October 2020 Pandemic Update

This was written in late September and early October.  My feelings have changed, and I will publish the next post tomorrow.  I decided to publish this one as written.

I cannot say how many times I have thought or said "I don't know" at school recently.  For instance, I had a student present a scenario to me and ask if that would prevent her from completing additional problems on the digital platform.  I thought about it for a few seconds and answered, "I don't know."  I didn't have an answer.

Someone wrote up a summary of a recent board meeting.  Before getting into detail, they gave the gist of the lengthy summary.  The short statement ended with "nobody knows what is going to happen."  That's how we go through each day at work.  We have no idea where any of this is going to take us.  We just don't know anything.

We have been in school nearly two months, and it feels like half a school year.  It also feels like we have accomplished nothing.  2020 feels like it has lasted for several years, and it just keeps going on and on.  I feel like we have slipped into an alternate time line.  

I am stressed but in a way where I am getting by.  It's hard to explain.  I have good coping skills.  My district is worried about all of us, and some teachers are imploding under the stress.  Nobody is behaving as they normally would.

We took a survey to assess how well we are coping.  I answer these kinds of surveys very fast with my initial reaction as to whether I strongly agree, somewhat agree, or disagree with each statement.

I scored well in the survey because I can detach myself from work-related thoughts when I am at home.  I just don't let it bother me.  I also stay away from my school email most of the time I am at home.  Some people cannot detach from it, and they suffer a higher amount of stress.

The entire experience is a bit overwhelming, but it has improved since the start of school.  The initial struggle was trying to set everything up from scratch during the early days of the school year.  The struggle now is in trying to get all of the students to connect and do what they should.  A certain percentage have shut down emotionally and are not doing any work.  

I do understand why some students have shut down.  I have shut down, to some extent.  I have partially let go of this blog.  I am not writing any reviews at all.  I cannot read anything that I would normally read.  I don't enjoy food like I normally would.  I'm not sure how much of that is due to the situation and how much is due to my recurring medication side effect that results in a partial loss of taste.

Don't get the wrong impression:  I'm okay.  I'm just not myself, and I doubt that most people are.  The situation will improve.  I feel that we have five more months before we get past the worst of this.  We will get there.  We just have to hang on.

I don't feel good that we are on the cusp of the dreaded winter wave of Covid-19.  However, I do feel better than I did back in March when I thought of the upcoming winter wave and panicked.  In March, I pushed that aside and didn't dwell on it.  That time is moving ever closer, but we are going to get through this.

I lined up all of my appointments at fall break or thereabouts so that I wouldn't have to miss school.  Also, I want my appointments done before we get into the winter wave of Covid-19.  I knew that I wouldn't enjoy having all these appointments at fall break, but nothing else is going well.  Why not?

Fall break is this week.  I got one appointment done last week, and I have three during fall break.  One of them is an oil change.  In a way, I dread it the most, even more than the dental appointment, which is also quite concerning.  The people who work in the local car dealerships are anti-maskers.  I was the only person wearing a mask the last time I was there, which was in July.  I hope this time is a little better, but I don't have much hope.

I still don't expect that I will reopen either my eBay or Etsy stores until at least May 2021.  The only thing that could cause me to change my mind is if the virus miraculously disappears and our lives immediately go back to normal.  That isn't going to happen, so the stores will remain closed.  

The reason why is that I cannot go to the post office in the morning when I am working.  I refuse to go into any public building past 10:00 AM.  Several people suggested in comments to my previous posts that I could do carrier pickup.  There is no way I will do that.  My carrier is not reliable enough, and I also wouldn't want to leave the packages on my porch unattended for up to five hours until they get picked up.  That's why my stores will remain closed.  Either I will take my packages into the post office, or I will not sell books.  No other option is suitable at this time.

I am thankful that I work in a district that has taken the virus very seriously.  Many other districts, especially rural ones, took few precautions.  I am also thankful that we began the school year with blended learning, which is with half the students at school each day.  Several local districts started the year remote only.  I don't have insight into what happened in those districts, but I suspect that it did not go well.  Likely, many of the students in those districts have not done their work. Those districts are now switching to blended learning.

As a result, the teachers in those districts started with remote learning and now have to readjust to blended learning.  They had the incredible stress of figuring out how to do remote, and now they have to switch gears for blended learning.  I am thankful that we started with blended learning and continue to do blended learning.  I am also thankful each day that I continue not to catch the virus.