by It’s a sunny early April morning, though a little chilly for the time of year. It’s twelve days since I had the vaccine, so I’m over half-way from probably being protected from severe disease. I read that many in the UK (where vaccine take-up has been impressive) felt a sense of euphoria when they got the jab; it was the most exciting thing they’d done all year. I felt something similar: when I got out of the vaccination centre the sun was shining, spring was in the air, and a world of possibilities was maybe opening up again.
A week later, I had a similar experience. Last Wednesday morning, when I was completely free following a jam-packed work schedule the day before, I went to the immigration office armed with paperwork: the Article 50 form, an updated rental contract, confirmation of public health insurance, bank statements, and some other bits and pieces that I’ve forgotten. The guy who had previously been a bit of a twat was very nice and gave me the green light. He even complemented me on my Romanian. He said I’d need to wait five weeks for the wheels of bureaucracy in Bucharest to turn, after which I’ll receive a residency card of some sort. (I initially thought he said “three to five days”, not “thirty-five days”: my Romanian could still do with some improvement.) So that’s fantastic. But what to do I do next? Buy a place to live, what and where and when? My UK-based student said I should I buy a flat in a new apartment block, but those sterile hospitally new blocks (and the areas they’re located, and the kinds of people who live there) depress me, and the last thing I need is to live somewhere depressing, even if it’s a “good investment”.
The latest lockdown ended on Wednesday night, and that meant I could play tennis again. At the weekend I played twice. (One of the sessions I only managed because someone cancelled a lesson at the last minute.) My social life has been nonexistent seemingly forever, so it was good to get back out there, meeting people, exercising, speaking Romanian. It’s a lovely setting with (right now) white magnolias in bloom. Some of the other players follow all kinds of other sports, and one of them was giving live score updates from his phone. “It’s 25-17,” he said. Hmm, sounds like rugby. “Now it’s 25-18.” So it can’t be rugby. Turns out it was handball.
Last Monday a student and I talked about the pandemic and how it has thrown some of the problems of modern society into sharp relief. One of them is the tendency for everything to get bigger while at the same time less meaningful. Destination weddings that last five days, World Cups in bloody Qatar, kids’ sixth birthday parties where their whole class is invited, ever-expanding malls where you can blow big money on big crap. That morning I’d been to a supermarket so big that I couldn’t find a damn thing. Where are the sodding light bulbs in this place? My student even mentioned that apples have increased in size, and yes, the ones you buy in supermarkets are twice the size of those that grew on our trees when I was a kid, and have about 10% of the taste. One nice thing about my life and work in Romania has been escaping big; no more millions or billions or talk of market share.
Don’t get me wrong, big isn’t always bad. Big gives you economies of scale and more options. That’s why I play poker on PokerStars. They’re the biggest, so they offer games that their competitors don’t. Unfortunately I can’t play very often, so at 4:40 on Sunday morning I decided to do something dumb. I lay awake in bed. Hey, isn’t there a poker tournament starting about now? So I got up and played it. Two hours later, having built up a healthy stack at one stage, I was out in 17th place with the top 11 getting paid. Ugh. I slept for another two hours and got up at nine just in time for two more fruitless tournaments. I felt washed out for the rest of the day. I must stop doing that. I’m going through a bit of a barren patch; my bankroll is $456. This month there’s SCOOP, a big tournament series that normally takes place in May, but this year they’ve moved it forward a month to catch more people staying at home before the Covid situation improves. My only previous SCOOP tournament was eleven years ago and it went quite well, so on that basis I definitely want to give this year’s SCOOP a whirl.
I’m about to give my cousin in Wellington a call. Her eldest son has just started university in Canterbury (amazing how time flies) and he’s already found himself a girlfriend. Must be nice. For me, there’s no doubt about it, that first year was tough.
