Life in the times of cholera

Today my first lessons with the Zoom platform. Videoconferencing, which means that I could see the students (they could see each other as well). Apart from praising Zoom (or its CEO) for reacting so quickly to the needs of the time by lifting the 40 minutes limit in the free version, providing school is the user  - so that we can hold longer lessons - apart from the technical ease with which the platform is handled - it is a bonus, to see. To hear. To react to the nuances of the face and the body. I was so thrilled, my eyes watered slightly - and I did not even try to hide it. 

Some of the students confirmed this feeling, saying in the after-lesson note that it was wonderful to be able to see. It made the school experience even more closer to "normality" for which we fight.

Do I regret that this pandemia made me learn new things? Not at all. I would probably never wanted to experiment with online work. I remember being loath to edit in google documents, when Obywatele dla Edukacji worked on some petition. Now I can do it easily, not because I learned, but because the inner unwillingness has been conquered.

That we will come oout of this purge changed, was clear from the beginning. Some aspects of the changes are beginning to get clearer...

As I (and no doubt half the population) am discovering, working from home sitting at the computer results in being tired much faster, than when the similar job is executed in "real world" - at school, at the office...

Perhaps it is being alone? While working with people, we have these short, hitherto not even noticed breaks from the monotony of the task - even a short glance at a colleague, or a passing sentence about the weather, the dog, the traffic... getting up for a cup of coffee gives another opportunity to move and sure, we can do it at home... but it is somehow different. 

So, at our school lessons will be shorter, to give all of us opportunity to get up, stretch, really stretch... may be go for a power walk (remember, alone!!!) between sessions.

Meanwhile, looking out of the window - Sem the black cat, all sleek and proud, is gliding across grass, perhaps hunting for whatever is hifing under the dead autumn leaves. The sky interspersed with clouds, promising balmy weather. Open the window, breathe in, spring is here!  We could have forgotten, but honetly guys... SPRING HAS COME!

I was also thinking about the difference in experiencing the limitations - adult people probably deal with the ban on meetings better than young people. If I remember well my own high school times, the joy of life was organising events, sitting in cafes, in parks, at homes, talking, listening to music, horseplaying. It is pitiful to imagine an "online party" when you cannot get in direct proximity with each other, perhaps embrace, perhaps push playfully...

I would love to hear from young people who sit cooped up in their homes. How far does the Internet wizardry stretch in filling the psychological need to "be together"?

Today is not the first day. As a matter of fact, it would be hard to establish "the first day" for any but the quarantined. For the rest, for us who are as yet supposed to have a clean bill of health, it was first encouragement to limit the trips outside the four walls of own adobe... then regulations limiting the size of public events... as of yesterday, the ban on any outings not related to work/existential need plus the limit of 2 people if going out at all.

So it is a creeping process, but the message was clear from the start: stay at home. Do not risk becoming infected.

I am naturally anxious lest I become infected, but I think that infecting other people - unknowingly - is what would lie on my conscience if...

Staying at home has been easy so far, especially as my house in the country is isolated anyway. So to be honest, not a lot of changes. 

Working from home - it is the second week of "school in exile" and I am still apprehensive every time when I initiate a digital meeting platform. And I do not like  this "distant" relation to my students. Although there is still a bit of a thrill of doing something new and challenging

I suspect with time, as the thrill mutates into "business as usual", all that remains will be irritation with the techno-bugs, when the platform freezes or whatever mey happen... plus the tedium of staying at home will grow.

Let's not think about how many weeks / months more.. let's just carry on.