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Early Update
Oct. 2nd, 2021 07:19 pmEarly Sunday post because I know I’m going to be completely stressed tomorrow. This afternoon, I was told that a student in our cohort has tested positive for covid, which means we will go to distance learning for the next week. I’m worried about A) my student, of course. CHILDREN ARE GETTING COVID, PEOPLE! I don’t know why I’m shouting at you, dear readers. You know this. Anyway, I’m also worried because B) I’ve been super ill. I know it’s a cold. I know the progression and symptoms well, and I’m actually progressing pretty quickly through them, so it’s actually a bit of a relief to get to be home and not worry about sub plans. C) I’m worried about one of my kiddos, who got covid at the beginning of the school year and just last week was finally well enough to join us in person. Only for ~this~ to happen. D) our distance learning plan stipulates that we have 30 minutes of direct teaching per block, but my students are working on essays in four of my five classes, so it seems disingenuous to come up with anything new, and yet, I don’t want to get into trouble.
I mean, it is what it is. That’s a terrible phrase, but it’s also not wrong. I can’t do anything to change the situation. I’m extremely grateful that our school takes such strict precautions to minimize community spread where it can. Like everyone else on the planet, I’m so fucking tired of this pandemic, and I want to just hit everyone who refuses to get vaccinated or who keeps vaccines from people who want them. And then there are all the other horrors of the world that I can’t do anything but fret about. And I don’t like how distance learning erodes the boundaries between my home and work life that I’ve been working so hard on over the last five or six years.
I put in my transfer requests, and this week, I found out that one of my good friends is leaving his post at one of our schools in China to take a few years off teaching. We teach the same subjects, and he said that the school is looking for someone with experience living in China, but the thing is, I do not want to go back. Not now. It’s been awful, living in a country that I can’t really leave, and it’s been made only moderately more bearable because I didn’t have to quarantine on either end of my summer journey. Right now, quarantines in China are 21 days in a hotel room. You have no choice where you go. You cannot leave the room to get fresh air. I would not survive three weeks in a hotel room. But there’s a part of me that still thinks I should try for it. Some part that is afraid do let any possibility go by because what if that’s the last choice you ever get?
I know — I know — that moving back to China right now would be absolutely the wrong choice for me, so I’ll stand firm. But the anxiety is still there.
On a slightly more hopeful note, I am eking out a few words here and there. I came across the Fictober prompts list on Tumblr, and I’m trying to incorporate them into a longer story. I’m afraid it’s going to be terrible, and I’m even more afraid it’s going to be mediocre. But I’m trying.
Oh! And I’m up to 214 days on my GYWO goal. Only 26 more to meet my goal!
I mean, it is what it is. That’s a terrible phrase, but it’s also not wrong. I can’t do anything to change the situation. I’m extremely grateful that our school takes such strict precautions to minimize community spread where it can. Like everyone else on the planet, I’m so fucking tired of this pandemic, and I want to just hit everyone who refuses to get vaccinated or who keeps vaccines from people who want them. And then there are all the other horrors of the world that I can’t do anything but fret about. And I don’t like how distance learning erodes the boundaries between my home and work life that I’ve been working so hard on over the last five or six years.
I put in my transfer requests, and this week, I found out that one of my good friends is leaving his post at one of our schools in China to take a few years off teaching. We teach the same subjects, and he said that the school is looking for someone with experience living in China, but the thing is, I do not want to go back. Not now. It’s been awful, living in a country that I can’t really leave, and it’s been made only moderately more bearable because I didn’t have to quarantine on either end of my summer journey. Right now, quarantines in China are 21 days in a hotel room. You have no choice where you go. You cannot leave the room to get fresh air. I would not survive three weeks in a hotel room. But there’s a part of me that still thinks I should try for it. Some part that is afraid do let any possibility go by because what if that’s the last choice you ever get?
I know — I know — that moving back to China right now would be absolutely the wrong choice for me, so I’ll stand firm. But the anxiety is still there.
On a slightly more hopeful note, I am eking out a few words here and there. I came across the Fictober prompts list on Tumblr, and I’m trying to incorporate them into a longer story. I’m afraid it’s going to be terrible, and I’m even more afraid it’s going to be mediocre. But I’m trying.
Oh! And I’m up to 214 days on my GYWO goal. Only 26 more to meet my goal!
