Thursday 31 March 2022

Summer's End 2021

 It's the 8th annual "Year End" recap post. (Started in 2013, did not run in 2016 as that's the year I wasn't teaching.) As I've said before, the end of August is the true end of the year, no matter what the Gregorian Calendar claims. That's teaching life.

Now, the fact that I'm posting this in MARCH 2022 instead of Sept 2021 is probably an indication of how next year's wrap-up is going to go. Though I did have the first part of this post done August 23rd. Anyway.

On the parenting side, daycare ran smoothly from Sept 2020 to Dec, then little one shifted to Preschool from Jan to "present"... being end of August 2021. Less some days for over half a dozen Covid tests. All negative, and all just runny noses for symptoms except in one case. (Which I still think was Roseola but we never saw a doctor in person on the rash, just CHEO during the fever stage.)

So that gave me some time. Mostly for work.

WORK RELATED

All the June schedules were retooled in Sept 2020 as students went virtual (effectively it's own separate school), changing the number of school sections. I ended up with MBF 3C, a course I hadn't taught in six years. Had to update the finance, among other things. (Wait, Canada Savings Bonds ended in 2017?)

We also had no semesters, but quadmesters of two courses (so four sets of P/T interviews), alternating weeks. This meant my prep time was full weeks in Sept to Nov and Feb to Apr. Otherwise (eg. Apr to June), NO prep time, ALL teaching.

First quadmester was all in person, second was split (fully virtual in January), third was in person but with the loss of March Break messing with scheduling, and the fourth was fully virtual in April (I thought we'd go back in June, nope). So even though I taught 3M and Data twice, it was different circumstances each time.

Learned Google Classroom. Also Google Meet. And learned about online software that could read SmartBoard files (thank you tech help). In the end, while remote, I had to upload the files from my computer, write on them using my Chromebook stylus during the Meet, download the written files in PDF, and reupload to Classroom. Still faster and easier than trying to figure out another way of teaching from home.

And of course, every day I taught remotely I had to drive to school, drop off my daughter, drive home to teach, then repeat the process at the end of the day. So I bought gas twice as often.

A bunch of otherwise normal items were retooled when things went online, including the evaluations, where I gave multiple options for some questions to catch the dishonest. (For example, choose 3% or 4% to answer this question... if strange answers match and choices too, well...) And much like last June, there was a massive such dishonesty case in June 2021. (This time it was in 4U Data, not 3U, but I guess it's the same cohort?)

Exams were nixed, of course, with classes those days instead, weirding the timelines. (Can't have anything due the last day, no time to grade it.) Did my best to pull people to credits wherever possible.

Shadowed the Virtual School's anime club (run by a teacher who shifted to virtual but of course still had to come to the building). It was often running when I was teaching, but occasionally I was there if it was prep week. That's about all I managed outside curriculum, aside from math contests. (Time factor, not an in person limitation.)

"This" month (Aug 2021), I put in for a reduction to 67% which was granted by mutual consent. Because I have a new course (MHF 4U), and 3C is back, and I already had one breakdown at the end of June over both of them existing at once. I strongly suspect I won't make it through the next few months without being part time. (Update: I was very much correct.)

I did get to a couple OAME 2021 sessions in May. I'm still the COMA secretary. My Cubic Formula song is just over 8,000 views in March 2022. I did write a new parody to end the summer that I haven't been able to put online yet. I'm sick of teaching. Let's move on.

HOBBY RELATED

As I said, there hasn't been much time for this. So I'm moving the yuri up here instead of leaving it for Miscellaneous as it's become something of a hobby. As in something I can read on my 10 or 20 minute runs.

The manga and light novels included "Adachi and Shimamura" (through book 4), "Fragtime" (in Nov 2020), "Strawberry Fields" (3 book series) and "I'm in Love with the Villainess" (started April 2021, only just started book 3 in late August). Also watched the Kase-San movie that I got back in April to end off the summer/year here.

I read some time comics too, "Life is Strange" and the BTTF/Transformers crossover. Also free comics, handed out earlier this month (in August) this past year. Bank Street had them outside, the weather was good. The only book I managed to read was "How to be an Antiracist" (Ibram X. Kendi) which was part of our book club at school. I'm so behind in webcomics and everything else.

I managed to keep up biweekly with writing "Epsilon Project" and their pandemic storyline, which had started in May 2020 and continued into April 2021. Ever since April, that blog has been about posting reruns (from old mathNEWS), many posts queued up months in advance.

Before "Epsilon" ended, I'd joined the 2021 Serial April Fools Swap in mid-March (when someone else dropped out and I was asked if I wanted to fill the gap). Somehow managed to read and write an entry for someone else, without having a March Break. And of course, now that I go to link to "Lemongrass: The Chaotic Life of Meadow Song" I find it's 404ed. (I know the author took a break later that April...)

I also not only wrote but recorded the 10th Annual Christmath Parody, "Solving for Unknowns" as a video for the school announcements (no Xmas assembly, of course). And I got my 2019 math parodies online at last, in April 2021 (the "new March Break"), with art: "Only When We Train" (Aug 2019) and "I Graph The Line" (Oct 2019).

Nothing else for personified math, except in summer 2021 I had to convert all the old Google Sites Personified Serial Entries to the new Google format. (That took time, the images were never placed right after conversion.) The new song I wrote in August 2021 is about logs, no clue when I'll get that up.

And of course, the big one in writing is "Time Untied" (my serial sequel).

Was at about 82,000 words in August 2019, about 127,000 words in August 2020, and this year saw more writing in November (for NaNo). Finally got it to the climax... the first one. With over 25,000 more words. That was after I'd done some October edits, in light of the weird "week of prep" quadmester schedule. Meaning more edits were done in February and March.

Since 150,000 words and still going means this needs to be two books, I split it after 10 parts, and later reformatted the start of the subsequent "Time Denied" book for the Ink & Insights competition at the end of June 2021. I figure feedback is good, under the circumstances. I continued the writing in July, with the last edits being August 8th to file "L". (A to J being the full "Untied" book.)

In December 2020 I finalized Alexandra's story translations and photos, in time for Christmas. I also managed to make some more videos of her, including Circle Time in March and a couple for her June birthday (in July). Also compilations for Year 3 which I hadn't been sure about doing but decided yeah.

In August 2021 I was able to post to the blog about some PD sessions, having not posted since November 2020. (Not counting the parenting summaries, which I no longer post but still do offline.)

On the role-play side, Tom started up another TORG campaign, so Ben Asim (from 2017) got dusted off and updated for some play in September/October 2020. Then came a follow-up campaign in January 2021, where a backup Avril Carroll was created, but Ben was the one used for gaming in February, March, July and August.

Through it all, I had several temporary breakdowns. My stress levels were consistently over 5. I'm not sure if that counts as a hobby, but it's what was happening in my spare time. Anyway.

UPKEEP RELATED

The garage door broke in April 2021, and the chain mechanism had to be replaced. The fridge filter broke in July 2021, and is still broken (in March 2022). I got a Pfizer shot in mid-May (a little before the presumed Roseola rash with little one) and a Moderna shot in July (earlier than originally scheduled, that being the start of September, which would have been not entirely useful).

The vaccinating meant we felt safe enough taking a trip in late July to visit my parents (and little one's cousins). Followed by a trip to the Piquard Cottage in August. The car air conditioning had failed before that, but was still under warranty from last year, so yay. The perpetually broken kitchen faucet also got replaced in late August, so yay water at more than a trickle.

The property outside is still something of a mess. I've given up on grass, never had time to clean the deck, and the driveway is starting to fracture from the roots underneath. It is what it is. The interior looks pretty good.

MISCELLANEOUS

What else goes here? Well, CBC finished their "Element of Surprise" this past month (August 2021), that was a fun thing to listen to on Tuesdays. Me and Anne-Lise actually went out for our Anniversary in the month too, since the France grandparents could mind the little one (ordered from Pelican Grill and went to park).

Other than that, phone's fine. Pedometer's fine but the online tracking ends for it when 2021 ends. Yeah, life is pretty much school, parenting, and trying to carve out time for hobbies around those.

WHERE TO NEXT

The units/lessons for the new MHF 4U course need to be put together, pretty sure this isn't the last time I'll see that course (now that Grade 9 and 10 are getting disrupted). Updating the personified math banner should happen.

I think parts A to J of "Time Untied" will just need to sit there now, until I work through "Time Denied" to the point where everything hooks back into needing to update "Untied". One hopes I have time. Publicizing any of my stuff remains pretty much a non-event.

Something exactly the same as in 2020, little one could fall ill or need a pickup at any point. Family stress is real. This pandemic is not going away, and needs to be dealt with more seriously. (But no, instead let's have a federal election during which Ford vanishes in the province, right.)

I don't know. At this point I'm half a year behind even publishing this, so let's just reiterate more from 2020 as we call it a day:

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.

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