering and brushing my teeth has been a challenge. Some reading I did suggested that in high humidity (ie post-shower) air, aerosolized respiratory droplets can stay in the air for longer (up to 25 minutes), so I’ve been carefully timing my showers and teeth brushing for when no one else is home, something that will become harder now that other suitemates have COVID.

My symptoms have been limited mostly to occasional headaches, body aches and congestion. The congestion and PND makes me cough a good deal, but that’s the only persistent symptom. I’m really lucky to have a mild case. This morning is the best I’ve felt, I woke up without a stuffy nose, and felt really good, so I’m hoping my body is almost done. Isolation is a lot easier if I feel well enough to go outside for longer every day.

I am missing my first day of classes today, which sucks, but I made friends with somebody in the one class I have today who will share their notes with me. I’ve got three classes on Tuesday, so we’ll see how that goes. I’ll be emailing those profs today.

Ren and I are reading The Power Broker together, and I’m so excited. I’m a really fast and impatient reader, so once again I’m trying to learn to slow down.

Tuesday #

Woke up Tuesday with even more minor symptoms, hooray!

I missed classes yesterday, and more today, so I’m attempting to catch up on reading. I haven’t quite figured out how to organize my school notes in Logseq yet, and I’m looking for examples of note taking systems. If you’re in academia or a profession or position where you take a bunch of notes, please let me know how you do it! I don’t care if it’s boring or not unique or doesn’t work, I just want to broaden my sample size. Please email me! <3

My profs have been super accommodating, so I’m just trying to figure out how to read syllabi. I have a lot of organizational tools, but I’m not really sure how I want to structure my academic stuff yet, including assignment/todo tracking. I think I’ll probably take class notes in my Logseq journals, and just note tasks in there and then make some kind of dashboard to query those? Again if you have examples, please email me, I don’t bite.

Bliss

I’m really happy to be back in proximity to the Snack Belt. I’ve been ordering groceries from West Side Market, who seems to use their own delivery people instead of exploiting people like the apps do, and being back in NYC means I get to enjoy Hal’s seltzer water and chips again (Hal’s black cherry sparkling water is the best sparkling water I’ve ever had).

Wednesday #

Symptoms continue be more minor. I’ve been reading a bunch. We ran out of the toilet paper but a friend is bringing us more.

I really appreciate how much less toxic the housing discourse is here. The pro-housing movement in NYC doesn’t seem to be dominated by borderline fascists with unlimited tech money like it is back home. Read an interesting piece by Benjamin Schneider about applying Jacobs to NYC’s City of Yes rezoning to encourage densification in the outerlands of NYC.

Thursday #

Woke up feeling the best I’ve felt yet at around noon. I’m hoping I can get my sleep schedule back in order before Monday. I tested today and was negative, so I masked up and went to buy more tests. I’ll test again tomorrow morning, and assuming I’m negative again I’ll start going out again, albeit very cautiously and masked. Today I got a new iPad with a pencil and a keyboard. I’m hoping that it will help me with my Logseq note taking workflow, since most of my professors give us PDFs of our readings. Logseq’s mobile app doesn’t have pdf opening/annotating support yet, so I’m trying to figure out a good way to deal with that. Some people on the forum have suggested using an app like PDF Expert to open the pdf files and annotate them in that, and that Logseq will then pull in those annotations. I’m not sure if that works with my workflow, which involves writing between the highlight blocks, so I guess we’ll see. If you have ideas, please email me. After testing negative, I went on a little celebratory walk, and discovered that there’s an Indian place 2 blocks from me, which is exciting!

Friday #

I tested negative again in the morning. My lingering cough is almost gone, and I’m feeling almost 100%. I went on a walk and ended up at a place nearby that does plant-based versions of bodega classics. I got an avocado toast, and sat at a table outside and did some readings on my iPad. I read Joan Didion’s essay On Keeping a Notebook, and it really resonated with me, as a notebook carrier. I’ll upload my annotated pdf at some point.

I’m considering using free NJT to hop down to Philly tomorrow to see some friends. I’ll be Trenton-shuffling because it’s so much cheaper, and because Amtrak tickets are really expensive now. I snagged a $10 ticket from PHL-TRE back, which I’ll refund if I don’t use, but I figured it would be nice to have the convenience of skipping SEPTA on the way back.

I’m loving having an iPad, it’s made reading and annotating for class much easier, and I can use all the help I can get after missing my first week of classes. I’ve started using the app Highlights instead of PDF expert, and so far I’m liking it better. It lets me export my highlights and notes as markdown, which makes getting it into Logseq a lot easier, though that export is a premium feature—I’m on a free trial, I’ll probably stick with it for $22/year.