I know – a weekend post? What the what?
It’s 2:30 in the morning and I am up. It’s not because I can’t sleep, it’s because I’ve had plenty of sleep. It was a long, weird Friday and I was asleep on the sofa before 8. I woke up a little while ago and the snow is falling. It’s peaceful and I’m not tired, so I’m going to get some chores done and do some recording of the state of the situation.
The Coronavirus is happening now, and the world is different. There are so many opinions being swirled with facts and it is becoming exhausting. Just so we’re clear where my position is: I fell that 1) yes, we should be doing things to ‘flatten the curve’; 2) I don’t think Nebraska is in actual danger right now, but it is smart to think ahead, 3) I think stockpiling toilet paper is insane and those people should get their head examined, 4) I do have a bunch of food (people and cat), but only slightly more than we would have on hand normally. In a nutshell, I am ready in case we would need to stay home, but the likelihood of my actually having to stay home is low.
Several school districts have closed school around us for 1 – 3-ish weeks. Our church has suspended services for a while. Concordia has extended spring break and will have online classes for a while when they resume. Seward hasn’t closed school yet, but schools have online teaching plans in place for when they do.
Yesterday was our planned professional day. We began by learning about the crisis app that we will use to announce – LOUDLY – when there is an intruder in the building. Fun. Then we worked with our security guy to practice our intruder drills while he fired blanks in the hallway. Zoinks. Fun. Then we talked about what we’ll need to do should the health department tells us to close. We need to come up with on-line/take-home work for the children so that our hourly workers can continue to get paid. Fun. Then we had our regularly scheduled professional development and work time. Fun.
Four of our staff are pregnant, and they are understandably on edge during this time. The day ended with some tears for some, and a sense of “God’s got this, but man, this is weird” for the rest of us. I bet I wasn’t the only one to conk out early.
Anyway, I’m going to load the dishwasher and clean up a little. I’ll catch up with you all later.
Prayers and soap.
Deborah says
Thank you for writing about this. The whole thing is surreal. I would just like adults to remain calm around the children, including high school children. My most relaxing times this week were in my classroom where I could focus on regular stuff. I did talk to my students (calmly) yesterday and said to them that we need to pray, not panic. We had also just talked about Hezekiah the day before in religion class (2 Kings 20). It’s reassuring. I recommend reading it.
So surreal.
Quiana says
Hi internet friend. I’m in Seattle and it’s both as bad and not as bad as they say. We’re being advised to stock up a bit further in case we need to be further isolated and nearly every worker who can work from home is being sent home to protect the folks who can’t be home. Schools are closed until late April. Our friends abroad are saying to take it very seriously.
I’m sending good thoughts your way. And some advice from Seattle: buy a bidet. 🙂
Lauren says
Hi, Quiana! Yay!! How good to hear that you are doing well!
One of our college workers went to Seattle for spring break and we have to hear from the health department if she can return or not. Yikes. Please stay healthy and thank you for the bidet advice! (I’ve already looked up how to make a portable one from a bottle. I love that kind of stuff.)
Brad says
Maybe it’s because I’ve been spending a lot of time by myself the last two days, but things seem more normal-ish here. We still have church tomorrow. School is out only because it’s spring break. There isn’t much toilet paper in stores, but I think the food is doing ok. I’m washing my hands more than normal, but other than than that, things don’t seem too weird. Maybe once we have more cases here things will get more intense…