My intern's final week at our workplace and during a pandemic

This week is my intern's final week at my workplace. It's odd that I cannot wish him a proper farewell during a pandemic.

I normally get a small gift as a token of my appreciation for all the hard work that each intern brings. This intern, in particular, has been outstanding. We share a love for food and get along well.

As a team, we send each intern off with a farewell lunch. I have told him that we'll have a deferred one for him once we are able to socialize again.

Last night, I sent him an e-gift card. It seems informal, but I wrote a personalized message. It's better than doing absolutely nothing.

Luckily, we get to talk tomorrow. We have exchanged cell phone numbers, so we'll keep in touch.

I'm not sure how my team will manage without him. He has played such an important part of our team that the void will be difficult to fill, especially when we can't backfill his role.

What to write about? Missing my guy and admiring betta fish

When I did the A to Z blog challenge, I didn't have any issue writing about anything. Topics were there, ideas came to me quickly, and I just wrote away.

Now that the challenge is over, I find that I can't think of anything to write. At least, that's how I feel.

Perhaps it is also because I haven't been able to talk to my guy. He came back late on Wednesday night and was too tired to call me. Yesterday, he managed to say hi online, but he was dead tired.

I miss him even more when we don't talk while we are apart.

To counter this temporary void, I found an aquarium store on my way home from work. It is huge! I saw some cool betta fish. I nearly bought another one. One of them was purple.

It's unfortunate that you can only have one betta fish in a tank. Introduce another one in the same tank and they will stress each other out, and one possibly might die after they are done fighting each other.

They are nice to look at. I probably stood in front of the betta fish section for ten minutes, admiring how gracefully they were swimming by themselves.

I also can't believe how many betta toys are out there. I browsed. I am sure that I will be back to spoil my fish with a leaf hammock or log.

I can still hear my guy tell me that I am taking my pet fish too seriously. I care about my fish. My guy is genuinely happy that I have a pet fish. My fish enjoys blowing bubbles on the surface and insisting on eating dried bloodworms.

I am glad that I have a pet again. It's nice to watch him swim and love his environment. It also fills the void of my guy not being with me a bit.