March 17, 2020

Some Contradictions

Days go by, more and more people start social distancing and whoever can works from home, including my parents.

I was planning to find some simple job for myself this semester but going job hunting is becoming less appealing by the day. I feel between a rock and a hard place. I need the money but staying home is way too appealing. For now, I will help my grandma with the garden and stay away from the virus as much as I can at least for her sake. I hope it goes away quick.

Reading the news my father mentioned that it was interesting how matters that were discussed before seemingly disappeared. What happened with the people who were stuck between Greece and Turkey? Or what about the locusts we heard about from Africa. Surely these problems have not disappeared overnight. Who is talking about these issues?

On a more personal note, I had a few moments of self-discovery and self-awareness today. I began playing Occidental Heroes on my phone lately. It is a well-made, turn-based, adventure game with endearing pixel art and Permadeath. I do not know what made me play this game in the first place. I am really not good with games where the player's choice matters and have multiple endings. I get stuck trying to get the best ending. So the first time I started off with my party of four making sure to keep an emotional distance since the game does tell you in the beginning that death is a permanent thing around here. I did not notice when I began to care for them, all I noticed was that when my first party member died, I became reckless and got even more of us killed until I just could not continue and had to start all over again. I thought I made a mistake in the construction of the party and that is why it is all going south. So the next day I started a new gang and was really careful in battles. I always used the choke points to fight larger numbers. Things were going great and I got a lot of character development. My favourite was Benay a jilted lover who started off as someone no longer having a reason to live but when we helped a lad reunite with his love, Benay hoping that maybe one day his love will turn around became a cautious man now having a reason to live. And then I got him mortally wounded... In the group, I was a surgeon so I really hoped he would survive. But then he did not. Having lost my first party member for the second time, the feeling was somewhat familiar. Grief. I was a bit apprehensive about the thought at first. Sure, I regretted his death, but why would I grieve a game character? Yet as much as I wanted to deny it, I had a weird awareness that if I went on fighting like this more of my party would surely fall. So I ended up putting the game down for a while. I think I will continue eventually, but I am not yet sure when. I do not know if the game's writing is just that good or if I am too sensitive. It might be me. I get attached way too quickly and way too tightly. What has been bothering me about this the most is the thought that if I lose my composure over a videogame character this easily what am I going to do when I lose someone really precious. It makes me sad when I think about my grandparents and how they are in more and more danger because of the virus outbreak. I will have to remember to pray for them more.

Tonight I registered as a covid volunteer. In Hungary, most of the doctors are above the sensitive age level that is why it is important to do everything to protect them, so they are looking for people to help treat patients who have the virus, so they can spend less time around the infected. I do not know if they will need me, but I am a student in pharmacy so I felt really encouraged to help out in any way I can. Of course, if they do call me, I will probably have to stay farther away from my grandmother. But that is yet to be seen.

(Yay, today I kept my promise to myself and got up on time!)

Written by Aislene

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