Whilst we're still in lockdown, Have you learnt any new skills with your extra time?
Perhaps you've become a better baker or chef, maybe improved your DIY skills or learnt a new language. Or have you possibly learnt something deeper about yourself?
Share some things that you've learnt whilst you've been locked down. Would love to hear some of your new skills.

I'll start. One of the big pluses of this lockdown is that I've spent more time on Duolingo brushing up my language skills, focusing a lot on Gaelic, Italian, Danish and Dutch, and, a couple of weeks ago, I finished the Gaelic course. I'm now planning to finish at least one other course before I go back to work

My life is literally the same with the following exceptions.

- I get to work from home and save gas money.
- I run/ride a trail instead of in a gym
- I work more hours
- Going to the store is more annoying than it was previously, but people are less likely to invade my personal space.

I have learnt:

My timing sucks, I was researching buying a piano just before lockdown but didn't get one.
Counselling over Zoom is awful. Give me a 6' 8" ex-army guy crying in a room with me any day.
I hate working from home, I need the structure of 'going into work'.
I am going to hate retirement.
My hobbies only seem to make the hours tick away rather than enjoying them!
I have all this free time but still don't do the things I have put off and still leave things to the last minute.
TV is rubbish, all of it (OK, I already knew this).
I seem to have become quite a good wildlife photographer as the community I live in want me to make a charity calendar of my pictures of the village.
My cat sleeps 20 hours a day.

Urgh.

I've learnt a few things about some of my colleagues
- A lot of them don't have enough work to do, so spend the whole time moaning/looking for problems
- Other colleagues seem more interested in finding excuses not to do their jobs, rather than actually doing it
- We have loads of money for vanity projects that are sprung up without thinking and unrealistic time frames, but not for upgrading legacy equipment which are pushed back into future years 'because of cost restraints' even if it is currently on its last legs and held together by duct tape...

I have learned to appreciate what is essential in life versus what is not essential.....e.g. walking my dogs is an essential part of my daily routine....but who needs movie theaters any more, so long as you have an internet connection, a big screen tv and streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, then I do not need to ever go to a movie theater again.

I have learned that if we have a zombie apocalypse (which we very nearly had) then toilet paper is more valuable than gold (note to self ... consider going French....install a bidet in future).

As for new skills I have acquired.....the number one teaching tool I use is Youtube...e.g. how to make a face mask by cutting a sock, how to make home made hand sanitizer from home ingredients when the shelves are empty. All the DIY repairs I do at home are done using instructional videos I find on Youtube.

I have learned that as long as I have electricity, internet and running water.....I can stay at home forever. I can get almost anything I need with free shipping thanks to Amazon Prime, and with Instacart.com you don't need to go shopping for groceries because they will deliver to your door.

Actually the Covid Pandemic and quarantining was not as bad as the 2005 Hurricane we lived thru, because with Covid-19 we still have electricity and internet....but back in 2005 I learned a lot more because the Hurricane took out the power grid for 6 weeks in my area, so we had to learn how to live without any power or internet for 6 weeks. That is when you learned that charcoal bricks, a barbecue, batteries and bags of ice were the most important thing in your life.

MK

God I am ashamed to say this...for the past 2 weeks I have been on Hulu free trial period catching up on Seasons 1 & 2 of "The Penguins of Madagascar", Seasons 8, 9, 10 of "Archer", & Seasons 17 through 23 of "South Park". So, yeah...I learned all that.


Sounds like every episode of "Archer".

Ya know Mark, Hurricane season is only a couple months away...

True....it comes back every year, just like Covid-19 will likely do as well.

But I learn from my past experiences.....I never make the same mistake twice. For Hurricanes in Florida we are all prepared well in advance with generators, batteries, charcoal, bags of ice, hurricane shutters....and simple things I bought in my past experiences....like a DC to AC power adapter for my car's cigarette lighter... so I can run my notebook from my car if the power goes out.

I also sold my house that was only 4 miles from the coastline and in a designated flood zone....and moved inland and now I am 60 miles from the coast.....so these days I only have to worry about sinkholes, tornadoes and lightning strikes. With Hurricanes, you know it is coming 5-7 days beforehand and can prepare. What is more deadly are the lightning strikes in my area -- where you get hit with no warning.....which reminds me....this is the 1 year anniversary when lightning struck the roof of my next door neighbor's house and burned it down. Another 10 feet to the left and that would have been my house and my entire videotape archives up in smoke....see the pic. The room to left of the blaze is where I store all my mastertapes and video archives.

The thing I learned from that experience....is the importance of having off site server backups for all my video files.

I've made single serve cakes and soft serve ice cream.

I've learned more about the Bronze Age Collapse, where in the late Bronze Age, Mediterranean cities just got abandoned.

I've given up on Sims 4. It's got some nice build features, but in every other way, it is inferior to Sims 3.

Working from home, I've learnt how quickly and effectively most colleagues just get on with things on their own.
And just how much office time is simply wasted in discussions/ arguments and talking about doing things, before anyone actually does.
And griping about other people.
Team work can add to the sum total of the members, but it can also detract.

Keep safe.