Couch 212: The French Vanilla couch

Yup. I teach AP English. Quite a few international schools are shut down, and more and more U.S. schools are shutting down. Makes prep grind to a halt; not every school is set up for online learning (mine certainly isn't as a Title I school). The scoring is a HUGE week long event in Tampa with nearly 3000 teachers all in one convention center reading essays, all having flown in and put up in hotels. June seems forever away, but all seems very much up in the air.

I also score SAT essays. Many international testing centers have been shut down and, again, some local. We're scoring right now but haven't heard how this affects our scoring window, etc.

Even my church choir party has been postponed because one of our members just went on a cruise (fool - she really is one of those superior "the rules don't apply to me" kind of people) and is now quarantined so they've decided to delay (doesn't completely make sense to me but I think she was supposed to be one of the hosts or something). Whatever.

Still hoping seasonal change works for this virus like it does for flu and things will start subsiding.

I know, but i think they have one of the lowest birth rates.

Given how it’s flourishing in a number of different climates, I’m not holding my breath.

One of my colleagues was telling me his grandfather had to miss an entire year of school in 1918 due to the Spanish flu—but it worked out, because otherwise he wouldn’t have met my colleague’s grandmother, a year behind him in school.

Does everybody only know about the Spanish flu because of Downton Abby? Otherwise ida been clueless.

It might have helped the Allies win WWI, so history class is where I learned about it.

I didn’t know why it was called Spanish flu till much later, though.

Yeah but youre edumacated. Not me - everything i know, i learn from youtube.

As i fi didnt have enough reasons to visit the UK

Does the Pope know this? Or does he think theynjust abstain?

With how they shortend it corona virus to corvid blah blah is anyone esles first thought about crows?

Italian boys dont want to leave the comforts of home, where their mothers still keep house for them. They are not replacing the population.

So, I'm starting to freak out about coronavirus, not because I'm worried about my family's health so much, but that I'm afraid they'll decide to close my county's schools. I'm not sure what we'd do with my D if that happened for weeks. I mean, we could literally have her here at the house, but it's more that we will all go insane. If it's a week or something, OK.


Though my county has said that not enough students have resources (like Internet connections and computers) to teach remotely. And there's concerns about kids on free and reduced lunches not getting to eat. So I think they'd be reluctant to close. But a nearby school district just canceled all assemblies, plays, recitals, etc. They're unsure about (for high school) proms and graduation.


Well, I suppose I have my topic for therapy tomorrow...

Over here it’s COVID. But I like your Latin way of thinking.

LT—I generally don’t worry about stuff like the flu. Plus we’re all going to die someday anyway. But with this, I wash my hands a lot and every time I see hand sanitizer like on a doctor’s counter I dive for it. I start feeling twitchy if I haven’t cleaned my hands in a while.

It might be covid my slight dyslexia kicking in

They just cancelled classes at the big state Us for tomorrow and friday, and they will be going online monday. So i guess they will be keeping their spring break germs to themselves from now on, but i wonder if its too little too late.

See, I have OCD that partly focuses around germs/contamination, so I wash my hands or use sanitizer all the time. My head almost exploded when I started living with my H and realized he typically didn't wash his hands after going to the bathroom (#1). I got him started on that quite quickly...

I totally understand your fear about school closing. I worry that I will be stuck in my house for 2 weeks with Husband and Son and that thought makes me half-crazy. Not because I don't love them and enjoy spending time iwith them - but too much togetherness is too much!

Good therapy topic

Yeah, we just heard we’re online the next two weeks, at which point the university will reassess.

I am so glad I'm on sabbatical this semester.... My university is giving professors a week to get their stuff online and then classes resume online.

This is my concern as well as I have 4 kids, 3 of which are in school. We don't have the resources or really the ability to have them do distant learning. My preschooler I'm not too concerned about, but I'm more worried of how that would affect my 5th and 6th grader. I don't think I could mentally handle them all being home right now and trying to potentially homeschool them at the same time.
H is also an uber driver and I am nervous about how the closing of colleges around and stuff will affect us financially. It's all starting to cause me to panic because I dont know what we'd do.

Eta: Trying to figure out if I should be more concerned about myself since I have asthma and don't have a spleen. Technically immunodeficient I guess, especially since I was septic last April. Hmm.

Tom Hanks has coronavirus now too.

ETA: and there goes the NBA season.

But in Australia.

Hope he stocked up on toilet paper

Now H seems to be suggesting we shouldn't go out to eat or anything. I think the NBA cancellation made him realize how serious it is. But I also don't want to be trapped in the house before I have to be. Now I'm a little worried Dr. T will cancel tomorrow, though he doesn't seem to be the alarmist type (though he may decide to stop shaking hands, which I'd understand). Like, "wait, I just want to go out to one more dinner first!"

We are reassessing in two weeks as well - I think my uni is trying to figure out our technology needs and what will and won't work with the crappy system that we have been complaining about for years.

You are too freakin funny.

Well, he knows how to isolate, right? At least he has his wife with him this time, instead of "Wilson". Talk about life imitating art.

Eta - well, one person in michigan is at the hospital down the street, and there are people in my apartment building who work there, so the cootie loop has been completed. Does this mean i dont have to clean my apartment? Because they will probably just put everything into hazmat disposal bags, right?