nicolette kaponis

You know what would be fun? Living in a cool terrace house in Tokyo complete with pool, games room, modern kitchen, and two cars in the garage (one being a mustang, naturally). You know what would be more fun? Living with six Japanese people who use their time to work hard, achieve their goals, make new friends and awkwardly fall in love.
You know what’s not so fun? Living in a house in Melbourne with your husband of six months… and your parents. You know what’s less fun? Not being able to get out of the house (that doesn’t have a pool or a mustang) except to visit the supermarket or to exercise, namely going for a walk, which should increase morale but ends up making you feel worse since walking around the block just highlights the complete lack of freedom we have right now. (Not that I’m complaining because staying home + washing hands = saving lives blah blah blah yes, yes we get it but my god does anyone feel like they’re hovering outside their bodies, looking at the state of the…

So how many new skills have you mastered during this Covid-19? Are you fluent in Latin? French? Turkish? Is your personal brand lighting up Twitter/Instagram/Facebook as you sell the wellness candles you cooked up in the kitchen after you created an online festival but before finishing a new dress made from scraps around the house you can wear when you next meet a friend for ‘exercise’ with a keep cup full of ‘coffee’?

Thought so.
But guess what. It seems that if you haven’t managed to generally improve yourself, and a substantial number of people online, during this dire time of unprecedented crappness, then apparently you’re doing it wrong. (Bonus points if said improvement was expressed in a language other than that with which you were born).
Having missed this chance at enlightenment earlier in the Covid-19 mayhem, this week I decided to give it a go. To change up lockdown life for the better. I vowed that no longer would I spend my time lolling around in sweatpants and a twenty-yea…

Like the rest of the virus-ridden world, my life adventures have become very, very small and very, very specific. Who knew there would be a time when we would simultaneously carry smartphones in our pockets that allowed us access to the world and to perform actions that seemed impossible only a few short decades ago, AND count down the minutes until it was time to visit the mail box. Yes, the humble mail box. (Junk mail now arrives into our home to delirious applause and whoops of joy.)
Gone are those heady London days of riding on the top deck of a double-decker bus, or spending the day at Ascot or popping over to Bath. Gone is London completely. I made it back into Australia before the doors closed and still feel ambivalent about my relocation home. But then I look at the news and compare virus figures between the UK and Australia and have to admit that being here rather than there gives a sense of extreme comfort.
To distract myself from the apocalypse, I have eschewed the 1000-piec…