How do you put together an outfit that also entails the bottom half of the body? How do you spend an entire day out of your own home? How do we go back to school post-pandemic?

I know, even while I am complaining, that I will be missing not having to think about how to put together an outfit and not being able to spend all day in my Korean turquoise slippers with rainbow-colored straps – the perfect mix of comfort and memories. It is actually scary how most days fly by without me leaving my apartment. I see the sunlight through the windows changing and then the day is almost over.

I rush from school to work, back to studying and then possibly to a webinar in the late afternoon. For weeks, my computer has been telling me that my screen time is 24 hours a day, which either means that something is wrong with my computer or something might be wrong with me.

I deliberately choose not to think too much about that one and see the opening of Denmark as the remedy that will save me from my screen time. I have a limit of 45 minutes a day on Instagram, but I don’t see how I would be able to put a limit like that on my computer use since that is where I work and do schoolwork.

Without it, I would not be able to get anything done but at the same time my recent screen time is kind of scary. My hypothesis is that it might be all my Apple products combined but even then, it is still scary.

The thing I miss most is definitely being with people throughout the day who are doing the same thing as me, that being school or work.

Having those small conversations in between that you don’t just call someone on Teams to have. I also now realize the true importance of those small commute breaks that I would usually have between my activities throughout the day. They have been cut away in order to maximize my time, which in the beginning seemed like a great idea and one of the biggest blessings coming from corona.

However, as a year with corona has passed by, and especially after I came back from my exchange, I have realized that it really is not a blessing at all. My brain, even though I hate to admit it, often needs those breaks on my bike to get some fresh air while going from one place to another.

This is, other than seeing my amazing friends and colleagues again, one of the everyday things I am strangely looking forward to.

With the new implementation of the coronapas, we will all have to ease into going back to the office and school because, at least I am not always able to have a valid coronapas at hand. I also think that this easing-in period is much nicer than going back full time right away.

In the beginning, I think we will all be mentally exhausted but as time goes by, I look forward to getting my home back as just my home and not my lecture hall, office space and gym.

I miss being present in a physical space with people and everything that comes with it, but this new 50/50 stage has once again allowed me to enjoy the small perks of working from home. A feeling I have not had since April last year.

In the future, I think that both lectures and some work will still take place online because it has shown a lot of positive sides. However, we should not underestimate the power of humanocracy over bureaucracy. We need people to spend time with people in order to think big and beyond.

Online tools have so many great features but in my opinion, even though it might not be the most time-efficient, we need to prioritize being together physically. Let’s all hope that the world will soon go back to a stage where we can start living the new normal.

PS: I would like to propose to Google maps that in the future, it should not only include traffic when calculating the estimated time for the journey but also include the time it takes to get a quick test on the way.