It’s been more than a week since my last update. In that time Minnesota has seen the total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 shoot up to 441. (Incidentally, I learned on a podcast that COVID-19 stands for COronaVIrus Disease number 19, which means we’ve already seen at least 18 other coronaviruses and their subsequent illnesses come and go.) Minnesota has also experienced our first deaths, with a current total of 5, as of last night. During one of his updates this week, Gov. Tim Walz, who went into self-quarantine himself after contact with a staffer who had tested positive, made the optimistic claim that the social distancing efforts of Minnesotans has made a difference, and the virus is spreading more slowly here than it is in other areas. The catch to this was his follow-up statement — that we’re too far past the point of no return when it comes to flattening the curve, and we’re going to experience a peak. The best he is hoping for now is that we stretch that number out enough to keep from running out of available beds necessary to treat the critical cases. I mean, that’s the reality of where we are now, but how grim is that….
He made two other significant statements at that same press conference: 1) The state is now on a shelter-in-place lockdown for two weeks, and 2) schools statewide are closed through May 4th. I’d already been back at school and engaged in some of the most comically surreal tasks of my career at that point, so closing was no surprise. Only going as far as May 4th? That was unexpected. I don’t believe this means he expects things to all be resolved and back on a healing path by a date of his choosing — any kind of political leader to even flirt with an idea like that would have to be an absolute, glow-in-the-dark moron. I think he’s hoping that having us on distance learning for what amounts to the month of April will help slow the spread. Beyond that? All we can do these days is take what’s in front of us then see what happens, which is all I feel comfortable saying on the subject for now.
During this uniquely busy week when I didn’t post any updates, I was back at school working on some of the most unusual tasks I wouldn’t have dreamed possible even two months prior: Staff meetings held by video conference, bagging up the contents of student desks and lockers while wearing latex gloves, planning on having an entire week to wrap things up before distance learning started then finding out at the end of the second day teachers were being sent home for our own safety. That was the tipping point for me, when everything became real. When our principal announced that I had a painful chill surge through my body, then spent the following hour in a hazy panic.
So I’m decidedly locked down into self-isolation now. I’m comfortably supplied up and have more food in my house than I’ve probably ever had at one time before, which is to say I have what would amount to a normal amount of food for a responsible adult who doesn’t have thirty-four places within a mile of his house where he can buy a sandwich whenever he feels like it. It’s helped this weekend that the weather has been cold and windy and wet so there isn’t much reason to leave the house anyway.
Being an off-the-charts introvert, I don’t have much problem being by myself, but even I can reach an isolation breaking point; being introverted is not the same thing as being anti-social or misanthropic, after all. When I went back to school this past Friday to work my shift of returning bags of supplies to the families picking them up, I was very aware it would be the last day in a good long time I’d be seeing any people at all, much less many of the people important to me.
I suspect April will prove to feel like a very long month. I’m hoping to take advantage of all this time at home to clean and organize and do a hundred other things I’m great about procrastinating around, but I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of time killing recreation going on as well. The one thing I know for sure is that I’ll be throwing myself into this distance learning experiment. Keeping involved with my school work isn’t just going to be a responsibility, but one of the things I expect will keep me centered. In the end, it might be one of the few aspects of my life this month over which I’m going to have any control.
Sunday, March 29, 2020
Friday, March 20, 2020
Pandemic Narrative, Part 3
Since Sunday, the great state of Minnesota has gone from 35 to 115 confirmed cases. I emphasize confirmed because it’s impossible to say exactly how widespread the virus is right now, with minimal testing performed and available. I’m not blaming our government for this, or at least not our state government. Minnesota governor Tim Walz has proven his quality several times over since this crisis began.
I’m looking out my window at two of my neighbors, both seniors, at getting their mail. It’s obvious they know each other and have stopped to chat for a moment — thankfully from about 10 feet apart. What the hell with this natural world, making us behave this way just to keep from getting sick and possibly dying.
I told some colleagues before break started that I’d consider it a win if I made it all through our time off and only left the house five times or fewer. Not to walk the dog or get the mail, but actually hopped in the car and went somewhere. It feels like I brought this up in an earlier post already, but whatever. I started break getting myself plenty stocked up and still feel I’m ready to stay home and indoors for a good long while, but things are beginning to look like this is going to extend past a good long while and stretch into becoming a bad long while. Which probably means I’ve got at least one more grocery run at some point. Or would it be better to take advantage of all the take out or delivery choices from restaurants while that’s still a choice? I won’t be surprised if we eventually go into a statewide lockdown, but I think we still have time before we reach that benchmark. Is takeout worth the risk? Is it any less safe than going to a grocery store during off hours? Too many things to think about that really have never been a part of our lives before.
The biggest news has been the influx of email coming from the school district and my principal recently. Included in this has been the first indication we’ve been given of what we’ll be doing next week when we report back to work again. No kids, which is great, and all meetings and work keeping us as isolated as possible. I’ve been out for a week and haven’t gotten sick, so I’m hoping that means there isn’t any virus waiting for me in my classroom when I return, and since my room is at the end of a hallway and right by an exit, I should be able to minimize contact pretty effectively.
One of the worst things about this for me so far has been this holding pattern. When I get faced with some kind of a problem, I usually want it solved right away, and if I don’t know what I need to do to begin that process, it’s really frustrating. At least now I have some direction and will be able to keep my head productively occupied for the weekend.
In a way this week has been like a winter storm hitting, in the sense that you’re pretty much stuck at home because going anywhere, unless you really have to, isn’t an option. I’ve always enjoyed that to a degree, since I can keep to my introverted self and recharge in the quiet without feeling guilty about going out and doing something.
I have a feeling that before much longer, I’m going to feel differently about what we’re dealing with now.
I’m looking out my window at two of my neighbors, both seniors, at getting their mail. It’s obvious they know each other and have stopped to chat for a moment — thankfully from about 10 feet apart. What the hell with this natural world, making us behave this way just to keep from getting sick and possibly dying.
I told some colleagues before break started that I’d consider it a win if I made it all through our time off and only left the house five times or fewer. Not to walk the dog or get the mail, but actually hopped in the car and went somewhere. It feels like I brought this up in an earlier post already, but whatever. I started break getting myself plenty stocked up and still feel I’m ready to stay home and indoors for a good long while, but things are beginning to look like this is going to extend past a good long while and stretch into becoming a bad long while. Which probably means I’ve got at least one more grocery run at some point. Or would it be better to take advantage of all the take out or delivery choices from restaurants while that’s still a choice? I won’t be surprised if we eventually go into a statewide lockdown, but I think we still have time before we reach that benchmark. Is takeout worth the risk? Is it any less safe than going to a grocery store during off hours? Too many things to think about that really have never been a part of our lives before.
The biggest news has been the influx of email coming from the school district and my principal recently. Included in this has been the first indication we’ve been given of what we’ll be doing next week when we report back to work again. No kids, which is great, and all meetings and work keeping us as isolated as possible. I’ve been out for a week and haven’t gotten sick, so I’m hoping that means there isn’t any virus waiting for me in my classroom when I return, and since my room is at the end of a hallway and right by an exit, I should be able to minimize contact pretty effectively.
One of the worst things about this for me so far has been this holding pattern. When I get faced with some kind of a problem, I usually want it solved right away, and if I don’t know what I need to do to begin that process, it’s really frustrating. At least now I have some direction and will be able to keep my head productively occupied for the weekend.
In a way this week has been like a winter storm hitting, in the sense that you’re pretty much stuck at home because going anywhere, unless you really have to, isn’t an option. I’ve always enjoyed that to a degree, since I can keep to my introverted self and recharge in the quiet without feeling guilty about going out and doing something.
I have a feeling that before much longer, I’m going to feel differently about what we’re dealing with now.
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Pandemic Narrative, Part 2
Okay, first of all: We went from twenty-one to thirty-five cases overnight. I’ve seen too many pics and videos posted on social media showing how many people aren’t taking this seriously, and I want to scream at them for either being so ignorant, so irresponsible, or both. Those of you still out in the world acting like all of this is normal, or no big deal: What the hell exactly is wrong with you? Watch the news, any news, for five minutes, and then do the math. You are absolutely part of the problem. I've got two words for you: "Social" and "distancing."
If that rant didn’t make it clear enough, I’m definitely in the category of being cautious throughout this experience. It feels like right now I could prove to be overly-cautious, but we’ll see where we all are two weeks from today. I really don’t plan on leaving my house to go anywhere unless it’s necessary. I mean, yeah, I’ll walk the dog and get the mail, but hop in the car and drive somewhere? Not if I can avoid it. Most of the time I’m totally comfortable with this idea because I do have some extreme introvert superpowers, but I can see where it might be starting to get to me at a deeper level. Last night I dreamt I heard a knock at my front door, then saw the locks on the door begin glowing a bright blue, about the same shade as a natural gas flame. A woman was outside, someone I knew and under normal circumstances would have been perfectly happy to see and would invite inside (and in that way of dreams, I now have no idea who it was). I stood at the door not answering it though, and just watched as the locks glowed an increasingly brighter blue each time she knocked. Not hard to figure out what that all meant.
When it was time for the morning dog walk and we stepped out outside, the whole world felt empty, even for a Sunday morning. I reflexively felt cautious and defensive, like I was trying to make my way through the kind of post-apocalyptic landscape found in a movie, filled with hidden raiders or zombies or something. Even during our other shorter walks today, it’s still been eerie out there.
Later in the morning, the governor had a press conference announcing that schools statewide would be closed for eight school days, starting this coming Wednesday, which effectively extends spring break for my students by another week. It sounds like the plan is for these eight days to be used as planning for what almost certainly seems to be a time when distance learning will become a necessity. All I can say is thank God our governor was a teacher. It makes him all the more qualified to assemble and guide a team that will approach this problem from all the directions they can imagine: child nutrition, special needs, mental health concerns (and really, count yourself as blessed if you’re unaware of how frighteningly necessary that last point is). Of course there are enough viewpoints from all sides of the issue to make a decision like this a full-on Kobayashi Maru, but I’ll admit I was both relieved and inspired to learn how much thought had gone into the plan. For one point the governor directed the team toward — I believe it had to do with child care — he had said, if I can paraphrase, “find a way to address this problem that hasn’t been done before.”
I’m confident the team will do just that, because so many of them are educators. As much crap as we have to put up with about getting summers off (maybe not this year) and all the other usual teacher-bashing ignorance we have to endure, the defining points about teachers are that (a) we’re creative thinkers and (b) we get stuff done. I just hope that when the time comes for a distance learning plan to be implemented, and I believe it’s much more a when than an if, I’ll be able to manage my responsibilities from the comfort and relative safety of my home. It certainly won’t be my preferred option, especially since I have a class I really like this year and only one more trimester to work with them. However, I think when things come together however they will, we aren’t going to have another reasonable choice. We all have to work together at this.
If that rant didn’t make it clear enough, I’m definitely in the category of being cautious throughout this experience. It feels like right now I could prove to be overly-cautious, but we’ll see where we all are two weeks from today. I really don’t plan on leaving my house to go anywhere unless it’s necessary. I mean, yeah, I’ll walk the dog and get the mail, but hop in the car and drive somewhere? Not if I can avoid it. Most of the time I’m totally comfortable with this idea because I do have some extreme introvert superpowers, but I can see where it might be starting to get to me at a deeper level. Last night I dreamt I heard a knock at my front door, then saw the locks on the door begin glowing a bright blue, about the same shade as a natural gas flame. A woman was outside, someone I knew and under normal circumstances would have been perfectly happy to see and would invite inside (and in that way of dreams, I now have no idea who it was). I stood at the door not answering it though, and just watched as the locks glowed an increasingly brighter blue each time she knocked. Not hard to figure out what that all meant.
When it was time for the morning dog walk and we stepped out outside, the whole world felt empty, even for a Sunday morning. I reflexively felt cautious and defensive, like I was trying to make my way through the kind of post-apocalyptic landscape found in a movie, filled with hidden raiders or zombies or something. Even during our other shorter walks today, it’s still been eerie out there.
Later in the morning, the governor had a press conference announcing that schools statewide would be closed for eight school days, starting this coming Wednesday, which effectively extends spring break for my students by another week. It sounds like the plan is for these eight days to be used as planning for what almost certainly seems to be a time when distance learning will become a necessity. All I can say is thank God our governor was a teacher. It makes him all the more qualified to assemble and guide a team that will approach this problem from all the directions they can imagine: child nutrition, special needs, mental health concerns (and really, count yourself as blessed if you’re unaware of how frighteningly necessary that last point is). Of course there are enough viewpoints from all sides of the issue to make a decision like this a full-on Kobayashi Maru, but I’ll admit I was both relieved and inspired to learn how much thought had gone into the plan. For one point the governor directed the team toward — I believe it had to do with child care — he had said, if I can paraphrase, “find a way to address this problem that hasn’t been done before.”
I’m confident the team will do just that, because so many of them are educators. As much crap as we have to put up with about getting summers off (maybe not this year) and all the other usual teacher-bashing ignorance we have to endure, the defining points about teachers are that (a) we’re creative thinkers and (b) we get stuff done. I just hope that when the time comes for a distance learning plan to be implemented, and I believe it’s much more a when than an if, I’ll be able to manage my responsibilities from the comfort and relative safety of my home. It certainly won’t be my preferred option, especially since I have a class I really like this year and only one more trimester to work with them. However, I think when things come together however they will, we aren’t going to have another reasonable choice. We all have to work together at this.
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