91DIVOC tales #1

91DIVOC?? What better title can you expect from someone in lockdown in France in the March of 2020?!!

I don't know how long this lockdown is supposed to last, I thought I better have some fun out of it and make my life less miserable :D

I live in Fontainebleau in France. It's a small town and well, no one outside France is aware of its existence. Sometimes, not even the neighbouring Parisians!! Its fun to hear some of my friends say 'the town is dead silent after the lockdown'... I laugh to myself - when has it been other-way? 

This beautiful town is kind of a retirement paradise for few old European affluent, most of who are French. It's an irony that INSEAD is based here - we are young, poor students looking for jobs! Sooo not ready for retirement yet... We have huge loans to clear you know ;) 

Anyways, back to COVID19, so since the lockdown started, Karthik and I are stuck in a small apartment with little outdoor activity. We barely cook at home. I even made plans to hire a full-time cook in the future. But now, not a single day passed without us turning the stove on.  I kinda enjoy it though, it is my way of de-stressing and zoning out for a bit. Besides cooking, now that we are recruiting, we spend time writing cover letters and praising these firms. More than writing the letters, I spend time making sure I am sending the 'right' letters to the 'right' parties :D 

Last fun thing that happened today was our online MBA classes. It did not go that bad. I was surprisingly more engaged than I am usually in a regular setting. The class was truly lot more productive as each of us did what we like to do - some listening, some texting on the chat box, some sleeping and pretending to be attentive (note, with the online feature allowing us to hide our videos, this option just got so much cooler). I fall into the later category, I have low attention span and need to take a break every 10mins to be engaged. So I watch videos related to the class content, search online - all of it with so much freedom and without guilt. Online classes are really so so cool. I am sure this 'zoom' trend is not going away after COVID19 vanishes. Furthermore, I am confident we are entering the hologram age where our digital selves are teleported to places across the ocean in seconds.