Pandemic - Blog Posts
I hope he’s lying...
I sometimes wonder what parents are thinking when they shroud their children in ignorance…
Are they protecting themselves from having to explain the virus?
Are they bamboozled into thinking that there is no pandemic?
They vaccinate their son against the flu yet he has no idea what ‘corona’ or ‘covid-19’ is…
What does he think of these masks then? A sudden fashion trend?
At least he wasn’t told it was all an elaborate hoax…
Ninth Classroom...
I bounced from school-to-school for a while before landing…
I was placed in a pull-out position where I would work with English Language Learners…
They were new to the country and new to the school…
A lot of the students were true beginners unable to associate phoneme to letter…
It was a lot of work, considering I only see them twice a week for half an hour at most…
Hybrid classes…come to school two days…go virtual three…
Except they don’t show up and do no work…
Fortunately, I’m not a ‘real’ teacher yet…
They only get some additional language support from me…completely homework free.
Of if they needed to talk…I was always willing to listen.
The Pandemic is hard on all of us…
Forget your standards and your deadlines…
Let children be children…
Seventh Classroom…
It was mostly in the library at first…
A pull out situation for English Language Learners…
Three and a half weeks were spent on ACCESS testing…
Two weeks were spent in the classroom…
Then BOOM: Pandemic…
There was no reason for me to stay at the Grad House so I left…
Well, I picked up UDairy Ice Cream and Ramen from Kumamoto in Newark, DE…
THEN I left…
So really, my seventh classroom was mostly on Zoom…
I did not end up doing the edTPA…
But I have a lesson, materials, and assessments set up to do so…
The Loner - Short Story
Birth
Like most children, the Loner was born crying. Unlike most children, the Loner was also born fighting, squirming violently in the arms of the doctor as he tried to hand them to their mother. Their parents never quite knew what to do with them as they grew up, that vicious fighting instinct sticking with them even as they learned other ways to vent their emotions. When the Loner finally learned to speak, among their first words was the persistent repetition of the word “doom”.
Early Years
The Loner’s childhood was filled with just that: loneliness. Since learning to talk, they never quite learned to filter their language. The topic of doom—with occasional variations of “the end of the world” and “Armageddon”—was almost always on their lips. Their parents came to ignore it, pretending it wasn’t happening, just like they did with everything else they deemed odd from their child. The children at school never managed to do the same. They always did their best to steer clear of the Loner, even when all they wanted was something as harmless as teaching their peers how to efficiently sharpen a stick into a spear.
The Collection
Shortly after the Loner entered second grade, a secret collection of food began to grow in their bedroom. They quickly discovered the short lives of the bananas and ham and cheese sandwiches their mother packed for their lunches. The cans they stole from the pantry, however, never seemed to fail them as the other foods did. Cans accumulated in every hidden corner of their room: under the bed, at the back of the closet, and at the bottom of their toybox.
The Model
High school shop class quickly established itself as a favorite of the Loner. They were allowed to build whatever they wanted, so long as they made sure to complete their actual assignments, and it was in that class that they built their first bunker model. Wood sanded perfectly smooth held the shape of their dream home and they could barely hold back their excitement over their creation. The Loner proudly showed the model off to their parents and, met with their characteristic disappointment and disapproval, resolved to keep it hidden on the top shelf in their closet. Only they could truly appreciate the craftsmanship.
Higher Education
College was never in the Loner’s plans. Their parents begged them to go, but there was nothing they could do when the Loner signed up for a survival camp instead. It wasn’t different from most other summer camps, aside from the poisoned water and the death of four campers. There, the Loner finally received the final pieces of their education and when they returned from camp, they were ready to move out into the world on their own.
Home
The Loner’s first home was, as it would turn out, also their final home. They hand-built their fortress in a section of forest just near enough to society to reasonably live. Everything about it was perfect from the complex water filtration system, to the diverse garden in the greenhouse, to even the armory hidden in the basement. Their favorite part of their home was none of those details, but rather the bunker nestled below the basement. It matched that first prototype almost exactly, with only a few important differences in the air filtration system and the food storage. As the rug that laid before their front door said, this was truly their “Home Sweet Home”.
The Outbreak
The day the first outbreak aired on the news, a persistent knocking came at the Loner’s door. They knew who their guests were even before checking the security cameras; their parents, old teachers, and old classmates crowded at their doorstep. Everything the Loner had warned and tried to teach them about was coming true and they begged the Loner to save them. The Loner contemplated their options for dealing with their unexpected guests for a while—days, actually—before making their decision. They knew they’d be hated for their choice but, as they reasoned with themselves, they only had accommodations for one.
Survival
Long after those guests rotted away, the Loner lived peacefully in the fortress they’d built. Every aspect of the survival system they’d created served them dutifully. Despite its perfect working condition, they spent much of their free time even further upgrading their home, just for fun. As soon as the Loner managed to fix the local telephone lines, communication was quickly revived in the surrounding area. It took some time, but a close community of survivors eventually rose from the ashes of their fallen society.
They knew it was still too dangerous to travel outside so underground tunnels were soon built between the survivors’ homes, further connecting their new community. After a month of heavy negotiation, a simple trade system was established in their community, allowing proper sharing of all of their resources. The Loner was everyone’s go-to person for whatever they might need, and the Loner’s prices were always the fairest in the community. Despite the unlivable conditions beyond their walls, the Loner eventually settled into a comfortable life. They finally weren’t alone.
Death
Of all of the causes the members of the old society died from, the Loner died peacefully of old age. The friends they’d made in local survivors made the journey to their fortress to stay with them in their final hours. It was a peaceful release, the most peaceful the survivors witnessed in the many years following the outbreak, and it was the end of the Loner’s long life.
This is a piece I wrote for a creative writing course I took recently. I don’t have any current plans to continue it but I thought it’d be nice to share it with you all! I hope you guys like it!
So apparently in my part of Texas there will be a full lockdown where you can only go out if certified for work or getting groceries. It's official, Plague Inc has become reality. Thanks Corona! 😑
People. Are. Dying. PLEASE REBLOG! And donate if you can!
So, India is dying.
Look, I know a good number of you are from the US and things aren't amazing there either, but my country is literally on the brink of collapse. So I'd love it if we could talk about that for a minute.
If you can't do anything else, please just read and reblog.
A second COVID wave has taken out the healthcare system. There are no more hospital beds. There's an oxygen shortage. There's a critical vaccine shortage. The Central Government has thrown its hands up and is passing the baton to the State Governments to do what they can.
There are over 16 million covid cases. A record 330,000 new cases reported yesterday - comparable to the US at its peak. 187,000 dead as of today.
There is no plan.
Mass cremations are taking place. The cremation grounds are running day and night and they are short on wood. People are watching their loved ones die while waiting for a hospital bed, and then they're unable to give them the proper burial rights.
Hospitals are overwhelmed. Patients are being confined, two to a bed. They're the lucky ones.
We are on the verge of people dying in the streets.
This is the second-most populous country in the world. The largest democracy. A country that encapsulates over 15,000 years of recorded human history and has endured everything from famine to invasion to colonisation.
We might be at the end. This might be the thing that does us in.
People are dying.
People are dying.
People are dying and there is no plan.
More good news? Variants are popping up. A double mutation strain has shown up. It is resistant to current vaccines. This will not go away. This is the devastation they warned of when the anti-maskers were out protesting the minor inconvenience of covering their face in public.
My country is on the verge of an emergency state. Our government has failed us. This is as dire a situation as it ever could be.
Look. I don't do much with my life. I write fics, some of you have read them and that's pretty much it. I spend my days with my head in the clouds because that's where I like to be.
But two days ago, my grandmother tested positive, had to be taken to hospital and the ambulance caught fire.
She barely made it to the urgent care she needs.
So, here I am, using whatever meager platform I have to cobble this request together. Because I have to do something.
If you can, donate.
Or spread the word.
Help. Please.
Shady Places - Issue 14
Okay so people really need to fucking understand that you might be all strong and have a good immunity, but not taking precautions can put others you come in contact with at risk. I’ve seen several DUMBASS KIDS carry masks in their fucking pockets, touch a MILLION surfaces prone to viral contamination and THEN put the mask on with those VERY HANDS, touching the fucking entire surface of the mask INSIDE AND OUT, thus probably contaminating it. It’s not just about the masks, it’s about trying to avoid contact with any surface that could transmit the virus from one place to another. A mask is not the solution to the virus, it’s a precaution, and a really fucking important one. This needs so many more notes, and needs to be put out on as many social media and other platforms by as many accounts as possible. Putting others at risk because taking certain precautions is not convenient to you is not a fucking excuse.
What quarantine feels like:
