I thought I was all ready to go for this school year, glad my kids are in school and enthusiastic about teaching. Everything is ready to go, we have our lunch boxes, I'm doing my lectures....
Yesterday my anxiety arrived embodied in fourteen separate three-packs of masks, from three different stores. Oops. Apparently on multiple occasions, I took out my feelings in making sure we had enough masks. (I had meant to order maybe twenty? Kid 1 has gym first thing and likes to wear a clean one afterwards, and Kid 3 has to leave 10 at school [no, it doesn't actually make any sense], and Kid 2 is always leaving them under the couch or whatever.)
What am I worried about? Schools staying open. Schools not staying open. Us all, inevitably, getting covid despite being vaccinated. The FDA refusing to hurry their vaccine approval the !@#$ up despite everything being on fire. Not finding another job. Finding another job and moving. The inevitable disaster this semester will be even with 95% of campus vaccinated. My kid who lies a lot (it's normal but irritating). Money. My grandma. My stubborn mother and her poor medical decision making. EVERYTHING.
Anyhow, I have not resolved any of these issues but my family has about 80 masks now and 200 disposables to boot.
Masks are required on our campus and our chancellor like you bought about 80 per person! (Disposables.) Every flat surface on campus has at least one pack on it.
ReplyDeleteSo far mask compliance here is quite good. But I've already had one student test positive. :(
I also have 250 disposables! In my defense, they were on clearance.... I need to put more in my bag.
DeleteLast year I only had to yell at one student of mine, once, about pulling up their mask. I did yell at some randoms in the main entry though.
I guess I already said that but it has been a WEEK. My department bought cases and cases of KN95s for lab, and they're laying around everywhere now.
DeleteI had a positive (but vaccinated) person this morning who got flagged from mandatory testing. They joined via zoom.
DeleteWe're not allowed to yell, but I did a lot of begging and pleading this morning. I'm like, even if you don't believe in masks, please humor me, I'm so worried about my little girl, I don't want to get her sick. (All true.)
Last year when things were mandatory everyone came in with a mask on. I just had to do occasional nose checks.
Those are a lot of very real and very valid worries.
ReplyDeleteAlso, masks tend to disappear, so it's not crazy to have extra on hand. I've been giving away excess masks that don't fit or we don't like along with excess hand sanitizer as prizes to people who volunteer in class. And I ordered two more packs of cheap disposables from Amazon for the express purpose of giving out to students, since I'm down to two of the 20 I had for this purpose last year.
Weirdly only Middle Kid ever loses them. The others rescue spares from the sidewalk and toss them in the to-be-washed bin... we have so many masks. I should probably give some to a friend! (The extras are all child sized.)
Delete10 masks at school? This is baffling to me...oh wait. It's ALL baffling to me. The way we're handling this as a country, as a state, and in educational settings is a nightmare. I wish I had words of comfort. Seems all I have is outrage lately.
ReplyDeleteMaybe... one or two extras? We usually just stick a spare in the side pocket. To add to the bafflement, her school spends literally 80-90% of the day outside, where, reasonably, they do not wear masks.... Bafflement! Rage! This morning I reminded myself that some of my anger is anger, but the rest is in fact the tip of an iceberg of fear. WAAAAAAH
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