Monday 31 August 2020

Summer 2020 and what’s next

Obviously I haven’t been blogging regularly but I feel like I should add something to my work and life in the middle of pandemic entries.

  • We finished the 2019-2020 school year distance teaching / learning. While a great many things about the whole situation were not ideal, for reasons that don’t take much imagination, I believe we made the best of it. Most salutary for me was the experience of taking on a leadership role through the process and observing how that affects me mentally and emotionally.
  • Summer 2020 was really very good, overall. We reached our tenth wedding anniversary in July. The plan was to return to one of the locations of our honeymoon, Arizona with our kids and in laws. That didn’t happen obviously.
  • However, with about a week to go I thought of an alternate plan. We spent the day at the historical village where we held our wedding. I hired the photographers who took our maternity and family photos to get some pictures to mark the occasion. We spent an hour doing that then the rest of the day playing at the park. Not as many attractions were open due to Covid-19 but it was a beautiful day with enough to keep us entertained. We ended with dinner at a restaurant.
  • We managed some mini vacations in our province including the first time ever camping with the kids.
  • We remain healthy. Everyone in our family has gotten at least one Covid-19 test, including asymptomatic ones. All negative.  I am grateful that our province makes testing very easy so that the process is minimally disruptive though still unnerving.
  • School is back in person tomorrow. In the big picture of things, I feel fortunate. I am back at the high school I taught before AJ was born. My class is small and I know most of my students as I taught them in grade 9 last year. For the first time in my career, I walked into a classroom that was completely empty of other people’s stuff. Apart from making it very easy for me to meet the new space and no clutter rules, it has made a huge difference in my stress level.
  • Who knows what tomorrow brings though: everything changes so quickly. I try not to emotionally commit to any particular scenario too much.  What I think about is how to be as adaptable as possible and build strong trusting relationships. I do trust the people around me and this is enhanced by being back in my community. I work a five minute drive from home; Dani’s daycare is across the street; AJ’s school is about 3 minutes away. I even found a dance class for AJ a couple of minutes from her school. Mr Turtle is developing work from home plans at his office. All of these things give me confidence and safety.





6 comments:

  1. Love your anniversary pictures! Such a great way to mark the occasion, even if it's different than imagined because pandemic. Good luck tomorrow! We start Wednesday but don't have students until next Thursday. It will be interesting! Ha, I'm struggling with the "no clutter" or "minimal clutter" as I'm reimagining it... My "clutter" feels like soul. Well, hopefully it's better than the spring! 💜 Love the calendar quotes, too.

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    1. Best of luck to to you too! We have staggered entry which will hopefully help. AJ’s school is doing the same thing. The downsizing rules are hard for teachers who have developed their space over the years including my new colleague. We cannot have any rugs or cloth covered chairs. I even have to get the fancy expensive light filters as we are not supposed to have fabric even on the ceiling (which is ridiculous: nobody is going to be cleaning the ceiling.)

      There is still a big difference between *your* stuff and somebody else’s, though. I did actually buy a few of my own things. But not having to sort through a pile of crap is such a load off my mind, especially after cleaning my house all summer is a relief.

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  2. I love that photo. Wishing you the best for the school year.

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  3. Happy anniversary and stay healthy :)

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    1. Thank you. Still doing well. Fingers crossed that we continue as smoothly as possible!

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