I might move my end-of-the-month wrap-ups back to the beginning of the following month (where they were when I last did these sorts of posts) to make them easier to organize, but for now, I'm sticking with writing them at the end of the given month. Here are a list of events from this past month:

We started the Year of the Tiger and no one commented on my adaption of the "Eye of the Tiger" which I used to kick it off.

Our Sony account was hacked, leading to some credit card maneuvering.

We received multiple heavy snowfalls at the start of the month, getting a guest of ours stuck in our driveway multiple times.

I joined a friend's Middle Earth celebration for his birthday and had an absolute blast!

I finished the 9th book (and final full novel) in The Expanse series, which I enjoyed tremendously.

I began playing Wordle--and then Nerdle--and then Quordle--and then Octordle. These have become an enjoyable part of my morning ritual.

We finished watching The Book of Boba Fett and felt a bit let down, but happy about any part that had the Mandalorian.

I contracted COVID. I had short-term flu-like symptoms with some residual "COVID brain," increased deja vu, and tiredness, but I was symptom free and able to return to work after five days--only to have the first snow day in SoHi history (that I know of) before parent-teacher conferences.

I stopped using my decades old alarm clock in favor of the more programmable alarms on my phone. 

Russia invaded the Ukraine.

Break up started VERY early this year. The roof snow destroyed our snow diverters and wiped out the exhaust chimney for our garage heater.

I finished (finally) Assassin's Creed: Valhalla after over two months of playing it.

I was accepted as a Reader for the AP World exam reading in Kansas City, Missouri, and set up my travel arrangements for it.

Due to new CDC guidelines, I stopped wearing my mask in public; although, I will need to don it again for my upcoming trip to Washington DC with Connor.

It was a short, but busy, month.

In today's Gospel, Jesus famously tells the assembled crowd to remove the log from their own eye before trying to remove the splinter from their neighbor's eye. As pointed out in today's homily, this is the difference between criticism and actually helping. Jesus does not say to leave the splinter in the neighbor's eye, nor to just point out it is there. Rather, He focuses us on recognizing our own missteps before trying to help others. 

In our yearly teacher in-services at the beginning of the year, we are reminded that, although our first impulse might be to rush in to help a child who has suffered an accident, our first responsibility is to make certain we understand the situation lest we cause more harm from our intervention. Similar advice is given to Boy Scouts: one must be certain of one's own footing before trying to pull someone up. In these cases, it is possible to make a situation worse when working from an erroneous conclusion.

This does not mean that we should not help others. Rather, we need to make certain that what we are doing is not going to make a situation worse. In either case, we need to make certain that we are helping and not simply criticizing. 

That's certainly an area in which I need more practice. 

This is a gigantic game (I started playing it during winter break)! The only two single player games that have taken me longer to complete are Skyrim (in which I did not complete every quest) and Xenoblade Chronicles (in which I did complete everything). There are still several things that I have not accomplished in the game, but the main story and all visible items on the map are completed, so I am putting this game down as I want to start up Horizon: Forbidden West.

Clearly, this was an entertaining game as I was willing to put this much time into it; however, it is far from my favorite--even within the Assassin's Creed franchise. I'm glad that they have improved the meta-story from the past six games. They did an excellent job of tapping back into the Desmond storyline from the first several games in a compelling way. I also deeply appreciated that stealth was always just an option, rather than a way to bring me to the game over screen. The game is also beautiful, if not quite up to Ghost of Tsushima quality.

However, to truly love this game, one must love long walks, runs or rides from one far away location to another. In fact, two of the main story elements at the end forced both a long horse ride and a long, slow walk without any dialogue to fill the arduously slow minutes. Another thing that one must enjoy is making choices with little idea as to which ones are important to the story and with often misleading information (thankfully, there are plenty of helpful people on the Internet to help avoid unnecessary pitfalls). One also needs to be fine with murder, lots and lots of murder--and pillaging, lots and lots of pillaging. Sure, it has "assassin" in the title and is focused on a Viking story, so one should expect some death, but even with the ability to turn off the blood and gore, the violence in this game seemed to be (pardon the expression) overkill. Add to that the continual blasphemy uttered by the main character and her friends (they are Vikings, after all), and there were points in this game that I got really uncomfortable. 

My biggest gripe is how the game's writers treated the historical figure of King Alfred the Great. It made sense that he was one of the primary antagonists against our Viking protagonist considering his historical role in fighting off Viking invaders. However, they presented him as callous, brutal, and without honor. Sure, they redeemed him a bit at the very, very end, but even that felt sudden and unearned. The Assassin's Creed series often plays fast and loose with historical figures and events, but this time it really bothered me. 

I don't plan on playing this game again, even to find some of the hidden gems (such as Excalibur). I think that it was certainly worth playing, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes open world games (or, you know, murder). However, this might be it for me and the Assassin's Creed series.

Some extremely disturbing images and videos of the invasion are being shared via social media—especially Instagram, TikTok, and SnapChat.

Talk with your children. It is possible for them to experience trauma from this. They will not be able to unsee it, so the best move is to let them know how to avoid or cope with it.

Simply banning them from media will only mean that they will feel the need to hide their trauma from you even more. Be receptive, open, caring, compassionate, and available.

When we first bought our house almost six years ago, one issue that we needed to fix was the heater exhaust on the garage roof. That winter, the snow and ice build-up on the roof had been enough to rip off the V-shaped snow diverter, taking the little metal chimney with it. We also had to have the other side of the roof repaired when the truck from the local furniture store was beyond the roof's clearance. Both problems were expertly handled by a repairman who no longer lives in the state.

Today, due to the earliest "break up" we've had since we've lived here, the heavy snow and ice that had stubbornly lasted on the garage roof finally fell ... ripping the snow diverter and the little chimney off as it did so. I only noticed this when I got home. I had to go into the dog yard as the pile from this roof-snow made a path taller than fence around the yard. While our dogs have not yet jumped the fence, the temptation to just step over it might have been more than they could resist, so I removed several feet of snow that was right next to (and pushing hard enough to strain) the fence.

I know from our original experience that the roof repair is beyond my ability both in skill and in dealing with heights (I nearly slid off the roof the last time I made an attempt). Janelle believes that the garage should be fine without the heater at this point. Considering that the lows have only been in the twenties and that there are no water pipes in the garage, I think that she is probably right. I'm just frustrated that we have to deal with this problem again.

I am not going to speculate about where this sudden (if expected) full invasion of Ukraine might lead. I will say, as a student of history, that this is when our petty differences and bickering need to be set aside. This is when we must unite in the face of such aggression.

Putin's actions follow the authoritarian invader's playbook almost to the letter. He took Crimea in 2014, following that with Georgia in 2019. Last month, he occupied Belarus with its puppet president claiming that it was at his request. Yesterday, he "freed" two provinces from Ukraine. Two hours ago, he begin hitting military targets within Ukraine itself, warning any country that interferes that they will see a retaliation unlike anything in history [i.e. nuclear warfare].

Putin, like Hitler and Napoleon before, expects the other powers of the world to roll over and accept this act of aggression. We know from history that a strategy of appeasement does not work; it only makes the aggressor hungrier for more. The world must stand together and bring an end to Putin's ability to wage war--whether through economic or more drastic measures.

People are often surprised when I remind them that there was a strong Nazi movement in the U.S. during the early years of World War II (before the U.S. involvement). Prominent U.S. citizens praised Hitler and his tactics. Today, the same corrupted morality is repeating the same poisonous propaganda. As Mark Twain said, history doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes.

That ex-President Trump was today loudly praising Putin's invasion of the Ukraine is no surprise--he had already demonstrated that he was Putin's meat-puppet when he tried to lift the sanctions against Russia, bred dissent within NATO, left our bases open in Syria for Russian occupation, and spent the last year and a half tirelessly attempting to dismantle our democratic elections. That other Republican politicians are following suit only demonstrates how far the once-great party has fallen. It is almost entirely unrecognizable even from when Bush began its descent. Reagan must be spinning in his grave at the praise some of these demagogues are giving to a Russian dictator.

For that matter, Eisenhower's spirit is probably livid. He led the Allied Forces against Hitler, the second to last totalitarian dictator who tried to take over Europe piece by piece, each time claiming that he was doing so at the request of the people he was conquering. He then held the line against Stalin who tried to do the same thing. I'm certain that Eisenhower would be thinking about voting Democrat after seeing prominent members from his Republican party saying that "Putin is a genius," to "watch Putin's speech," and "to realize that the U.S. is at fault."

Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised, considering the number of neo-Nazi supporters who wave their flags at Republican-backed events or considering that Tucker Carlson has been spreading Russian propaganda for years. Still, I'm waiting for some of the good people I know who have been so thoroughly bamboozled by Trump and his minions to finally wake up. Just how far does he and his cronies have to debase the Republican party before we finally kick him (and them) out of it? Or into prison, for that matter?

It's time that Republicans actually stood for our Republic again.

Okay, first of all, is it "Presidents Day," "President's Day," or "Presidents' Day"? Clearly, based on the title of this blog, I prefer the latter as it makes the most sense to me; however, when looking it up to see its official spelling, I found that the official holiday is titled "Washington's Birthday" (which is technically tomorrow) and that the Internet is pretty evenly divided between the three uses (or lack of use) of the apostrophe. I have to say that I find that not having the matter settled is ... unsettling.

Still, I took the time wish everyone I saw at the school a "Happy Presidents' Day" (I'm keeping my preferred spelling). While multiple students complained about not having the day off, I prefer having the day at school so that students can be educated about their Presidents rather than just another day off without any connection to the reason why. I found it particularly amusing that students did not have the day off when they just came off a five-day weekend.

Personally, I'm glad that Presidents' Day is a national holiday (even if I think Election Day deserves it more). Although there are Presidents whom I feel were terrible, I still believe that the office of the President of the United States was a historical game-changer and is worthy of dignified recognition. It still places the most powerful governmental position in the world into the hands of a person elected by her or his fellow Americans. For centuries (although with a  recent exception), power changes hands peacefully and gracefully from one individual to another. All of that is quite amazing.

Happy Presidents' Day!

In today's Gospel, Jesus tells the multitudes to "offer the other [cheek]," to "love your enemies," to "stop judging," and to "stop condemning." As our pastor said in today's homily, these sayings are often deliberately misinterpreted, often leading people to believe that Jesus was saying to just allow evil to triumph. This does not work when taken together with all of His other teachings. While it is absolutely true that Jesus asks us to be less judgmental and more loving, it is just as absolutely true that He does not want us to sit by and do nothing while evil prevails.

150,000 Russian troops are massed within a portion of what had been the Ukraine eight years ago. There is heavy indication that the Russian forces will soon invade the rest of the Ukraine. While Jesus said to "give to everyone who asks of you," He would not want people to sit idly by while a evil dictator like Putin, who has already drawn up hit lists of "dissidents" to be imprisoned and even executed. Failure to act when one's actions could prevent evil is abetting evil. We saw this in the 1938 Conference at Munich as the world sat back while Hitler pushed for world domination.

There is a difference between retaliation and defending the safety of others.

For just about three decades, I have used a Sony alarm clock to wake me up in the morning. Its large, cool, blue LED numbers continue to light the side of my bed, but as of last week, I started using my phone for my wake up alarm. Connor has been attending an early morning practice so he can improve his shots for basketball on Mondays and Wednesdays. As much as I love my old alarm clock, it still takes a long time to set up an alarm time, and switching it back and forth nearly every day would not only be a hassle, but it could more easily lead to unfortunately mistakes.

Meanwhile, I have programed my phone to wake me up at different times nearly every day without needing to worry if I remembered to turn it on or if I set it to the correct time. Even better, I have set a song to wake me up rather than some sort of klaxon. My normal alarms start playing "Move Along" by All-American Rejects, but I wanted something different for the mornings. I decided upon "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves as it is a nice, peppy song that, even though I rarely let it go past the opening drum measures, fills me with energy and joy. For Sunday, I decided to bring in the morning with a more spiritual feeling, so I have "The Call" by Michael W. Smith set up to serenade me awake.

I had to slightly rearrange my nightstand, with the Sony alarm clock getting pushed farther back, and my Millennium Falcon cordless charger (a Christmas gift to myself a year or two back) in the easy-to-hit zone next to my bed. I was concerned about having difficulties turning off the alarm from the phone soon enough that it does not disturb Janelle as much. The Sony alarm clock had a nice, ridged button that I find blindly with a sold, tactile slide to turn it off. With the phone, I have to squint and aim for the small grey oval on the screen (not the large orange one that "snoozes" the alarm).

​So far, it has not been an issue.

A couple of decades ago (I'm not certain when, but sometime before the original Matrix movie came out), I read an article about deja vu--the feeling that something happening now has happened before. The researchers interviewed believed that there is a chemical marker that is somehow attached to our memory of an event. This marker has a constant rate of decay, which I brain processes as the passage of time. However, they found that sometimes a marker that has already experienced decay gets attached to a new memory. This makes it so our brain misidentifies a recent experience as a later one. Now, I don't know if that research has been substantiated, but the concept seems to fit with my experience.

Recently, as in the past week or so, I was experiencing deja vu frequently. While I sometimes think that deja vu can also be from similar experiences or conversations being repeated, in at least two of the occasions, it was an event that I am certain had not happened before. I have been wondering if it had anything to do with COVID as the majority of the experiences were last week--although a couple were the week earlier.

I have heard of "COVID brain," and I seem to be experiencing that too. Although I seem to be improving, I was losing my thread of thought at a disturbingly high frequency. It was getting to the point that it was making me physically angry. Combined with the deja vu, I wonder if there is some element of brain trauma (if mild) associated with COVID.

I suppose it could also just be all in my head. 

It felt strange, being at SoHi today. The last time I was back in the building was on Saturday, and then, too, it was empty of students. The building just feels different without students in it. Sure, there were a few who were their for the games today (either playing or in preparation), and some accompanied their parents for parent-teacher conferences (a practice that I encourage), yet it seemed so empty.

It was at least good to be back among my colleagues. It's nice to work in a profession that has so many people dedicated to making the world a better place. We don't always agree on how to do it, but everyone at least wants to make our students' lives better.

While I partially blame these "spring" conferences for confusing our local weather [February rain], I always look forward to getting to meet with parents (and, hopefully, their students) to air out any possible issues and to talk about ways we can move forward. Many of the parents I see have students who are doing fine (if not extraordinarily well), and although it might not seem like they would be the ones we need to see, the fact that they come is itself one of the reasons why their students do well. Meanwhile, I still saw a surprising number of parents (considering that it was limited spring conferences) whose students could use the extra encouragement and help in being more successful. 

I still felt a bit off--I seem to be dealing with that "COVID brain" symptom that I've heard a few friends complain about--but, strange as it might have felt, it was good to be back.

Well, that was unexpected. Even looking out this morning as I let out my dogs and realizing that there was a better than even chance that I would get stuck in my own driveway, I did not expect the district to cancel school. Don't get me wrong, I'm really glad that they did, but it was supposed to be my first day back from isolation, and I was looking forward to seeing my students again.

Aside from spending about an hour clearing slush from my driveway, and realizing that there are still a few inches left to go, I really was not all that productive. I had woken up particularly early so that Connor could go to his normally scheduled basketball shooting practice, and had thus been up for about an hour by the time the call for the delay came in. As it was just a couple of hours, I decided to continue my Viking raids of southeastern England (in the video game Assassin's Creed: Valhalla) while I waited. Thus, I was raiding a village when I started getting texts, then phone calls, telling us of this exceedingly rare occasion.

While I did a little grading, and some slight shifting of assignments on Canvas, the only other activity of note was that the boys and I watched the second Venom movie. The first one was an unexpectedly fun movie; this second one really wasn't. It still had some fun moments, but it felt like it was trying too hard without a clear idea of what it was trying to do. In disappointment, I returned to raiding and building alliances in England.

It was a good day off. I certainly preferred over getting stuck in my driveway (or on my road).

I made my first foray back into public again by going to Connor's basketball game. It's now been over five days since I tested positive for COVID. I feel okay. I'm still slightly tired, but I also tired to get back to my normal sleep schedule the past two days as I didn't want to be jet-lagged for my first day back. I also spent an hour and a half shoveling my driveway today, so I don't think the tiredness is from COVID.

Overall, it felt like a flu. While I stayed in bed for much of Thursday and Friday, I still felt like I could have forced myself through work (as I have often done in the past). At no point did I feel incapacitated. My sinuses were only partially clogged and a generic decongestant was enough to knock what little there was out, which was good because it was giving me a headache. I did have the strange symptom of waking up shivering on Wednesday and Thursday nights; however, I often feel cold when ill or over-tired. At no point did I think that I had a fever. I only seem to cough when I lay down; although, just as I typed this, I both coughed and sneezed.

The only other real symptom was muscle soreness. On Friday night, my right shoulder was bothering me so much that I had trouble sleeping. On Saturday night, it was my lower back. In both cases, shoveling probably did not help matters.

It was strange staying home the past couple of days, considering that I felt almost completely fine. I'd like to say that I was productive, but aside from a little bit of grading and a few emails, I spent most of my time relaxing. 

It will be nice to be back to school tomorrow, even if it's only for one day before parent-teacher conferences.