It is undoubtedly that 2020 has been a tough year for all of us. In Indonesia, the first COVID19 case was reported in early March this year and since then everything changed. Last time I’m having coffee with friends was in mid February and since the pandemic strike I barely go to the coffee shop again. It’s not only coffee shop, but I also haven’t jumped into pool too since then, which is my second favorite place to release my stress after work. Even during Eid al-Fitr I couldn’t visit my Grandma. Well, but it is no use to blame anyone for this pandemic.

Since the pandemic hit Indonesia in March my company ask us to work remotely from home. At the beginning I was excited because I always wanted to try working remotely. But due to the quarantine, we couldn’t go anywhere, so after a while I got little bored. So I try to find some new activities during the quarantine besides working and playing video games. Here are some activities that I found

Gardening. During the quarantine, since I can’t go to coffee shop anymore during the pandemic, I tried to find some new activities and I accidently watched video about urban gardening on Youtube. Then I decided to plant several veggies such as spinach, bok choy, kangkong, and tomatoes. It’s really fun to grow your own greens because it’s easy to grow and you only need approximately 3 weeks to harvest them. While for tomatoes you need approximately 3 months to harvest them. We got a bunch of homegrown tomatoes for weeks when the harvest period came. The most important thing when your grow veggies are soil and water.

Playing Ukulele. This idea of playing ukulele actually came from my friend and I thought it would be pretty fun to learn this small instrument. Actually I learnt acoustic guitar when I was in high school, well a classmate of mine taught me several chord to play, but then I almost never played again since then. The size of ukulele which is smaller than guitar make it easier to handle. Though it has different chords than guitar, it’s quite easy to remember it since the uke only has 4 strings. Beside playing the uke, like any other instrument it can lower your stress, it is also small and easy to carry.

Cooking. When the quarantine start in early March I never thought I’d learn to cook. My Mom is a great cook. She conquered many dishes and I’m just enjoying anything that she cook. But then, I realized that cooking is one of the survival skill that I need learn *lol*. So, I started to learn some basic dish and I decided to learn this skill in the future. And I found it’s pretty satisfying to cook my own meal or snack.

Tryin picking up new hobbies really helps me to stay sane during this pandemic. Compared to last year, my reading list actually had been decreased significantly but it’s okay because I found some new hobbies. We don’t need to push ourselves hard, just stay healthy and sane is more than enough. Well, I hope next year will be better for us.