So I've been away for about a month. The main reason is the frequent blackouts where I live (Tripoli, Libya) which aren't new, but they were so bad this summer compared to the last few years. I spent some days last month with only less than 5 hours of electricity. This made me so bored/tired from everything and no will to do anything productive.
To be fair, I could've wrote articles using my mobile phone. The charge is enough for me to write one or two articles of the usual length. The blackouts don't span more than one day at the time, so I don't have an excuse to not write anything. But the existence of blackouts left me too drained to even do that.
I have to add here that blackouts happen so frequently, that most households where I live adapted appropriately. Some got electricity generators, some adapted so they don't rely on electricity anymore. In my household case, we have a small generator to power light sources and charge mobile devices. Since the whole house shares it, I try not to depend on it so much but it's still a life-saver.
By the time the severity of blackouts have subdued, (we still get at least 12 hours of blackout per day since last week, but it's better than before.) I was too used on the mindset of "not" writing stuff and it was hard to break from it.
So I was planning on returning for a while now. I just didn't have a comeback article idea that made me say "That's It!" I kept procrastinating because of that.
Finally, I decided to write this article. Answering questions such as "Why I was away?" and "What I'm gonna do from now on?" Not the most creative thing to write, but it will give context for those worried about my absence.
Oh, I watched a lot of Anime and read Manga in that period. Aside from Youtube, you can say it's the only thing I did when I had power and phone charge. Maybe I'll write about my recent favorites like Spy x Family sometime~
So what now?
Since electricity comes and goes at random times, my gaming time is limited. Most games require sessions of at least half an hour, and I don't want to lose my unsaved progress. I can't play on PS4 until the blackouts situation stabilizes a bit more. I can technically play on my Laptop, but its battery is broken and doesn't last long without charging...
What I mean is that, even though I want to continue writing about gaming, I won't have time to seriously play games to write any full fledged Review. (These days I spend more time downloading/watching Let's Plays than actual playing.)
My #ScreenshotSaturday series probably won't return for a while. Same for my #ArcanaInPersona series of articles. Despite wanting to finish them before the end of the year, I feel more comfortable writing them with Google and Wikia tabs opened. ATLUS is doing great things for that franchise, and I at least want to finish Persona stuff before the release of Persona 5 Scramble.
But I have few articles planned, despite that I can't confirm if I would start writing them soon or not. I hope to have at least five articles by the end of month.
My Situation with COVID-19 Another thing I rarely mention here is COVID-19, the virus that destroyed our world economy as we know it. One of my relatives caught it recently. (Probably. She was vague about it.) Everyone I know is avoiding meeting each other in case they caught the disease from her. (Which is something that they should've done in the first place even if no one is infected.)
I don't interact with people too often so I'm not really worried, but I only started to see panic in people close to me after this happened.
There are approximately 5000 COVID-19 victims in Libya. The count is small compared to other countries but it's still alarming since the new cases double every 3 days, not to mention that the disease seemed so "distant" only a month ago.
Anyway, I hope this article gave you an idea about my current state. Blackouts and COVID-19 and stress makes it hard to write good stuff... I'm currently thinking about what to write next. But I'll keep my ideas secret for now.
That's tough. I consider myself fortunate to live somewhere we can rely on having power all the time. I hope things improve for you, but stay well and enjoy what you can.
Thanks for your kind words.
Our blackouts are only like this in Summer, it's not as bad in Winter and we only get few hours of blackouts per week in Spring/Autumn (which would be heaven compared to now.) This Summer was worse than the one before though, which contributed to my lack of motivation.
No one agrees about why this happens though, it seems the political issues of the country plays a role in it, but I avoid politics like a plague.
Hi I see you applied for NFT Showroom, I am looking through your links you supplied and I am unsure which artwork is yours since you do a lot of reviews and other type content as well. If you could update your profile with a google drive or other type of link showing only your art that would be very helpful. Or DM me on discord if possible I use the same name, thanks :)
Okay, will contact on Discord you on one of the next few days.