I never thought that the word 'Pandemic' would make it into the everyday lexicon. March madness, now I know what that means! Life has changed drastically in a few weeks, yet I find myself experiencing a certain guilty pleasure in this new normal. Yes, it's great not to have to do the school/bus stop pickups and drops, the shuttling to various classes (only twice a week, but we are lazy like that!). But more importantly, being a tad unsocial and retiring by nature, none of us misses the social activities. I like not having to go into DC for meetings. S enjoys not having to travel on work.
We aren't being asked for much at this time, unlike many many others who cannot afford to stay home like us.
Our school district had a very rocky time, transitioning to online learning. First, they took 4 weeks just to train the teachers. I would have thought that someone in the administration would spend that time stress-testing the software platform to make sure it can handle 189,000 students plus teachers, but apparently not. The first day everyone logged on, the system crashed. Ditto the second third days. Ditto several weeks! Parents were mad, poor teachers were stressed, and the kids were having a gala time :)
I realized that our school district is one of the best and richest in the nation, and can afford to give laptops to everyone, but simply had not planned on supporting synchronous OR asynchronous online schooling. Several weeks behind many other proactive school districts, and with just over a month left before the summer vacation begins, they have finally got their act together and some learning is happening for the kids. High school and elementary school are on different schedules so Ads & Y have been waking up, coming down for meals, and finishing up schoolwork at different times (the schedules also change based on the day of the week). At any given point during the day, 3 bedroom doors are shut with everyone in front of their screen while I stay downstairs with my screen :)
I have been working with the kids on life skills training. Ads has been trained in doing a full laundry cycle (including sorting, drying and folding). He finally knows the difference between kitchen towels and bathroom hand towels :) though he still seems confused about which underwear belongs to whom :)) He knows how to load and unload the dishwasher, hates doing dishes by hand and has been doing some basic veg chopping as well. But the biggest skill he learnt was how to clean the bathroom, and he does a pretty good job of it.
I have dusted off my singing chops and found a lovely app called Starmaker studios that allows me to record high-quality songs with backing tracks. By high-quality, I refer to the app and not necessarily to my singing :) It's been a lot of fun immersing myself into something that was a big part of my life until the kids came along. It feels strange now that I waited so long to resuscitate this hobby, but I guess there is a time for everything.
I don't suppose anyone knows what the future will bring, whether we are going to have another wave in the fall, or whether things will settle down, even whether schools will finally reopen come late August. For now, we are truly living day to day and in the moment!
We aren't being asked for much at this time, unlike many many others who cannot afford to stay home like us.
Our school district had a very rocky time, transitioning to online learning. First, they took 4 weeks just to train the teachers. I would have thought that someone in the administration would spend that time stress-testing the software platform to make sure it can handle 189,000 students plus teachers, but apparently not. The first day everyone logged on, the system crashed. Ditto the second third days. Ditto several weeks! Parents were mad, poor teachers were stressed, and the kids were having a gala time :)
I realized that our school district is one of the best and richest in the nation, and can afford to give laptops to everyone, but simply had not planned on supporting synchronous OR asynchronous online schooling. Several weeks behind many other proactive school districts, and with just over a month left before the summer vacation begins, they have finally got their act together and some learning is happening for the kids. High school and elementary school are on different schedules so Ads & Y have been waking up, coming down for meals, and finishing up schoolwork at different times (the schedules also change based on the day of the week). At any given point during the day, 3 bedroom doors are shut with everyone in front of their screen while I stay downstairs with my screen :)
I have been working with the kids on life skills training. Ads has been trained in doing a full laundry cycle (including sorting, drying and folding). He finally knows the difference between kitchen towels and bathroom hand towels :) though he still seems confused about which underwear belongs to whom :)) He knows how to load and unload the dishwasher, hates doing dishes by hand and has been doing some basic veg chopping as well. But the biggest skill he learnt was how to clean the bathroom, and he does a pretty good job of it.
I have dusted off my singing chops and found a lovely app called Starmaker studios that allows me to record high-quality songs with backing tracks. By high-quality, I refer to the app and not necessarily to my singing :) It's been a lot of fun immersing myself into something that was a big part of my life until the kids came along. It feels strange now that I waited so long to resuscitate this hobby, but I guess there is a time for everything.
I don't suppose anyone knows what the future will bring, whether we are going to have another wave in the fall, or whether things will settle down, even whether schools will finally reopen come late August. For now, we are truly living day to day and in the moment!
Ditto Aparna! Am also loving the lock down and feeling guilty about saying it. It is so good to not have any demands from the outside world and just live with oneself.
ReplyDeleteGlad to know that you sing! What genre of music are you into?