Aaaaarrrgggghhh - Room 101

[Nonny Mouse]

EXCEPT that late last night they sent an email saying the whole first quarter WILL be on online! What a relief!

[Sandra]

Our town is having a kick in numbers - Adrian is no longer officially 'shielding' but that is what we are doing from this evening.

Oh look 8am start at the market again reduced chances of meeting morons

[phalarope]

Excellent Nonny! Sometimes sanity and sense prevails.

I know what you mean about early shopping to avoid the morons, Sandra. Sometimes I flip it and go quite late in the evening, too.

[Nonny Mouse]

Well, one of the history teachers actually died from COVID a few weeks ago, and I bet that put some sense into the school administration.

Our Gov is getting praised for getting our state under control, but heck it's easy to have half the cases when you're doing half the testing (which they are). So it's full of shit. AND he did doodly f*ing squat. He only said he wouldn't stop local governments from making their own mandates, which they immediately did. And HE didn't push out the school dates, the individual school districts did. Failure at the top, and local governments have to take over since there isn't any proper leadership. So don't let the news fool you, our governor sucks.

A colleague of mine at work was expressing frustration at the school pushout, fretting over what the kids will lose by not having a normal school year. I didn't argue with her, because I don't like to fight out sensitive topics with work ppl, but I was thinking, well, losing friends, family, or teachers to it would also have lasting effects on them, and coping with falling behind is much easier when you are alive. And honestly I think the kids will bounce back and be just fine in the future. There may be a little bit of struggling right after, but I believe they can cope.

[Sandra]

One of the problems is the recent doctrine that each day of missed school damages education.

Now that may be true (I got shifted between schools so much I don't even know how many I attended) but what is known is that grief definitely causes problems with education. At some point someone will have to quantify these two damages and wok out how many days off equal the loss of a close family member.

And that doesn't address how many children are going to become carers due to post viral malaise - and that does ruin their childhood.

[Nonny Mouse]

Thanks Sandra.

Also, the kids are doing work online, so it's not entirely missed. It's just a less ideal option for some kids.

[Catch-up]

Nonny, how awful that one of the teachers died. And, right there with you. I'm saying the same thing to people. Missing the face to face is surmountable, missing the socialization is surmountable - heck even an entire missed year of school is surmountable. Dead is not. What ARE people thinking?? Someone posted on a community FB group that the kids could deal with going to school with all of the safety measures because they're so resilient. Um... they're so resilient that they'll also deal with a full virtual year of learning just fine? No matter what the schools choose to do, our girls are not doing face to face. It's not safe.

[Nonny Mouse]

Catch-up, you are totally right. I'd rather my kids simply be backed up a year than, you know, have anybody die.

[Squigglyx]

Andrea and I both had a week of work last week, so we decided to have a couple of days in Liverpool. booked an hotel room right on the waterfront at Albert Dock and had 2 wonderful days with everyone keeping tp the social distancing rules in and around the hotel and in restaurants and bars.
However our superb week came to an abrupt end on the way back to Andrea's on the Friday. Joining onto the M6 from the M58 motorway, there was a lot of traffic and the guy in front was reluctant to pull into the main stream of traffic. I could see a sizeable gap in my wing mirror that both of us could get into. He started to accelerate and looked like he was going for it, so I accelerated also, then he changed his mind and slammed his brakes on. I braked hard ans managed to stop before hitting him, however the car behind me didn't stop in time and ran into the rear of my car.
No injuries and not too much damage, but just the inconvenience of an insurance claim and car off the road for a few days.
This morning, I awoke at Andrea's and had a text from my son back at my house. He had been upstairs on his computer last night when somebody came into the house and stole the play station, he'd called the police and handled everything well and not worth a claim on the house insurance. nothing else taken and no damage anywhere.

Just waiting for disaster #3 to hit now!!!!

[Catch-up]

So sorry Squiggly! Fingers crossed that there isn't a #3!

[phazedout]

So i awoke on friday morning to a message from Essi on whatsapp saying i wasn't avaiable on messenger.
I went to login and.. i'm banned. Faceborg demanded my id and phone number which i supplied, at this point i have zero feedback, ero engagement and no ide what i did wrong.
There's no timeline, and i use messenger mostly to communcate wiht friends worldwide and support poeple in groups like WAd as well as venting and now it's... gone and i don't know if it will ever come back
I will say i'm happy to not spending hours doomscrolling and i'm reading more, but i miss messenger and hav been jumping through hoops to find alternative ways to contact people but hey its just, weird to be off.
Phaze

[Vorlina]

We miss you too, Phaze!

[Pat]

Are they Discworld fans? Maybe they would like these masks.

The Josh Kirby masks are very comfortable (even for people with big heads - they do 4 sizes) but it doesn't half look like you've got your nose buried in something from Victoria's Secret...

[chrisboote]

And what's wrong with that?

[phalarope]

Nanomanager.

I don't want the whole staff traipsing into my office to fill out covid tracking forms every day. Since when is this acceptable? Staff consensus is to place them on top of a cabinet in the hallway. Everyone can reach the folder there. Nanomanager says no. Must place them in the fish necropsy lab. Which has a door closer on it so everyone has to operate the door handle. Because nothing is ever a good idea unless she has made the decision. WHEERE do they find these people?