A lot of things have happened, both bad and good. But I haven’t stopped reading! My last post here was in 2021! OMG! What a sad, and isolated year back then. Pandemic has hit hard, huh? The lessons I learned from COVID19 are:

• I started to appreciate general things that I usually did, but couldn’t do.

Going to IKEA for breakfast is a simple activity. Books, cappuccino, croissant, boiled egg, a slice of cheese and ham, and conversation with mom. But IKEA, just like other businesses, was closed and we couldn’t visit anymore. Wanna go for a walk? Yes, I could. But not without feeling paranoid. Everyone also took distance. Wanna read at a cafe? It’s close!

• Communicate more with family members

While I do communicate daily with my mother, I didn’t with my sister. Not only does she live far away from me, but I don’t have anything to say or ask even on WA. Going to church? We can’t. It’s closed. All what we could do was watching livestreams. So, zoom meeting was created and we communicated from there. I must admit that I do belong in a big community or church goers, with most of them going to the same church as I do. Most of my friends are church friends for a very long time.

• To love and appreciate the people around a lot more

Have you had a family member who died during the pandemic but you weren’t even allowed to attend their funeral? My brother. He died and none of us were allowed to attend. Does it hurt? A lot. Well, he has always been an outsider: wasn’t close with any of us, didn’t always attend birthdays, etc, but when he did, it was a one of the kind moment and we’re always happy that he could attend. No, he’s not anti-social. He had personal reason why he couldn’t just drive to our place. He wasn’t free to go [quite alarming, huh? But I’m not going into detail ;)]. It’s sad to realize that not only he wasn’t close with any of us, but also that we couldn’t even attend his funeral….he didn’t die from COVID19, though.

• That someone out there at a grocery store could be mad at you for a very simple reason

And sometime, they created the situation themselves. They started to buy a bunch of toilet papers. It’s clear that they’re not fit for disaster. Very pampered.

Nevertheless, I as ambivert don’t completely hate the curfew. I even miss the moment! The moment when I and mom had to go home quickly after work so we’d be home before 09:00 PM. The moment I could easily cancel appointments by saying it’s pandemic so I could enjoy my book a lot longer. But it’s not to say that I had never got the virus. I do. Twice. and it’s not pleasing! LOL!

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Enough about the pandemic. Since then, my read books have a more variety of genre’s. Not only thriller. I think that thriller books were bridge to restart a daily reading life. I must admit that before my ereader era I did read books but not that much and I do have books that I haven’t finished reading. My first Kobo, bought somewhere in 2017, was bought not because I was curious about e-reading, also not because I wanted to reduce buying physical books. I bought it because it was cheap. The seller explained me what it was and I thought to just buy it. My first book read on my Kobo was the Purple Prince. An autobiography about Prince. Ereader did [still does!] help me read more often.

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I celebrated my New Year’s Eve in the city. A bunch of people have been gathering at the square while I was at my friend’s house that’s on walking distance from the square. There’s music, dancers and DJ who had his set until around 01:00 AM. We’ve had a fun night! And of course, I didn’t forget to bring my ereader! LOL!

I hope that 2025 will bring us good times! I hope that this is the year when our biggest dream come true! May God bless you all!