Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

I'm planning on my kids not having school (at school, at least) for the rest of the year, that's the way things seem to be going. My daughter asked me how they're going to handle grades, given the official policy is that the school work they are doing is not being graded. I have no idea! I guess it depends how things play out.

I'm going to donate blood in a little bit, wish me luck. Life, or at least parts of it, must go on.

we're doing their school's zoom classes and trying to get them to do their assignments but our strategy is just to make sure they're reading a lot and improving in their reading and assuming they can grow in that area i'll consider our corona homeschooling a success.

The test prep/tutoring school I work for has been on online lessons only since February and I just don't think I'm ever gonna like teaching them. I guess 1-on-1 tutoring is not so bad, and I've figured out the best ways to screen share and show explanations, but classes feel like I'm talking into a wall. But it's ok, my school is quickly hemorrhaging students so I don't expect to have a job much longer

For my son, online learning requires our full participation - he tends to wander away, collapse, scream, put yogurt on the screen, etc. - so it is really no different from homeschooling. He really does need to be walked through each assignment. At school, he has an aide for that. Here, it's 100% us.

So sorry Stevolende

Seems my household's quick covid experience was indeed too good to be true - wife still had a mild cough but then caught a regular cold (worse for her than most, she can't sleep when she gets a runny nose) which worsened the cough and for the past few days she's been really coughing her lungs out, it's hurting her and she's having trouble sleeping again. Really frustrating as I can't even run out to get her some syrup (we're still in quarantine).

Blood donation fail: even though neither of the FAQs I looked at, including a new one for the covid era, said I *needed* to make an appointment, it appears they are not accepting walk-ins. But then when you go online to schedule, it lists all the "unavailable" slots and a few slots that don't say anything, but those are *also* apparently unavailable. I told them if the slots that are unavailable say "unavailable" and the slots that don't say "unavailable" are *also* unavailable, then those other slots should really say "unavailable" as well. Anyway, on the plus side, if they didn't have any availabilities that means the drive is going well.

I miss stuff in this thread--condolences/best wishes to various people.

I'm finding Chris Cuomo continuing to do his CNN show every night reassuring. He's not mawkish at all--he strikes just the right balance of humour, daily information on what he's experiencing, and calling out Trump.

my mom's symptoms have thankfully subsided, she had chills and headache for two days but evidently no fever and we are all breathing a deep sigh of relief

thank you for thoughts upthread

“You’re hurting old people like me. Well, not me... I’ll never see you.”

Larry David wants everyone to stay home to protect older Californians from #COVID19!
He does not do these things.
Listen to Larry.#StayHomeSaveLiveshttps://t.co/snYe5v55Rw pic.twitter.com/C5cKOaAufE

— Office of the Governor of California (@CAgovernor) March 31, 2020

I just gave myself my first haircut. Successfully, I might add! Considering there isn't much I can do with it in the first place, and there's not much to do it to, has my haircutter been ethically suspect by not just telling me I could easily do it myself? (#larrydavid)

my partner has had three nights in a row of trapped-in-confined-spaces-with-people dreams

Meanwhile, i got this in the mail randomly today.

In the words of Julius Caesar, "oh come on, what the fuck"

https://i.ibb.co/Hn1w4R7/IMG-20200402-130315.jpg

seems legit

Doctor Jones, Jones,
Calling Doctor Jones
Doctor Jones, Doctor Jones,
Get up now

No doubt Dr. Shallenberger's book is bursting with sure-fire recommendations, fully backed by anecdotal evidence.

I didn't read it, come now

Judging from the cover, whatever he is selling, it destroys your knees and elbows.

Solidarity to soda & Alfred & all other ILX educators in the new hellscape

recording lectures without students is even weirder than performing music to an empty room. I have done both and vastly prefer playing music to a pretend audience to trying to cajole invisible people into learning. Teaching my music class was a little easier because it's content, but teaching ESL online has to be one of the more excruciating professional tasks I've attempted. I hope I get better at it!!

At the very least I am happy to brag that I had perfect attendance in both classes. I also had to call every student from my personal phone to get them to show up but it worked!!

yeah I've been teaching ESL over zoom for a couple weeks and it is pretty torturous. my shorter class has had good attendance and I find using the breakout rooms to facilitate conversation works pretty well, but my longer class has only had one or two students which is a huge pain to lesson plan for.

my teacher talking time is way too high lol. but the second week has been better than the first.

you have my genuine sympathies -- i had a class with 3 students once and only 2 would show up at a time, making it impossible for us to get anything done. it was immensely frustrating and that was irl, can't imagine doing that virtually.

we have been using gotomeeting and everyone else on earth uses zoom :( the only thing that is making this tolerable at ALL is that i had 7 weeks to get to know my students and bond with them irl before this went down. i am coasting on that as long as i can.

Had no idea there were so many EFL teachers on here, you can reduce TTT by setting up different interaction patterns by using breakout rooms on Zoom.

Just remembered that the next two weeks are three-day work weeks for me.

I was much more excited about that fact a month ago.

I mentioned it several posts/days/months back, but I bought us one of these:
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51RCsC1EReL._AC_SL278_QL70_.jpg

Now when we go for walks we bring along the claw and a bag and pick-up trash. Weirdly satisfying, and definitely makes the people we pass or who see us happy and say nice things. Dunno, kind of a lemonade from life-lemons sort of thing.

camaraderie at arms length to all you online teachers!

(I know someone has commented on how appropriate your user name is before)

it's literally the track I was listening to when I signed up for ilx. but yeah, it seems to get extra meanings all the time for some reason.

I just gave myself my first haircut. Successfully, I might add! Considering there isn't much I can do with it in the first place, and there's not much to do it to, has my haircutter been ethically suspect by not just telling me I could easily do it myself? (#larrydavid)

― Josh in Chicago

I trimmed my wife's hair today! That was a little scary, but she was happier with it than she was with the job she did trimming the bangs on my latest wig.

v happy yr mom is better, Hadrian

v v fortunate i have clippers at home and that i dont mind how i look with a shaved head

The last thing I did before WFH was get a haircut, so I am good for another 2-4 weeks before I even need to think about. After that things could get interesting.

I’m just going for the full early 70s Keith Richards thing, fuck it

I look and smell like the Unabomber

because we're not leaving the flat much and getting no exercise, we've been not wanting dinner as much as usual - not as hungry and also too lazy to cook

that's fine, but it's a bad combo with trying to buy a week of food at once, because there's now a few things in the fridge which are due up & we thought we'd have eaten by today but haven't. feels bad to be wasteful when it's been hard to find fresh food lately and it's been even harder for people who are self-isolating or working shifts etc

oh well, lessons to learn for next time, assuming we don't have to self-isolate ourselves in the meantime

i know this is a mostly apolitical thread but

Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, is continuing to play down the pandemic, saying it is “not all it’s being made out to be” and denying that any hospital in the country has reached its full capacity due to the outbreak.

Speaking to church ministers outside his official residence in Brasilia, he has urged state governors not to be so “radical,” warning that their confinement and quarantine measures are taking a heavy toll on the economy.

My work situation is enormously complicated by the fact that my longtime work client is going through a 2nd round of chemo for breast cancer. The best thing really would be for the magazine I produce to go on hiatus until late summer or fall so I can get some of this independent contractor unemployment, but she hasn't brought it up and so far neither have I. But this week I've been making the usual first round of contacts for the next issue and have gotten a lot of radio silence. Not "no," but no response at all. I think tomorrow we'll have to have that talk.

Meanwhile my wife is going to drive herself to a nervous breakdown by Being Helpful online.

Pay cuts announced today, executive, director and upper management levels taking a 30% cut, middle mgmt (me) taking 15%, others taking 2 to 5%.

It’s good to still have a job obv and I’ve seen harsher in this thread, but I’m supporting both of us so I’m not, like, rejoicing or anything

Pay cuts announced today, executive, director and upper management levels taking a 30% cut, middle mgmt (me) taking 15%, others taking 2 to 5%.

Maybe I'm too jaded, but I'm genuinely surprised the proportions weren't reversed.

oh i know

at our company, they suspended the annual profit-sharing contribution to the 401(k) (not cancelled as they can't cancel it as it's written into the governing plan doc), they've delayed merit increases but only for people making 75k or more, and they've contributed $1 million to a People Matter fund that can provide relief to employees of up to $2,000 for those severely impacted.

I'm pleasantly surprised how my company has handled this.

everybody fucking calling me today. about to just put my phone on mute.

My wife's employer started by offering a three-month sabbatical at half pay. But her manager said they didn't want to lose her (which is a good thing, that they value her work). They ended up compromising on half time, while keeping health benefits (minus dental and vision, meh).

We're fortunate, but it's still a strain all round.

bestie broke up with her boyfriend and now wants to immediately move back to Florida and just called me crying.

on the one hand, I'm glad to have her back, on the other, I'm severely worried about her trying to do this NOW, but the alternative is her staying with someone that she is having trouble living with while claiming she's suicidal.

i'm going to learn real fast I have to stop worrying about all of my friends to this degree because just about everyone of them is going to have fairly big problems soon.

Had a full on breakdown last night.

I broke my leg right before the virus started hit the US, so I’ve been stuck at home on crutches a few weeks longer than the social isolation started. Managed to get off narcotics and stopped smoking pot at the same time because I was so tired of feeling fucked up. Also more or less quit drinking since I hadn’t had a drop while pilled up. Wasn’t a heavy user of either but really liked the idea of getting straight for a while.

I keep thinking of AIRPLANE!: Looks like I picked a hell of a week to quit sniffing glue.

We have two girls, 5 & 10 years old. They were at my parents in the country for spring break before social isolation and they stayed an extra week since schools shut down. They came back last weekend and we’ve been trying to figure out our rhythms and home schooling and how to exist with them while i’m useless and my wife is trying to work from home.

I used to get restless leg syndrome (the stupidest syndrome) once a month or so, and it wasn’t a big deal. Get up, read for a while, go back to sleep. In the past week it’s been relentless. I’ll get up,read, lay back down and it won’t stop. Over and over. 3 or 4 hours of sleep and then up wrangling kids.

Yesterday I overdid it and my broken leg was throbbing and
aching. My wife is overwhelmed doing everything I can’t do and we got gripey with each other and it triggered something; I was screaming and crying and a total sobbing mess. Wife and scared kids hugged me. I don’t think they had ever seen me cry until then. Leg kept me up until 7:30 this morning.

Working on getting medical and psychological help today. I think I have mild ptsd from the leg break, it was horrible and I still haven’t really processed it. That, with family pressures and my limited mobility and no sleep all against the backdrop of a pandemic is a bit much for me. Researched restless leg solutions and apparently pot can be a big help so my wife found me some today in hopes of getting me to sleep and stay sane.

Slept until 1pm like a teenager and i’m feeling a lot better at the moment.

Sorry for the long diary entry. At least our jobs are stable. I get in a mindset where I know how fortunate I am and so I don’t want to reach out for help because I know so many others have it so much worse. I’ve never wanted to go for a walk so bad.

Cow_Art, crap, sympathies. Hope stuff gets better for you somehow.

Oh god Cow_Art, what a lot to deal with. Hoping for the best with your leg and your family's wellness.

That is a lot to deal with for anyone, Cow_Art. It sounds like you are being smart in trying to address the sleep issues as those can exacerbate everything else. Just remember that (I hope) the leg issue as well as the coronavirus will both be temporary and will improve.

Wish you the best.

Did my fourth delivery today, which turned out to be for $327 CAD in organic groceries. At least I got a workout in!

Tbh if you're relatively low-risk and need or want an excuse to get out of the house, signing up for a service like this is one of the better ideas I can recommend.

That's fucking hard, huge sympathy CowArt. Anecdotally, magnesium supplements can help with restless leg, my wife used to get it.