On the 9th day of Christmas

The holidays are here. And the time is right to start shopping for Christmas gifts for your friends, family, loved ones, and acquaintances. It goes without saying that this Christmas is going to be a lot different. Hell, even Thanksgiving this year seemed to lose some of its intrinsic holiday value. However, I am firm believer in Christmas and the holidays. It's a happy time, so be happy! Some people have it rough this time of year so remember to be extra kind to everybody you come across. You must never underestimate the power you have in your word with others.  

Work has been slow. Hours have been cut across the board but my hours have been consistent. It's like a ghost town over there at night now. Nights used to be as busy at the day time shifts but now that quarantine and curfew is in effect, there's hardly anybody that comes by at night now. The work has become a lot easier simply because there's nothing to do, because there's no customers to help. This is why management cut hours.

I've been in deep quarantine mode. I play guitar, I play piano, I practice languages, I work, I play pc games, I write, and I read books. It's almost like [gasp!] being an artist/content creator is a full time vocation! [It really is.]  

I've been listening to a lot of the Italian Mozart operas; Cosi Fan Tutte, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro. I was inspired by this book called Music in the Classical Period, of which I wrote a blog about, which you can read here.

I've been livestreaming my jazz jam sessions with my friend Jason Tomas, a terrific alto saxophone player. Check out our last performance here.

Although it's super difficult to meet new people during covid I've been talking to a lot of new people online, and I've met a very nice girl that I play Heroes of the Storm with. She's a web developer Cali girl, and she also knows Spanish and German. 

I've been teaching myself Spanish and bits of Italian, French, and German through the Google Translate app [to learn the spellings of the words] and YouTube [for the pronunciations and accents]. So far I've been learning for a month and it's unbelievable how much I've learned in such a short amount of time. It's almost like I've become a mini-polyglot already, but of course, to go from beginner to intermediate in Spanish is a lot harder than it seems so I'll stay humble and respect all cultures across the globe. 

Lastly, there's an overreliance on technology especially now in quarantine. I wrote my ideas on the subject. Check out this post entitled Luddites and Technocrats here.

The quarantine makes life simplistic because there's not much to do. Well, that doesn't mean you should sit down and watch Netflix/Hulu all night, or play video games every day of your life, or watch the news 24/7, or watch YouTube all day long, or movies all the time. Too much reliance of these things is bad, and the virtuous man/woman is a moderate man/woman. Remember to rely on the beauty of nature at least a little bit everyday. My closing statement is something similar, realize that the beauty of women is infinite. 

La vie est belle. Pace e benedizioni. Schöne Ferien. Feliz Navidad.