Stay At Home Stories: Xavier
Tumultuos times means it's actually a neo-neblesse obligation to buy coffee from your neighbourhood joint
Hey friends,
Hope you’re still hanging in there. Today I have yet another feel-good story from a beloved friend, Xavier. He’ll walk you through a (not so) typical day in Melbourne city, where he spends his day working from home, heading outside for his daily government-sanctioned exercise routine, and finally spending the evening learning a second language.
We’re just in time to witness him step into a new chapter of his life. After being underemployed for the past 6 months, Xavier has moved new into a new apartment in Melbourne CBD and restarted his software development career.
Through his scenic description of his home city, I’m joyously swept back into the brief time I spent living there. Memories of walking up Elizabeth Street to meet Ash in a leafy, industrial corner lot cafe, listening to the dings, whirls, squeels & crackles of trams as they carry on endlessly. I hope you enjoy this edition as much as I do.
Where are you locked down right now?
Melbourne, Australia
What do you do for work?
Software development
I interviewed for my current job on a Friday. They offered and I accepted the same evening. Two days later, the company had their first COVID case and the office was shut indefinitely. I have yet to step into my future office!
As a night owl, 9-5 jobs have always been a little traumatic for me. The necessities of grooming, eating, exercising and commuting inevitably mean I get to bed too late, and have to wake up too early the next day. So COVID turned out to be a massive blessing for me.
/ / /
My day starts at 8:30am. I wake up, groggily re-connect with our traumatic reality by scrolling through news in bed, then stumble into some clothes and try not to fall over walking to the lift.
By 8:50 I order a large cappuccino from one of the 3 coffee places I frequent (I consider buying coffee during COVID a form of neo-noblesse obligation, and I look forward to collecting my Australian of the year award for my support to local businesses).
With that and some carbohydrates in hand, I fire up slack by 9:07 and hope no one notices that my customary good morning is 7-25 minutes later than the rest of the team. From there, it is a standard software development morning (emails, stand up, monitoring systems) that hopefully involves some fruitful coding as well.
Some time between 12 and 1pm, I eat a quick lunch (usually something spartan like cereal and whey or eggs), then head out for a long walk. I head to the Yarra or to the Docklands waterfront, two locations near my apartment where there is a big enough gap in the skyscrapers for my skin to feel some sun, which is an absolute must have for my mood. During this walk, I listen to language-learning audio materials.
Back in my living room for the rest of the work day, I try to get a good few hours in before my energy and productivity flags, which is usually between 4-6pm.
I have a beautiful view from my window on the 43rd floor, including Southbank, Albert Park Lake, The Bay, etc. During this afternoon period, I frequently get up from my desk and bust out some 3-minute yoga or movement breaks while taking in the view and thinking about my work. My current living conditions are a big step up from some of the terrible locations I have found myself in throughout the last 6 months of underemployment, so I feel quite grateful for this moment.
Depending on mood and energy, I typically stop work between 5 and 6 pm, at which point I will bake some frozen food, or occasionally go get takeaway. Then, I’ll unwind for an hour or so before starting my evening routine.
Around 7pm, the evening routine involves either an hour-long jog along the Yarra, or an hour of calisthenics in a nearby park. During this time I will listen to a podcast, language-learning materials, or a playlist. Sometimes I will even go as far as having no audio input, and face my thoughts — a more dramatic choice I leave for days when feeling particularly robust.
Once I get home from the exercise, I shower, eat a snack, then pour myself a glass of wine. This is my favorite time of the evening — my online Mandarin class. The glass of wine serves two purposes — dulls the back pain that creeps in every day from spending too many hours on a PC, and it makes me feel more at ease socially.
I don't actually need it for my Mandarin classes anymore, as I have done them for about 2 or 3 months at this point, but when I started them I experienced acute anxiety trying to speak in my nascent second language. These classes have been an excellent coping strategy during the quarantine period. I get a sense of daily progress and productivity, but in an area unrelated to my profession or finances, which I think is healthy and humane.
Plus, I get some guaranteed social interaction every day. And there is something about a casual language class that is really wholesome and useful, especially for someone like me with a tendency to ruminate on unhealthy or negative topics and thoughts.
In a second language which you are only intermediate in, you simply have no choice but to have simple, pleasant, often humorous conversations. I am not prescribing this as a method for others, just observing that this has been something useful in my life.
Although I now feel fine emotionally, when I started these classes I was in a period of deep depression — when I chatted with friends, the topic would invariably go back to my mood and dark thoughts. With a language teacher, this simply wasn’t an option — negative and dark thoughts were either linguistically beyond me, or socially inappropriate given the context. I credit this daily communication as a valuable part of me getting out of that rutt.
Re: the wine — although it is just one glass of wine, I do think my daily reliance on it is a problem, but I have learnt that adjusting too many habits at once is difficult, and this one isn't a priority at the moment. This habit exists as an item in my habit adjustment backlog (which exists in an app called Notion) which will be addressed one day. Yes, I am project managing my life. Fully institutionalized...
After my language class is finished, I usually play around on my phone, try to spend an hour or so messaging or phoning some friends. Since I deleted social media earlier this year, I have found that I am more proactive about chasing down genuine social interactions, whereas in the past I might mindlessly scroll news feeds. I don't sleep until about midnight, which if I was commuting to work somewhere might be a problem, but since I am working approximately 5m from my bed, it simply isn't an issue. Thanks COVID!
This story has been copyedited.
As someone who works remotely in tech, I find Xavier’s story completely relatable in that our days consist of coffee-drinking, saying hello to teammates over Slack, slogging through work in our homemade office environment, taking a self-development-flavoured lunch break, dealing with back and neck pains (operational safety!!!), then unwinding for the night with even more self-development. Occasionally, I’ll have a dopamine detox via ‘low-tech’ evenings.
As a polyglot (I believe all my lunch box friends are multilingual too!), I definitely picked up on the nuance of using your less-fluent language as a form of self-care. For instance, there are topics I will never discuss with my grandmother over Cantonese. I’ve found myself countless times saying something is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in my less-fluent languages because I couldn’t find the words to say something brings me joy, discomfort, or anguish. I’ve painfully watched myself fall flat into a reductive conversation because I didn’t have the vocabulary to deepen a connection with someone else. It’s almost like I reduce myself back to a binary state, something is either a positive or negative occurence.
That being said, I’m exploring ways to incorporate more languages back into my life. I’ve spent some time watching YouTube videos in Mandarin, thumbing through Japanese cookbooks (and then cheating with Google Translate); I might even seek out for a language exchange partner! If you find yourself in the same predicament and you also speak Mandarin, I recommend Frankie Huang’s musings on Mandarin words and their English translations.
As for lockdown life in Bali, it’s same same, but different here. Establishments in Bali are now re-opened for local tourism; hoards of Javanese tourists have since flooded the island, particularly during the Ramadhan holiday few weeks ago. I’ve had a good sliver of silence since March, but I guess that’s now over.
I’ve also resolved to the fact that I’ll not be leaving this island for the rest of the year. Thinking back on the year before, I’ve come to realise how unsustainable my life on this island is; or rather, how much my happiness relied on external sources even though I live here.
I depended on imported goods (like peach-flavoured toothpaste and the latest electronic gadgets) to maintain my quality of life. I’ve been here since March, so naturally I ran out of peach-flavoured toothpaste and my iPhone¹ is dying a slow, feverish death. Now that my small joys have been robbed away, I’m thinking of localised alternatives to joy. The truth is, it hasn’t been difficult at all. What I’ve lost from the freedom of travel, I’ve gained in food diversity from the newly localised grocery offerings; what I’ve lost from the freedom to shop, I’ve gained in cultivating a modest attitude when it comes to the hedonic treadmill.
The loved ones around me are also positively reinforcing my newfound humility towards nature and towards how much I think I need. If anything, I’m shedding away the last bits of my poor mindset by developing a better relationship with my material goods, and thinking twice when I need to replace something. As we march on for the rest of this locked down year, I hope you’ve gained some insight about yourself too.
Until our next edition together, take care and let me know what you’ve learned from your stay at home moments!
¹ Sure, they sell iPhones in Indonesia but I’ve found prices here to be 100-200USD more expensive than elsewhere. I refuse to upgrade my feverish phone!
What’s In The Lunch Box
Matcha anpan buns from scratch! Including anko! I obviously find this therapeutic! They are surprisingly moist due to the addition of tofu. Weird ingredient in a bun, but it works 🤷♀️
Thank you so much for reading my lunch box. I spend a few hours weekly practising my writing, and lunch box has been a huge indication of progress for me. If you would like to help me move the progress needle, let me know if my writing has resonated with you by clicking on the little heart ♥️ at the bottom!