FIT Lvls – BMI 28.4 // 86kgs
One week into the new year and I’m sick with COVID.
Luckily it’s a very mild case and I’m barely showing any symptoms beyond a slight fever and a very sore throat. But even in that instance, the coughing fits have been mild and I’m not bed ridden like I was a few years ago, when I got it properly.
Perhaps the most annoying aspect is the fact that I’ve been cooped up in my room for the past 3 days and it’s definitely not a very enjoyable sick holiday off from work. With very little fresh air, room to exercise … I look forwards to the fleeting moments where I am allowed to shower and home cook.
Home cooking … that is something I’ve missed a lot. A subtle resolution this year is to expand on the dishes I feel comfortable making, and I really had the opportunity to do that this week.
I even snuck out to do some grocery shopping, and bought home some key essentials to really have fun in the kitchen.
There are so many things I know I would change or have on standby every single week when I finally move out. Things like chopped garlic, bigger chopping boards, bigger kitchen benches, certain oils in the pantry … they only come when you spend a lot of time in the kitchen and really find out what you dislike and like doing on the regular.
So many recipes I’ve made, whether they be Italian, Japanese or Chinese, need an almost mythical amount of garlic. In many ways, I would love a small vegetable patch in my future home, where I can grow these essentials out the back whenever I need them.
Not only is it fresh, it’s also more sustainable and economically more feasible and will instil a greater appreciation for the ingredients I use.
In a lot of ways, home cooking reminds me of an exciting learning environment. You get to experiment, understand basic rules, discover new flavours and feel pride when you make something extremely edible. It’s such a fun journey to embark on once you start and the sense of accomplishment when you finish at the end is always amazing and sometimes very bittersweet.
But beyond expanding my repertoire of recipes (I’ve made pesto for the first time, drunken noodles and experimented with new techniques for fried rice), this quarantine has given me a bit of time to write at home which is also very nice.
I do miss days like this, where I had all day to really fulfill all my lazy desires, but I don’t want them to come often. It feels like I haven’t worked hard enough to earn this random respite and I really want to get back into things properly, so that I have good habits and routines.
This is an abnormality and needs to be treated as such.
So, in spite of catching COVID, there have been no significant developments this week. A lot more work needs to be done in my new role and I’m looking forwards to establishing a proper rhythm soon, so that I can focus more on other things like my hobbies, my partner and my writing.
I want to draft a film noir script this year and once work has settled properly, I think I’ll have time to start it.
Let’s see how next week fare.
~ Damocles.
Damocles' Journal 