How to subvert isolation into peaceful solitude

Post date: 2020-08-03 11:57:13

I'm a resident physician. On my current rotation, I'm doing 24 hour shifts every three days. For reasons relating both to COVID and to the particular hospital I'm rotating at, if the shift happens to land on a weekend, I've got 16ish hours of mostly nothing where I'm by myself in a windowless work room or a windowless call room. Help me brainstorm ways to make this pleasant solitude instead of mind numbing isolation.

Difficulty: there's no wifi, and so little cell service that websites any more complicated than metafilter won't load on my phone, and phone calls are a nonstarter. The work computers block streaming services, and my seating options are old and not very comfortable desk chairs in the work room, and an old and not very comfortable twin bed in the call room.

I can't change out of my work clothes because I might be paged at any time.

I've got an iPhone, wireless earbuds, and a Kindle.

Help me come up with a game plan so I never have another day like this one, where my total plan for coping is listening to podcasts and watching a Netflix show that I pre-downloaded, and a little online chatting with friends.

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