I’ve been taking advantage of UGA’s Surveillance Testing for COVID-19 every few weeks for my own peace of mind, as well as the fact that I work with an immunocompromised population. I’m really glad that I did, in fact, because my last test came back positive. This meant I had to isolate for 10 days minimum in my room in my apartment, and it was pretty daunting at first. I’m extremely lucky that I turned out to be asymptomatic, so I was able to do remote work for my internship as well as keep up with classes via their Zoom option. I was left with a lot of free time, however, and here are the pieces of media that helped to keep me sane when I couldn’t leave my apartment for 240 hours.
- Bones on Hulu
-
I started watching Bones about a month ago because I was looking for a series that had a bunch of seasons already on a streaming platform. This way, I wouldn’t get attached to characters and have to wait forever for the next season (or just know that there wouldn’t be any more seasons ever!). I’m a sucker for a crime drama, and Bones adds in the very interesting field of forensic anthropology that makes it different from other shows. If you haven’t watched it, I’d definitely recommend it!
- Money Diaries on Refinery29
-
I’ve been hooked on these diaries for a while, but I really started looking into the archives recently. The premise is that keeping a diary of everything a person spends will help them to become financially secure and aware of patterns that they might not have recognized without the diary. It’s so fascinating to see what people make and spend in a week—it pulls from a wide sample of women so each entry is unique and gives a peek into life in a random city. Current events often impact how the author spends their money, whether that’s because they’re on unemployment due to COVID-19 or made a donation to a charity fighting California’s wildfires.
- TheTimTracker on YouTube
-
Okay, hear me out on this one. It’s well known by all of my friends that I did the Disney College Program and loved it—so watching the Trackers, which consists of Tim, his wife Jenn, and sometimes their baby Jackson, do Disney things really makes me happy. I can’t watch too many in a row, though, because it makes me sad that I’m not at Disney. They seem like such genuine, down-to-earth people, and I kind of felt like I was hanging out with them, not just watching a vlog!
- Safiya Nygaard on YouTube
-
Though she recently explained in a blog post why she hasn’t been super active on her channel recently, I took my isolation period and used it as an opportunity to delve into her archives. Her more recent videos are a little longer, some of them over 30 minutes long, but I loved her series on wedding preparations (spoiler alert: she has two custom-made wedding dresses, and one of them is black!) and her bad makeup science series, too! I think she’s definitely made the most of the exposure she got as an original member of BuzzFeed’s Ladylike team and has grown a large following on her own—I’m definitely a fan!
I’m thankful that I had access to plenty of entertainment during my isolation period. Hopefully, you don’t have to isolate from COVID-19 (and if you’re exposed, you have to!), but either way, I hope you learned about some new ways to occupy your time while social distancing.