User blog:RenaissnceMan/K. Malcolm Lawson spends a Week in Isolation - Downtime Activities for the Week of 3/14/20 - 3/21/20

Malcolm does not adapt easily to isolation, but with Law School running online - only classes, the firm he is interning at the legal clinics he volunteered at closed by the order of the Governor, and just about everything else in the city shuttered, he has little choice.

Sensibly cautious about the restrictions placed on people being for good reason, Malcolm does not venture out more than absolutely necessary, such as to go to the Red King's Revenge to meet with Nicholas and Michael, and aside from hosting Shiloh Young on several occasions during the week and the rest of his Hermetic friends on Saturday night, he sees no other visitors.

Kenneth Malcolm Lawson is nothing, though, if not a self - starter. Just because everything is shuttered doesn't mean there is nothing to be done. Accustomed to waking bright and early in the morning naturally, he begins his day with meditation, light calisthetics, running through his Tae Kwon Do forms, and a shower. A simple breakfast of eggs, ham or canadian bacon, toast, and hot tea follows, which he normally finishes about 8 or 9, after which it's straight to the work of the day, hitting the law books and watching recorded lectures by the professors until at least noon, sometimes later, stopping only when he gets hungry for lunch, which is usually a simple sandwich and some fruit and maybe chips on the side. During lunch and for a short break thereafter, Malcolm listens to Rosetta Stone lessons on the languages he is working on - presently, Spanish and German. After that, if any legal work remains to be done, he will conclude it before moving on to studying his notes and revising his outlines to assimilate the information he picked up over the morning's work.

Malcolm is usually completely finished with his legal studies for the day by 3 or 4, after which he will call up one of the legal hotlines he volunteers for and see if they need him to take a few calls. Such work counts as pro bono hours, but Malcolm has racked up over six times what Columbia requires of him in terms of pro bono work - this he does because it is the right thing to do, and working with the immigration defense charities gives him the chance to practice both his legal reasoning and his Spanish language comprehension. After the last call concludes (usually around 6 PM), Malcolm fixes himself something for dinner, usually something relatively simple but flavorful - he has been cooking for himself for nearly five years now and has gotten quite good at cutting down portion sizes in recipes made for two or four people. (Malcolm was never a big fan of shopping, even before this crisis, and his pantry has at least a month's worth of staples in it for a single person. He shopped at most once a week for perishables and restocking whatever he used the week prior.) Shortly after dinner, he will call his family to check up on them. None of them are at particularly great risk for getting the Coronavirus, and with schools and colleges statewide shut down, both his parents and all his siblings are home in Jamestown. They worry about him, but Malcolm reassures them he is sheltering in place as the Governor ordered.

Concluding all that round 7:30 or 8, Malcolm will do a bit of light reading for fun to clear his head before launching into his Occult Studies, which take up the rest of the evening.

A fresh round of tea to open the senses and Malcolm hits the books, working over the next field of study he is trying to master. Malcolm is well versed in the Nine Spheres theory, and on some level wants to at least build a foundation in all Nine if he can. Having learned the basics in six of them, he is working on the other three, skipping over the Ars Materia for now as it makes his head hurt and wanting to leave the Ars Temporis for last, Malcolm is presently working on the basics of the Ars Spirituum, starting with memorizing the spells to perceive and communicate with Spirits, though he is also teaching himself the necessary warding circles for protection against hostile Umbrood. Those warnings were placed in the books for a reason, after all. At no point will he attempt to work the magic outside of the Red King's Revenge, though - at the moment, he's trying to build he theoretical framework and practice the forms of the spells, not completely enacting them. Experimentation in actually casting the spells normally takes place at the Red King's Revenge when he feels he is ready to work the magic, and then under Nicholas's careful supervision. Especially with Ars Spirituum, Malcolm doesn't want to screw it up without someone else present to contain the fallout. He never works unproven magic at his own apartment if he can possibly avoid it.

For all that he can quite contentedly read for days on end, by the end of the week, Malcolm is definitely beginning to resent his solitary confinement, and is especially grateful for the company of Shiloh and his fellow Hermetics. It is a rough time to be an Extrovert, after all.