Tuesday 29 September 2020

Pandemic Parenting: Sept 2020

Week 115
-Wake-ups every couple hours (at 12:15am was told 'done'). Hour break before family time 8am; trip to far slides on velo. Brunch with friends at 10am, home for snooze before noon. Over 75 min to get there; I snooze too. Up before 3pm, basekemtn, remote story-time with Jose. Laundry, trip in stroller to both ponds (geese are back!?), caught in rain at end. Dinner after 6pm, bath after 7pm. Prepared car and files.
-Dreamt*, brief Dad time from 7am, joined for breakfast, departed after 7:45am. Drop-off, parking next door. Training system doesn't work with everyone online; I organize room. Dept trip outside for 15 min. Visit with teachers, copy files. Lunch. Dept together for mental health online, then I complete training by 3:30pm. Home 4:30pm and rinse, family time from 5pm with far slides... headfirst, plus hanging for over 30 sec! Trouble falling asleep, out 9pm. No work done.
-Awake 6:30am, recycling during wakeup, not much breakfast time and out. New training on student mental health and online resources, I do more sites setup. Out to pick up Tupperware & batteries, back for more videos. Racism training. Pickup routine, family time again at far slides - she loses footing and bites her lip. Carries on, we do ice cream later. Bed after 7pm; no work done. RDA with Bill & Ted.
-She's awake before 6:30am so I go in 6:40am. Slow to emerge from crib, Dad time and sausages. Bullying video and some room reorganizing. Classify data files for past year. Quick slides before rain, then first real pee on potty. Indoor reading and play. Dishes done, little else.
-Somewhat late rise but things work out. Parking lot's available; I forget to change shoes. Clean class desk and arrange desks, staff meeting. After lunch, clean prep desk and WHMIS training. Shopping, pickup, play downstairs with stuffed animals from neighbour (out of quarantine). Solo trip to both slides for an hour, dinner, shredding documents. Set up video crops, then relax.
-Dreamt of trip to 'Murder She Wrote' museum? Dad time before 7am, ball. Morning dept meeting for vague planning, and when courses are finalized, start to set up own data course. Staff meeting, VLE Online Meet, and get June's plagiarism into office. Arrive home and go pick up food while others go to slides; sudden rain. Inside time includes downstairs. Books include "green" and "purple"! Bath, bed from 7:30pm. Some silly writing only.
-Writing some "Epsilon". Family time from 7:15am, park, Dad time trip to duck ponds. Home before 10am, writing break, depart 11am for mall. Get shoes, pants, sushis. Lunch, during snooze from 1:30pm I pick up parcel and camera (repaired), also quick shopping. Home after 3pm, tired; Mom time from 4:30-5:30pm. Phone home for an hour. Dinner and downstairs play with Dad; bedtime after 7:30pm. Bit more "Epsilon" writing.
-Mharz "Life is Strange" LIVE (#16-18) & Dom starts Twilight.

===

Item counts to Saturday (Sept 5):
Step Count 2016: About 49,000
-CanCon 2015 posts, as CanCon 2016 began.

Step Count 2017: About 69,800 (14 stars)
-Returned to work, spent most evenings dealing with CompSci.

Step Count 2018: Over 72,700 (10 stars)
-First bus ride, car battery death, cemetery movie.

Step Count 2019: Over 81,500 (14 stars)
-RIP Godzilla, Playgroup, Manor Park Festival, in-laws, watched "Primer".

STEP COUNT 2020: Over 83,200. 13 stars.
SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 115 New (9 sent)
 21 Daycares. We have completed DAY 5. 3 PD, and 2 No students.

RH Stress Level: 5 (ACS Standby)

=======
Week 116
-Dreamt.* Dad time from 6:50am, family time for an hour from 7:20, both parks. Tidying and laundry solo, then Dad time downstairs. Quiet time to finish Epsilon entry (1.5 hr), noon lunch and snooze (still takes 45 min to start). All sleep, awake 3pm, go to Edinburgh park for over an hour. Mom discovers sun shield is actually two(!). Quick shopping, then Dad time to near park (encounter Aubrey's family). Home before 7pm, dinner troubles. Queue up Epsilon post, handle some other items (new shoes for star run).
-Restless sleep. Family time from 7:30am (sausages) becomes crash during rain outside. Dad time after 10am, downstairs hugging bears, until France Remote Reading after 11am. After lunch, manage to finish drawing 2019 'tans banner, and search for 3C binder. Family time at both parks. Playdoh before 7pm, bath, bed after 8pm. Photos organized. Some RDA.
-Awake 6am after little one already up for half an hour. Dad time, downstairs. Quick food, no trouble with school arrival. Briefly monitor link class, then prep slides for all Data and initial course info and sheets for Sem1. Label desks after lunch. Pickup in rain, inside time until it clears. Also half hour downstairs. Unproductive evening.
-Awake about 6am with little one, swap 6:30am. Worked on slides for 3M (more or less) and 3C (less; also sought more resources). Downloaded 3M text for site. Left 3pm for corn and gas, pickup, rain at home again. Books, crashed 15 min. Corn peel and dinner managed to go half an hour. Evening of assembling missing 4U text using Windows ME downstairs, dishes, cooking, tidying. Bed after 11:30pm.
-Dad time from 6:45am, bit stressed trying to go around 7:30am. Hall duty, more puzzling on Sites/Classroom, went through all video links for Data, emails, more hall, invited students to Classroom App, two student emails. Shopping. Home stress, so with Alexandra to both parks then dinner. Cooked, talked, finished PDF work. Bed after 10pm.
-Dreamt&. Extended PJs until departure. Hall duty, posting to Classroom, verifying two variable sheet, creating teacher location and seating chart files. New face shield. More hall, emails, laminating attempt. Laundry, trip out includes DQ, picking up fallen tree sticks, bubbles. After dinner, kitchen play. Quick shopping during bath. Took another evening off.
-Dad time from 7am, waffles not a hit. An hour to check school and organize photos. Prep to go out and buy boots (fire boots, wore out of store) then to new park. Home, lunch, more Summer's End file sorting during snooze. Some play, then off to boats; I hurry back to mow lawn for 6pm. Dinner, bed, and again too tired to have a useful evening, ugh.
-Mharz "Life is Strange" LIVE (#19) & Daily Show.

===
Item counts to Saturday (Sept 12):
Step Count 2016: About 76,300
-Went to BC with Anne-Lise. Considered making posts into a newsletter.

Step Count 2017: About 69,000 (19 stars)
-Many meetings, network fail as part of the CS horror show. CTP VIP.

Step Count 2018: Over 74,900 (12 stars)
-Long days with dinners, hot water heater issue, updated OS for laptop.

Step Count 2019: Over 68,300 (13 stars)
-Long days again, laptop charger broke, signing "more", Sat dinner out.

STEP COUNT 2020
: Over 73,100. 14 stars.
SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 93 New (17 sent)
We have completed DAY 9. 3 PD, 2 No students.
 7 Daycare msg. I haven't actually taught yet.

RH Stress Level: 5 (ACS Standby)
=======
Week 117
-Awake 6am getting little one to sleep. Some course prep. 8am dishes. 9am Dad time for almost 2 hrs including out between rains. Break during story, cook lunch, snooze. Out in under half an hour, do run. Some TORG reading, attempt nap. Up 2:30pm, out to park 3pm. Home, want ice creams. Then 45 min break, Family time from 5pm with phone call (no Distributel?). Vector to bath before 7pm. 7;30 gaming just after story... need to go in myself after 8:30pm, rough finding sleep. Gamin ends 11pm, check messages (supervision up) and bed 11:30pm.
-Dreamt*, up after 6am. Little one up soon after, switch from 6:30am. First Day Teaching, and projector goes out (huge dark spot) so make due with boards and site uploads. Need to remember, attendance twice. Starting putting together Data Assignments; break before pickup. Cleanse, one story, then math meeting 5-6:30pm. Dad time to 7pm, then evening to crash, mostly. Some RDA again, tough all around.
-Up 6am with little one; swap and I cue up morning post. Sneak cereal, family time after 7am (mostly Mom). Second half of class (9 vs 7), still no projector but better paced. Devise summary unit sheet for self, upload whiteboard files, finalize graph assignment. Shopping at Cdn Superstore and pickup of laminated circle. Little one aware she's tired so comes home, but refuses to eat enough dinner for ice creams; story done 6:30pm. Had to take over, asleep before 8pm. Minimal work managed.
-Much awake early on, then dreamt&, up 6:30am. Mom took over. Extended PJs, then onesie with snaps (for last time). Statistics teaching for 4 hours. Lunch, went live with first assignment. Email issues, staff meeting + OSSTF for an hour. Pickup 4pm, home and crash for an hour. Then Dad Time of an hour going to parks and around house. Dinner after 7pm, to sleep; emails, cook dinner, devise quiz, dishes and restart 'Life is Strange' comic. Bed after midnight.
-Dreamt^, woken by alarm 6:30am. Dad time. Police pulled me over on parkway (83 in 60 zone, I hadn't been watching speed). Still able to schedule online quiz after 8am, then second run teaching statistics. New student seems not to be. Learned more of our 'support period' (our school handling things well). Finally initiated some emails. Zoned out in car after 3pm. Pickup, yogurt snack, some time running down hills at park. I take over partway into bath, and put little one to sleep for first time in recent memory. Eventual shopping to get more fruit. Home before 10pm, dinner, bed after 11:30pm.
-Queued post, family time (more Mom), to Daycare which is dwindling due to runny noses, eep. 3 Distributions lessons, connecting up with GMeet teachers for next week, verifying how to handle assignments on Classroom, talking with colleagues. No park trip; some chalks. Her nose starts running, sleepy time gets rough. Insert humidifier. Finally finish damn math minutes, minor breakdown. Bed 11:30pm again.
-Slept downstairs almost 6 hours straight. Dad time from before 7am. Little one still runny nose, so we head to testing centre by 9am; told they're already at capacity for the day. Return home, break to email school, tidy, do laundry, finish my Summer post. Dad time from 11am downstairs, active running. Lunch, she's out for snooze pretty fast in our room. Satellite testing site opens, we head out 3pm to Kanata, she's tested and we're home by 6pm. With sushis, so she's happy. Bath 7pm, less runny nose but more congestion. Online chat, bed before 10pm though many wakeups to come.
-Mharz "Life is Strange" LIVE (#20 & 21 Finale) & Daily Show.

===
Item counts to Saturday (Sept 19):
Step Count 2016: About 67,900
-Felt like I’d be busy until end of year. But with writing, etc. not teaching.

Step Count 2017: About 61,500 (14 stars)
-Daily injections, cutting back on everything to deal with tech, stress level 8+.

Step Count 2018: Over 57,200 (10 stars)
-Step counter bracket broke, cut little one doing nails, tornado in town.

Step Count 2019: Over 64,500 (14 stars)
-Guernsey package in, busy school (library on Sat), solo little one to sleep.

STEP COUNT 2020: Over 67,050. 11 stars.
SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 150 New (52 sent)
We have completed DAY 14. 3 PD, 2 No Students.
 +9 Daycare emails

RH Stress Level: 8 (Starlight Breaker Extension)

=======
Week 118
-After being in her room 1-3am and another wakeup, time after 7am to send email updates and finalize posts. Join after an hour, some back and forth, found smol cow and cat puzzle, none of us feeling great. More self time during story at 10am. Dad time for half an hour from 11am, then during snooze, which takes an hour to achieve. Check school messages, out for an hour myself. Phone g'parents. Self time to organize photos and prep emails. Dad time including running around house and velo in driveway. Family time after dinner, need saline for sleep. Each over 45 min to get crib. Email daycare. Bed downstairs before 11pm.
-Awake 6am, verify school messages, tidy kitchen, start some writing. Dad time from 7am, break 8am, then from 8:30am through to 3pm; no outside time, some downstairs, nap just over two hours. During nap, able to organize emails. From 3-4pm, worked on Quiz. Then Dad time including car around the house to 6pm. Quick tidy and dinner, family time in basement. Tidied and dishes during bath and sleep; down time starts 9pm. Bit of RDA, bed like before upstairs.
-One wakeup, decent sleep, dreamt of university classes but also a boat? (As part of curriculum?) Some Dad time until 7am, then writing time. Dad time from 8-10am (enjoyed teether), then prepped lesson files (from broken projector) until 11:30am. Made lunch. Sorted photos and finalized lessons until 2:30pm when phone woke from snooze. Dad time for an hour (reading), then all out for adult Covid Tests (drive thru). More Dad time, over 1.5 hr (water table, coffee sorting), half hour to finish schoolwork. Family time including dance, dinner. Moved phone to living room. She's asleep before 8pm, so worked out grocery orders and did some writing before 11pm.
-Awake 6am again (downstairs), more writing. Dad time 7am, family time, Dad time until 10am (she found fish ball). Finalized more lessons and found handouts, started quiz corrections. Family time noon, Dad time (with snooze) 12:30pm to 3:15pm. Finished quiz corrections on snooze; until 5:30pm did emails and finalized Epsilon10 to post. (They did Q-tip art!) Dad time 45 min outside, she wants to pick up sticks. (Negative results in.) Family time until after 7pm, bath. (Emailing all about negative results.) Back and forth, not asleep until 9pm. Too exhausted for much, bed before 11pm.
-One wakeup, decent sleep. Bought remote groceries for over 30 min, then Dad time for two hours (including cereals). From 10:30am, finalized Data projects and emails. Cooked lunch, then out to get groceries in trunk. Downstairs run (for once) then connected with Math in GMeet for grading support (video answers?). Dad time after 3pm for 2.5 hours including call to grandparents. Brief rest. Cook dinner (corns), last things. Still sleep troubles drag on until 9pm again. See Wednesday.
-Downstairs. Restless overnight all around; spooky dream*. Up before 5:30am to queue posts in Classroom. Upstairs to take over 6:30am, Dad time to near 8am, phone France. Quick release of Data Quizzes, then Dad time to 10:15am including gluing leaves and new paint (also she got me to mow). Corrected 1/3 of Data Assignments (others found pencil crayons). Lunch, then an hour to find snooze. Brief Dad time, then correct rest of Data Assignments. At 5:30pm, go to park, hell with it; Mom joins 6pm. Home 7pm for routine; need help again for getting to sleep before 9pm. Check messages, do dishes, oy.
-Awake from 4:30am basically. Rest from 7am; family time before going out to Tatie's. 2.5 hours of cleaning pantry (bags, flour, her area), vacuum carseat, lightbulb, etc. Have a run. After pickup, go shopping during snooze. Hour of Dad time, hour to lie down, then family time to park. Some Dad time with water table before 6pm. Wants sleep by 6:30pm but not asleep until after 8pm. Some videos, emails, checking for old tests. More "Life is Strange" comic, bed 11pm.
-AT4W catchup & Daily Show.

===
Item counts to Saturday (Sept 26):
Step Count 2016: About About 62,500
-Had an eye appointment, queued T&T for all Oct, started playing Sakura Dungeon.

Step Count 2017: About 65,500 (14 stars)
-School reprieve, sort of mending; became Time Travel Nexus writer, bought pants.

Step Count 2018: Over 63,500 (10 stars)
-Assembled playpen, little one rolling onto front, resumed some RP.

Step Count 2019: Over 68,900 (13 stars)
-School meets & math social approach breakdown, grading during Group w/ mom.

STEP COUNT 2020: Over 53,550. 4 stars.
SCHOOL EMAIL 2020: 104 New (37 sent)
We have completed DAY 19. I've taught for five days (3 of them unique).
 (Some sent were Daycare; removed daycare from inbox)

RH Stress Level: 7 (Starlight Breaker)

*****
CONSTANT TO-DO LIST:
 -Recap for OAME 2020
 -Sketches for 2019 holiday parody
 -2020 Banner for TPolys
 -Write a TANDQ article on Polling and Bias
 -Write a post about types of praise/encouragement
 -Catching up with web serials/comics (from ~August 2018)
 -Read some of the books sitting at my desk

Sunday 20 September 2020

Summer's End 2020

 It's the 7th annual "Year End" recap post. (Started in 2013, did not run in 2016 as that's the year I wasn't teaching.) Again, the end of August is the true end of the year, no matter what the Gregorian Calendar claims. That's teaching life.

If you want to see my thoughts on 2019 (for comparison or whatever), you can find them here. But this post is largely for me, to celebrate the stuff that I actually got done.

The main thing over the past year has continued to be raising a daughter, who has turned two years old. A close second has been the crazy fallout from the pandemic.

Thank goodness Daycare resumed near the start of July, both for the sake of my own sanity (I didn't have any days off from April through to June, no weekends since that's when my wife could be with little one), and for the sake of her socializing with other kids her age (not to mention doing different art projects each week instead of the same old, same old).

Of course, we also lost our initial Daycare in February (with a month of advance warning) so those were some gymnastics done there to find a replacement during exam time in January. She went from being in a home daycare near our house (Sept-Jan) to being in the Daycare attached to my school (Feb, Mar, July, Aug). At least it worked out.

I put together my videos for her again last month... but now I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's do the usual categories.

WORK RELATED

At the start of last year (again, September 2019), I decided I would revamp my MDM4U Statistics course. To have it start with more Statistics and deal with the hardest Probability counting later on. THANK. GOD.

If I had waited to do that until January/February, it would have meant that I was still juggling units in the middle of the pandemic. As it was, that course could run (mostly) smoothly by then, giving me time to try and jam the MCR 3U course into a timeline that made covering all the expectations literally impossible.

(For those not in Ontario, we were only allowed to assign three hours of work per week from April onwards, all inclusive for lessons/practice/evaluation. Which makes sense, but ugh.)

So the Data course is looking good, though I'll want to continue to update certain items, perhaps with some eye towards Covid (as "flattening the curve" ties in directly).

At the same time, I was teaching MAP 4C in September, a course I hadn't taught in a few years. So I needed to update the materials for that as well. New assignments to go with the tests, in particular. Hence most of my Semester One efforts were geared towards that, and towards the Data... my 3U class was a bit more by-the-numbers as a result (until second semester).

What I thought would be one of the major school events was the time I helped to break up a gang war, in November. Seriously, I saw two students going at it outside my window and ran out. Tunnel vision prevented me from seeing another half dozen students further back in the parking lot. Fortunately there were a few other teachers, and then police arrived. I got to see everything on the surveillance cameras in the following weeks.

There was also a funeral for a colleague that month, cancer sucks.

Then the pandemic arrived in March.

For MDM, the powerpoint I made on account of the consecutive snow days in January 2019 was useful to end off the pandemic over a year later, and the Culminating Project (usually running surveys in the school and doing an analysis of result) became a Probability Project (retooled from a couple years ago, investigating a question).

That cleared the board, except for the fact that my not-yet-two daughter was home. As I started to come to grips with how I'd handle the 3U, I retooled all my slides from first semester to be more like "Discussions" between a teacher and an imaginary student, supplementing with anime graphics.

I feel like it took less time (and was more effective) than trying to shoot videos in the evenings after little one was asleep, but maybe it was just because I enjoyed doing it more. I did shoot two short videos (holes in graphs, and ambiguous case) and found YouTube links that already existed to supplement other topics.

What about events outside the curriculum?

There was the Strike action, that started late in 2019, because our Conservative Provincial government is trying to increase class sizes and force online learning for no good reason (aside from getting rid of a bunch of teachers, I guess). We settled after the pandemic hit, having moved the government slightly from their hard line.

There was only the one school musical, "Hunchback of Notre Dame", and while I put together some materials near the start, I didn't help much in person until February. The show went ahead in early March, a week before everything got shut down. Most other Cappies schools were not as lucky, so there was no voting and a virtual celebration.

Related, I did have to be a Review Cappies Critic in December, for Ashbury's "Avenue Q". (And much like in Dec 2017, I almost became Editor instead, but as then, it didn't happen.) Fortunately the location was convenient.

OAME 2020 wasn't going to be a consideration (in part because without me, the only family member who can drive, my daughter now cannot get to Daycare). But then it went virtual, so I did attend a couple of sessions (that I eventually hope to recap) in late May.

Related, I'm still the COMA secretary... except now we're O34ME and lots of rebranding has been done since Sept 2019. I didn't attend the retreats, where the minutes formatting got updated too.

Last thing I'll mention - since my Cubic Formula song was at 5,643 views last year - is that now it's reached 6,678. I should maybe get to answering comments, but my priority tends to be my blogs. I did manage a couple new song parodies, but now we're getting into Hobbies.

HOBBY RELATED

I did not get to CanCon 2019 and Anime North 2020 was cancelled... though I did briefly join the "Momiji's Online Experience" (MOE) livestream in late July. Watched a bit of 404s, D20 Live (ironically prerecorded) and added commentary to their channel.

The "Comic Tea Party" Discord channel and asynchronous chat officially closed its doors at the start of August. I participated briefly in November, and then through July... possibly one or two other times. I'm very behind in all my comic and serial readings but I'm glad I got back to it a bit.

I still did writing in 2019 for the "Time Travel Nexus", namely the "Sandglass of Summer Colours" anime OAV (two columns), the "BTTF: Tales from the Time Train" comic review, and the "Jughead's Time Police" revamp recap under the Archie Forever title umbrella. These efforts also necessitating doing screen caps and scans.

Then in December I got sick, in 2020 we lost our Daycare, and the world hit a pandemic, so I haven't gotten back to it.

For more on time travel, I saw "Primer" in Sept 2019 (when the rest of the family went on a weekend trip) which was mind bending as promised. And I watched "Steins;Gate 0" in August 2020 once Alexandra was back in Daycare. I'd received it for my birthday in April, and figured it might be my last chance to have a couple weeks free... I even did a Series Scan set of posts about it.

"Time Untied" (my serial sequel) was at about 82,000 words this time last year. November's NaNoWriMo added another 33,000. This was followed by 12,000 more in July's NaNo Camp. So we've reached about 127,000 and we're almost at the climax... but I think my next task has to be edits, as I need to assemble the timeline properly for continuing.

Also, said climax is only technically the halfway point, so obviously that effort will be "two books" the same way "Time & Tied" was split.

JENNY IRVING
Commission from Mharz
Related, I requested new commission art from Mharz at the end of August, of the Irving sisters, which basically assembles a full cast now (minus Carey). Might post about that.

No work on the "Any ~Qs" webcomic. I managed a holiday parody, though at school I did a "Frozen" reprise as nothing was finished in time for the assembly. I still need to get through the 2019 banner (though I did rough it out in late March). Trying to work with the tablet just seems to be a roadblock, I don't have the time for art these days.

I still want to have something for the two new parodies though, one written in late August (generic about training), and one written in mid-October (for lines). Also perhaps a banner for this year. But now I'm simply waxing nostalgic.

On my serial website, "Balancing Act" with Melissa Virga continued posting every two weeks, running through Act 4, Act 5 and Act 6. I only managed a Summary of 2019 post in February, regarding stats and 2019 coins. The serial then finished at the end of April (and I managed a "Behind the Scenes" post too).

It's been followed by a new Epsilon: Smoke With Mirrors. There's a dimensional pandemic, because I was doing some research on those anyway (go figure). We're at eight entries so far, still clawing to get up to five votes. I've been posting to "Tuesday Serial" but continue to struggle with views.

On THIS blog, I wrote a political column to Vote before the Federal Election in 2019, and posted OAME and Professional Development summaries last October 2019. Yeah, summer and September is really the only time I have for this sort of writing (and September is kind of out this year, what with the chaos of the virtual school changing courses around).

I guess there's also been my Parenting Posts, running monthly, as I update my life. I posted the Steins;Gate Zero series scan. And I was able to post about my stress meter at last (started writing it to begin July, completed it almost 8 weeks later). This is post 525.

Other minor things, I continue to take many photographs of my daughter, and as I mentioned above I put together a video for her Second Year (in early July) and of her Second Birthday (same time). She seems to like watching the second one. There's also a couple of quick videos related to her dancing and speaking words. The new camera I got for Christmas has been lovely.

Her origins book has been written as of late August, but needs translation and more photos to be assembled before it could locally be printed. (I really wanted it for her second birthday, but no free time with the pandemic made that impossible.)

For Role-play, never got around to meeting up with people in person, but I did a bit of gaming through Roll20.net with someone I know locally. (Star Trek and Cthulhu.) There was also a write-in game on the system in July for Camp NaNo. System says I've played there for about 13 hours.

Not sure how I feel about all this. I wanted more, but see no way to have fit it in, short of watching fewer online videos which was kind of my sanity branch.

UPKEEP RELATED

Had to repair the Air Conditioning in the car, to the tune of $2,000. Taking long trips with the little one to see grandparents, etc in a hot August.

I planted grass seed in April, in a patch of dirt that is rather shaded by a tree in late summer. Watered it carefully, and the little one enjoyed reminding me to keep it watered. Got some nice grass by May. Very distracted in June. By the end of July, it was all gone. Not dead (ie brown), gone, probably a combination of heat, shade and less water. Sigh.

The cedars are still dead. The kitchen faucet has been busted for over a year now (terrible water pressure), I managed to contact the plumber we used four years ago in late August but we're no longer in his area.

My wife switched us off Rogers in the summer. Our internet went out in the midst of the pandemic, and I had to drive to the library to connect up with my students. We were given a timeline of a week to fix, then maybe more, then it ended up being a week, but then they charged us for not returning the broken modem. Also our TV hasn't worked properly for over a year. Screw Rogers.

Steins;Gate Zero Image
The last movie I saw in theatres was 'Frozen II' in early January, just before I had to pick up early from Daycare on account of a cold. The last movie I saw with other people was Star Wars' "Rise of Skywalker". There's been a couple meetings with friends (on patios with masks) in the summer but I think that's done with school resuming.

I watched both "Doctor Who" and "Picard" in early 2020 (until the end in March). Those were good. Is this still Upkeep? I don't know any more.

MISCELLANEOUS

I now have a smart phone, because my flip-phone went missing a little before the pandemic (noticed it wasn't in the car one day during Strike action, so no idea). It's also not on Bell, so both big phone companies are gone, I guess. I need a phone, to be able to pick up Alexandra within 30 minutes if she shows symptoms of anything. It's also useful for not bringing my personal laptop to school.

My pedometer's fine. I read a Star Trek crossover book regarding time travel ("No Time Like The Past") from end of July through August (rather than reading many books on my desk). I've also been reading more yuri manga (largely while waiting for a COVID-19 test, and one morning while waiting to get a blood test). Still "Kase-san" and "Yuri is my Job" (new entries), "After Hours" (three and done), other misc.

I bought more comic anthologies for "Life is Strange" but haven't had a chance to read those yet. My alarm clock died, it's likely the power cable. I won a free movie pass by buying Wonder Women Doritoes, which fortunately doesn't expire, because pandemic.

I was part of a "Super Dads" workshop that began in January, went on hiatus two sessions away from ending on account of the pandemic, and now I dunno (it was free though). There's also been online Dad sessions I've attended put on by Dove+. I seem to be handling the Dad thing okay?

WHERE TO NEXT

I'd like to at least post up the 2019 song stuff, but that necessitates some sketches, in my mind. Fixing the math-tans banners would be good too. Alexandra's Story is much closer to being done, and should probably be a priority.

Beyond that, there's dealing with "Time Untied", as per usual, except with edits, as I said. Except I also need to handle teaching in a way I've never done it before... with plans changing all the time as our incompetent Minister of Education can't make a decision other than 'do everything like normal'. (And Ford touts Lecce as doing a great job.)

And my little one could fall ill or need a pickup at any point. Family stress is real. I think the Fall is going to be a mess. Count myself lucky if I get through any of what I just said.

I have zip-all clues about what 2021 is going to look like, so no point planning that far.

I guess we'll call it there. Things happened. It wasn't great, it sure could have been worse. As I said last time, if you have any particular questions about teaching or parenting, I'll see what I can do? Thanks for reading my mental rambling.