Granted, being home more now does have it's drawbacks too. My cockatiel has definitely been spoiled over the years, so unless he is standing on his favorite perch (my shoulder), he gets very "whiny," which has been driving me completely bonkers this week. I guess I'm just not used to him being as vocal as he has been because I normally leave my apartment for work very shortly after he sees me in the morning. Now that I'm not rushing out the door, he's very clingy, which makes it very hard to do any work around the apartment. Once I get my new laptop, it won't matter because I'll be able to work wherever I want: a coffeeshop, my apartment complex's club house... etc. Unfortunately, it won't be arriving for another month, so I'll be tethered to my desktop, with him sitting on my shoulder, a little while longer.
On a good note, I also got back into the swing of things (literally) with my exercise routine this week. Now that I don't have a full-time job that worked me to death anymore, I had no excuse not to work out. I could choose whatever time-slot I wanted, and have been aiming for the 9 a.m. or 4 p.m. slots, when I figure there will be less people at classes. (Granted, this week was the first week of the new session, so classes were pretty packed with people trying to meet their New Year resolutions. I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks when the numbers will start thinning out...) I love being able to hit the kickboxing bag again and meeting up with classmates that I haven't seen for a while. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to where I was before my hiatus from the past couple of months. It's been a wonderful release, although I do find that I have to get to classes super-early to stake out a spot at the front of the classroom so I can minimize any triggers around me.
On a different note... Earlier this week, I also corresponded with the founder of the UK Misophonia Foundation, who leads the Misophonia MeetUp group in London too. I figure I'll try to meet up with him while I'm in London for the misophonia fMRI study so I can learn more about how their support group works as well as finding out more about the UK MIsophonia Foundation. If all goes well, I'd eventually like to start a local misophonia support group, since I often read posts by people on discussion groups searching for a local support group in the US. Of course, I won't jump into such a major undertaking blindly. I want to find out what challenges are involved in such meetings and what works, what doesn't. In general though, it'll be good to expand my network of misophonia-informed people.