These are rather hard times for a lot of people, to put it mildly. I am very lucky in many ways. I can and do work from home, even if I didn’t I’m financially secure and have no debt. For now me and my close ones are healthy and taking the proper measures to stay that way. I also don’t suffer from loneliness and rather enjoy staying home.
Trust me I know how blessed I am. I’m trying to give to my local hospitals and WHO to help a minuscule bit. I set up everyone I could with the tools to work from home and am available to both my coworkers and the older people in my neighbourhood to teach them how to use online tools and the internet so they stay home.
Mostly, I’m staying home so as to not make it worse for everyone else. My readers are smart and reasonable. There is no need for me to hammer home why it is absolutely vital to just stay home and away from people and common surfaces right now. It is in fact the most important thing you can do to help the whole world.
And you know what else is cool, being able to connect with others and maybe even distract them a bit during this time. I have never been so happy to have this blog and this is what I’m doing (planning to do) with it while continuing to stay home at least until April 13. Let’s forget all that heavy stuff from the first paragraphs, this isn’t why any of us are here. Instead, what do I have planned and what have I been doing!
5. Discovering and Learning more about Canva
You may not have heard of Canva, I hadn’t until Karandi told me about it. Canva is the online resource I have been using to create the title cards for my gallery posts and episode reviews. I use the free version but there is a paid option that opens up even more possibilities, including the ability to make gifs which is very tempting.
This said, the free version does have plenty to offer and I would tell you all about it if I wasn’t still learning the ropes myself. It took me a while to really start exploring it (because I’m lazy) but once I got into it I saw that it was pretty user friendly and a lot of fun! I plan on going through it even more. Maybe even seeing if I can use it for some…branding… Look at me sounding like an actual blogger and all!
4. Discord
I use to go on discord a bit but then I stopped. I’m pretty busy in general and I’m not the most sociable person. Not to mention that if people want to talk to me they can just DM me any time. I do try to answer as much as I can.
But if there are people who just like to hear someone’s voice once in a while, even if that voice isn’t saying anything that interesting. I can be that occasionally boring voice. I’m not guaranteeing anything but I think it’s time I dove back into discord. Maybe try to organize some watch-a-longs or other virtual events. Do you have any ideas?
3. Collaborations baby!
I sue to collab a lot and with a whole bunch of different bloggers. I really like working collaboratively on posts. It’s more interesting and I learn a lot more from collaborative posts than from working alone. Now I’m sort of banking on the world slowing down just a bit in the coming weeks which really hasn’t been the case so far. I’ve been self isolating for about two weeks now and I’ve not worked such long hours or had people talk to me quite as much before in my life. I currently average out 14 hour workdays 80% of which are spent on Skype.
I’m an optimist so I’m going to assume that’s going to slow don soon and I can put some time back into working with my fellow bloggers again. Thank you so much Crow for putting up with me. You are awesome!
For instance I have never had an online blogger feud. That would be entertaining right? Some hot aniblogger tea for the masses! Just what we need!
2. Mini site makeover
I have wanted to rearrange my site’s layout for months now. Nothing drastic, just move a few things around. Find a way to make navigation easier and organize essay posts so people can actually find them if they want. Remove some outdated stuff and add in some new options.
I’ve also been sitting on an invitation for contributors for a while. I want to get that out and put it somewhere that anyone who wants to can refer back to it. It’s all little thing. I still really like my site template so I’m not changing that.
Oh and um…my hair is silver now. Not white but actual silver. Same as my jewellery… It’s awesome! I haven’t updated Rini yet because I really like her and this template doesn’t have a silver hair option but maybe I should some day. And yes I should also stop changing my hair. I’m going to keep this one for a while. It looks kicka**.
1. Business as usual
Bottom line is, this blog has always been just a nice casual place for me to relax and talk about anime because I love anime. And eventually, other people who love anime drop by once in a while and talk as well. That has always been a comforting and rewarding experience for me just as it is.
I want to continue that. Just talk about anime with other people who want to talk about anime. Have some laughs. Shoot the breeze. Is that an expression? I’m not going anywhere right now, I’m not going to use the time to start ambitious new projects that take up all my time or to really focus on going pro or anything like that. (This said, kudos to the bloggers who do. You should use this time for self improvement and projects. That’s a great idea)
I’m just going to be here, making up drinking games and telling you what I thought about them pretty pretty Japanese cartoons in barely coherent typo strewn posts. So if ever you think to yourself, I want to read a difficult to follow post about a random anime that came out three years ago, you will know exactly where to go!
OK, these may not be the most impressive goals. I could have said finally get my Japanese to a level that I can comfortably watch without subtitles. Or maybe get a bunch a bloggers together so we can do a short parody fansub for you all. That would be so funny. Someone less lazy than me should do that… For now, I just want to be able to get my workdays down to 12 hours. Mind you without the commute, that still leaves me more free time! I would be happy to help out with projects if I can though.
Do you guys have any plans while you’re stuck at home? Maybe we should start preparing our when this is over party?
