Actually, it's three weeks
Mar. 22nd, 2020 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
olorielbecause I can't calculate. (Or maybe just because one of my classes was meant to go on a class trip during the first week of April, so I had sort of internalised that I had to have everything done by March 27.)
The first week of which is now over, and I have to confess that it's been a good week. (I feel sufficiently guilty about having enjoyed it.) On Monday, I handed in the assignments for my students - fortunately, I had already scheduled the material up to the Easter holidays, so I just had to type it up, add some links and scan a few geography textbook pages for the 5th graders. At 8:30, we got an official e-mail from the principal that anybody who was still at home could stay there, on account of zero students being present. We were allowed to come in to collect/copy/scan material, but encouraged to stay at home if we didn't have anything important to do in school. I'd been released from work for the day because of my kolloquium in Educational Sciences later that day. Whereas classes at ZfSL were cancelled until after the holidays, the last scheduled exams were still taking place, so I sat mine. It went well. I am even tempted to say that it was shockingly pleasant (for being an oral exam, which I normally hate). Our lecturer had said that we shouldn't think of it as an exam, but rather as a conversation among equals "because that's what kolloquium means!", and that was actually what it felt like. It took an hour, but felt much shorter.
So I am officially permitted to continue the teaching qualification course. That's a relief, and I'm glad it got done in these days of uncertainty (TM).
I still had a bunch of tests to grade, so that's what I did in my home office time. Outside of that, I got a lot of stuff done in the garden. All the things I had planned to do in the holidays are done now - weeding, putting sieved compost on the veggie patches, digging out the potatoes I didn't manage to harvest last year, sowing the first carrots, peas and lettuces - which is a good thing, because although it feels very cold right now, spring is a lot further along than can be expected in March. (Some of the forgotten potatoes had leaves already peeking out of the ground! You can't usually expect that before early May!)
My mother recently said that she's consciously had to tell herself that it's safe to go for a walk or dig in the garden - because the empty supermarket shelves, plus the general sense of anxiety, plus the spring blossoms, are exactly as she remembers the weeks after the Chernobyl disaster. "That was in late April though," I observed, at which she smiled and said "Yes, dear, the climate has changed." OK, fair.
Anyway. I've been enjoying the week off. Guiltily. The last weeks were intense. The stretch between the Christmas holidays and spring break has been fairly long this year - or would've been, before the schools were closed. The students need those breaks, and as a result, we need them too. So in that respect, this week has been a gift. (Also, because I don't have to worry about supervising teens in the worst stage of puberty in our school's computer lab now, I've been able to hand out research assignments for the 8th and 9th graders that I had - regretfully - struck from my schedule earlier in the year.)
I may have to go back to work next week, or the week after, or even during what would normally have been spring break - because from Monday on, it's enough for one parent to work in an "indispensable" job for the child to qualify for supervision (although the other parent, if available, still has to explain why they can't work from home/take time off/...). We don't know yet what that actually means for our school, but we'll find out tomorrow. All other social contacts are being pared down, but the restrictions for school kids are lowered in the name of the economy.
Oh well. If the weather stays like this, we can turn it into outdoor days and do sports or rallyes or the like. Otherwise, I suppose it'll be craft days or something. Again, we'll find out.
Jörg has also been allowed to work from home most of the week. That is, he had to come in to teach a course on Monday, then pointed out to the CEO and managers that the minister of health's decree to cancel all classes in all educational institutes - including adult education - might perhaps include their educational institute. Said decree had been issued on the preceeding Friday, but of course none of the responsible managers had applied it to their institute. After half a day's deliberation they came to the conclusion that they had to cancel the course. By this time, the participants had already flown in (from Landshut in Bavaria!), so they were extremely thrilled to learn about the cancellation. It was just as well, though, because all hotels and restaurants had also been closed, so they wouldn't have had anywhere to stay, anyway. They got a flight back the same evening, but it all could have been avoided if any of the people at Jörg's company had actually done their job on Friday. As punishment, they only authorised home office for Jörg on Tuesday, and then he had to come back in on Wednesday. By Wednesday afternoon, the managers had come to the conclusion that everybody should be working from home, which Jörg's direct superiors conveniently forgot to tell their staff before disappearing into home office. Fortunately, Jörg was in contact with the staff association at this point for related reasons, who informed him about the managers' decision. By now, his direct superior's deputy has authorised home office until the end of next week, after which Jörg is expected to come in and work with the simulator (which naturally cannot be done from home) in preparing a new course that is to be held... whenever. If ever. Stellar leadership.
Felix and Julian have been coping very well so far - of course, we're lucky because we're living in a big house with a big garden and in a rural area where you can go for nice walks. Felix has been good about doing his assignments. The one "problem" is that N., a friend who's living just down the hill, has been dropping by daily. It's understandable - he doesn't have siblings, and his mother and her new partner mistake buying a PlayStation with caring for a child, so he's bored and lonely most of the time - but of course it's exactly what shouldn't be done right now. So far, we've allowed them to play as long as they stay outside, keep a safe distance and don't visit Grandma Ingrid (whose flat they usually invade sooner or later). Today, the official restrictions have been intensified, so perhaps that'll make N.'s mother realise that maybe N. shouldn't be running around the neighbourhood anymore. Then again, maybe not. Just yesterday N. announced that he'd visit his grandparents today. I ask you!
(He didn't, ultimately, but still!)
Felix and Julian have (with many complaints, but still) accepted that they couldn't visit their grandparents this weekend. My mum turned 65 last week, so this was particularly sad even for the grown-ups. My parents actually drove here to go for a walk in the woods and then exchange a few "long-distance" words in the driveway to make up for the birthday party we had to cancel. Mum works at a nursing home, so the likelihood of her getting the virus at work is much higher than the likelihood of her getting it from us, but still. Mum says that she's glad that her successor at work - she retires in September - doesn't have to deal with such an unprecedented situation right off the bat. Which is fair enough, but. We are mostly worried about the mother-in-law, because she's 79, immunocompromised and has no reliable sense of self-preservation (just yesterday she wanted to go to the market. For fresh fruit and vegetables. I did her grocery shopping on Friday - including some fruit and veg - but she somehow hadn't thought that the weekly market is also a bad idea right now. And it isn't even that the fruit and veg are any fresher or better than the supermarket stuff - it's not some fancy farmer's market, just a regular weekly market that gets its fruit and veg from the same wholesale warehouse as the supermarkets! Incidentally, when I went shopping for her, I had to hunt down things like oat flakes and bran and nuts. I thought she wanted to make her own muesli (granola), which is reasonable because cereals and muesli are among the constantly sold-out things right now, but no, it was for birdseed. (Ready-made birdseed is not sold out.) I try to be patient and understanding, but sometimes...)
Anyway. We're mostly worried about Ingrid, but occasionally I happen to worry about my own parents, who are also over 60. Reasonably healthy, but still.
So, yeah. And yet, it has been a beautiful week. Interesting times.
The first week of which is now over, and I have to confess that it's been a good week. (I feel sufficiently guilty about having enjoyed it.) On Monday, I handed in the assignments for my students - fortunately, I had already scheduled the material up to the Easter holidays, so I just had to type it up, add some links and scan a few geography textbook pages for the 5th graders. At 8:30, we got an official e-mail from the principal that anybody who was still at home could stay there, on account of zero students being present. We were allowed to come in to collect/copy/scan material, but encouraged to stay at home if we didn't have anything important to do in school. I'd been released from work for the day because of my kolloquium in Educational Sciences later that day. Whereas classes at ZfSL were cancelled until after the holidays, the last scheduled exams were still taking place, so I sat mine. It went well. I am even tempted to say that it was shockingly pleasant (for being an oral exam, which I normally hate). Our lecturer had said that we shouldn't think of it as an exam, but rather as a conversation among equals "because that's what kolloquium means!", and that was actually what it felt like. It took an hour, but felt much shorter.
So I am officially permitted to continue the teaching qualification course. That's a relief, and I'm glad it got done in these days of uncertainty (TM).
I still had a bunch of tests to grade, so that's what I did in my home office time. Outside of that, I got a lot of stuff done in the garden. All the things I had planned to do in the holidays are done now - weeding, putting sieved compost on the veggie patches, digging out the potatoes I didn't manage to harvest last year, sowing the first carrots, peas and lettuces - which is a good thing, because although it feels very cold right now, spring is a lot further along than can be expected in March. (Some of the forgotten potatoes had leaves already peeking out of the ground! You can't usually expect that before early May!)
My mother recently said that she's consciously had to tell herself that it's safe to go for a walk or dig in the garden - because the empty supermarket shelves, plus the general sense of anxiety, plus the spring blossoms, are exactly as she remembers the weeks after the Chernobyl disaster. "That was in late April though," I observed, at which she smiled and said "Yes, dear, the climate has changed." OK, fair.
Anyway. I've been enjoying the week off. Guiltily. The last weeks were intense. The stretch between the Christmas holidays and spring break has been fairly long this year - or would've been, before the schools were closed. The students need those breaks, and as a result, we need them too. So in that respect, this week has been a gift. (Also, because I don't have to worry about supervising teens in the worst stage of puberty in our school's computer lab now, I've been able to hand out research assignments for the 8th and 9th graders that I had - regretfully - struck from my schedule earlier in the year.)
I may have to go back to work next week, or the week after, or even during what would normally have been spring break - because from Monday on, it's enough for one parent to work in an "indispensable" job for the child to qualify for supervision (although the other parent, if available, still has to explain why they can't work from home/take time off/...). We don't know yet what that actually means for our school, but we'll find out tomorrow. All other social contacts are being pared down, but the restrictions for school kids are lowered in the name of the economy.
Oh well. If the weather stays like this, we can turn it into outdoor days and do sports or rallyes or the like. Otherwise, I suppose it'll be craft days or something. Again, we'll find out.
Jörg has also been allowed to work from home most of the week. That is, he had to come in to teach a course on Monday, then pointed out to the CEO and managers that the minister of health's decree to cancel all classes in all educational institutes - including adult education - might perhaps include their educational institute. Said decree had been issued on the preceeding Friday, but of course none of the responsible managers had applied it to their institute. After half a day's deliberation they came to the conclusion that they had to cancel the course. By this time, the participants had already flown in (from Landshut in Bavaria!), so they were extremely thrilled to learn about the cancellation. It was just as well, though, because all hotels and restaurants had also been closed, so they wouldn't have had anywhere to stay, anyway. They got a flight back the same evening, but it all could have been avoided if any of the people at Jörg's company had actually done their job on Friday. As punishment, they only authorised home office for Jörg on Tuesday, and then he had to come back in on Wednesday. By Wednesday afternoon, the managers had come to the conclusion that everybody should be working from home, which Jörg's direct superiors conveniently forgot to tell their staff before disappearing into home office. Fortunately, Jörg was in contact with the staff association at this point for related reasons, who informed him about the managers' decision. By now, his direct superior's deputy has authorised home office until the end of next week, after which Jörg is expected to come in and work with the simulator (which naturally cannot be done from home) in preparing a new course that is to be held... whenever. If ever. Stellar leadership.
Felix and Julian have been coping very well so far - of course, we're lucky because we're living in a big house with a big garden and in a rural area where you can go for nice walks. Felix has been good about doing his assignments. The one "problem" is that N., a friend who's living just down the hill, has been dropping by daily. It's understandable - he doesn't have siblings, and his mother and her new partner mistake buying a PlayStation with caring for a child, so he's bored and lonely most of the time - but of course it's exactly what shouldn't be done right now. So far, we've allowed them to play as long as they stay outside, keep a safe distance and don't visit Grandma Ingrid (whose flat they usually invade sooner or later). Today, the official restrictions have been intensified, so perhaps that'll make N.'s mother realise that maybe N. shouldn't be running around the neighbourhood anymore. Then again, maybe not. Just yesterday N. announced that he'd visit his grandparents today. I ask you!
(He didn't, ultimately, but still!)
Felix and Julian have (with many complaints, but still) accepted that they couldn't visit their grandparents this weekend. My mum turned 65 last week, so this was particularly sad even for the grown-ups. My parents actually drove here to go for a walk in the woods and then exchange a few "long-distance" words in the driveway to make up for the birthday party we had to cancel. Mum works at a nursing home, so the likelihood of her getting the virus at work is much higher than the likelihood of her getting it from us, but still. Mum says that she's glad that her successor at work - she retires in September - doesn't have to deal with such an unprecedented situation right off the bat. Which is fair enough, but. We are mostly worried about the mother-in-law, because she's 79, immunocompromised and has no reliable sense of self-preservation (just yesterday she wanted to go to the market. For fresh fruit and vegetables. I did her grocery shopping on Friday - including some fruit and veg - but she somehow hadn't thought that the weekly market is also a bad idea right now. And it isn't even that the fruit and veg are any fresher or better than the supermarket stuff - it's not some fancy farmer's market, just a regular weekly market that gets its fruit and veg from the same wholesale warehouse as the supermarkets! Incidentally, when I went shopping for her, I had to hunt down things like oat flakes and bran and nuts. I thought she wanted to make her own muesli (granola), which is reasonable because cereals and muesli are among the constantly sold-out things right now, but no, it was for birdseed. (Ready-made birdseed is not sold out.) I try to be patient and understanding, but sometimes...)
Anyway. We're mostly worried about Ingrid, but occasionally I happen to worry about my own parents, who are also over 60. Reasonably healthy, but still.
So, yeah. And yet, it has been a beautiful week. Interesting times.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-22 08:59 pm (UTC)Where I am, spring isn't farther along than normally, I think, looking at the "pictures of the day" that I took around this time during the last 15 years. But if it gets warmer, I'm sure nature will absolutely explode and spring will be over in three days. So even though I felt it is still too cold for my baby Kohlrabi, I'm also kind of enjoying this cold spell because that means I get to see the crocus and snowdrops that I planted in winter BLOOM! :D Tomorrow, I'm going to take my camera to the garden.
I have a new book to translate, but HH gets to work from home. Next week will be interesting!
no subject
Date: 2020-03-24 08:51 am (UTC)This week, we're both working from home - next week, we might both have to go back to work. Interesting times indeed!