Saturday night. My Halloween costume this year is “a Russian-American-Canadian who stayed indoors for 232 days.” It’s very niche.

Another cozy weekend day of doing nothing. Treated myself to 50 grams of frozen smoked salmon I’d picked up during the recent grocery run. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the way it melts in my mouth. Absolutely scrumptious. (Free culinary tip: I don’t know how or why, but avocado and smoked salmon make for an amazing combination in a taco.)

I’m still hyped up on the news that my PR application is proceeding on schedule, with just about three months to go until I get it. Things will get quite a bit easier then…

In covid news, The UK has joined France and Germany with its own lockdown: it’ll last a whole month, and will begin on Thursday. It’ll be pretty strict and similar to the one in France: no haircuts or indoor dining, no going outside without a good reason, etc.

Belgium’s medical system appears to be on the verge of collapse. In at least one city, medical staff who got diagnosed with covid but aren’t symptomatic have been requested to keep working. About 25% of their staff have covid… That’s horrifiying. There is a finite number of medical professionals out there. I wonder if there’ll be some accelerated medical bootcamps to train average people to do the most basic and useful medical tasks. (Like the EMT school, only a lot more specialized.) It may come to that if things stay sufficiently bad sufficiently long. Earlier this year, some countries allowed medical students to skip their final exams and go straight to work. They may end up doing that and more as the dark winter continues.

As always, here is hoping I’m wrong about it. Happy Halloween, y’all…