… I may have set the bar too high for future years.
I'm still not 100%, but I definitely think that I will be by Wednesday (or a near-enough percentage). However, I am still in isolation and was thus not able to sneak out a trip to get Janelle some of our standard Valentine's treats and flowers. Thus, I cleaned the kitchen instead.
… I may have set the bar too high for future years.
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In today's Gospel, Jesus warns the rich that they have already received their reward and that they should not expect one in the afterlife. In His famous Beatitudes, Jesus makes it clear that He sides with the downtrodden, those who are suffering and poor. On occasion, I worry about what this means for me.
I have led a tremendously blessed life. Even my setbacks have continually become something better than what I originally could have imagined. It has been fairly easy for me to put my life in God's hands as He seems to know what He's doing. However, does this mean that I should be doing something more? I think about this with my doctorate. I just intended to get it to enhance my career in the classroom, but should I be doing more? The degree makes me qualified to opportunities at a higher level. I am content with where I am, but doesn't Jesus warn against complacency as well? For now, I'm holding to the idea that, whatever His plans for my future, God has me where he wants me for now. I spent about three hours at the school today, getting my class ready for a substitute to take my place on Monday and Tuesday. Granted, I'm still not near peak performance, so it might have taken me longer than if I was completely hale. Still, three hours of uninterrupted time to prep for two days. This doesn't count the numerous hours that I spent setting up my classes in Canvas ahead of time; this was three hours just to write out how I would like my substitute to lead my students through those activities.
I remember a former principal of mine saying that he wanted us to turn in our lessons plans to him each week, and that he expected them to be detailed enough that he could hand them to a substitute and have them carried out in the event of an unexpected accident. What an asshole. It didn't take long for us to realize that he could never read that amount of material (even to "spot check" it) and to use the copy and paste feature of our word processing tools liberally. He only seemed to check on those teachers he had a grudge against anyway. Now, I try to plan out of the entire year when I get a course. When I taught college courses, this was a requirement as everything had to be in the syllabus on day one (although, semesters usually only included 15 three-hour classes). However, it was my mentor teacher during my student teaching who showed me the benefit of seeing the larger picture, and especially in getting that larger picture into the hands of the students. Granted, she was a thirty year veteran who had taught the same classes for decades. My teaching career has never seen that kind of stability. Last week, I finally managed to get most of my plans done for the rest of the school year. I'm not even close to getting the assignments into Canvas and there are some upcoming dates (such as for testing) which are still unknown, but I finally have the whole picture in view. Granted, these are not plans that I could hand to substitute and expect them to carry out; that would take an hour and a half for each day. Thus, I am beyond furious to hear of some of the laws that some politicians in states (such as Michigan) want to put into place. An entire year of detailed lesson plans available for public view before the school year begins?! A 30 day approval period for making changes to those plans?! For a 180 day school year, that's 270 uninterrupted hours of work (not counting the time for the earlier preparation) based on my day today. What a bunch of assholes! In three weeks, Connor and I head out on a school trip to Washington DC. This will be my first time there as an adult; I only have vague recollections of it (which I am not even certain are true) as a child. I have long wanted to visit, so I'm glad that Connor and I get this chance.
The trip includes visits to multiple memorials, the International Spy Museum, Capitol Hill, Ford's Theatre, the Holocaust Museum, the National Zoo, Arlington National Cemetery, Mount Vernon, and the White House--and that's just the first few days. After that, we visit Gettysburg and get to see a Philadelphia Flyers hockey game. While in Pennsylvania, we will tour historic Philadelphia, the National Constitution Center, the Famous Criminals of Old Philadelphia, and an Amish experience. We will then have one final evening in DC to visit one of the Smithsonian Museums before heading home. It should be a great trip! I have COVID.
On Tuesday of this week, I started to get a sore throat and a mild headache. Considering that Janelle was at the tail end of a two week cold, I figured that my immune system had finally given in. I didn't feel that bad, and to be cautious, I took one of our at-home COVID tests. The results were negative. Yesterday evening, while having dinner, I started to feel particularly weary. My muscles (such as they are) ached and my sinuses were stuffy. As I had woken up earlier than normal that day, I thought that my tiredness just allowed the cold to settle in, but I felt that a good night's rest might be enough to get me through the following day. It was clear this morning that I did not have a good night's rest. I remember waking up multiple times, shivering uncontrollably. My muscles still ached and my head felt like it was full of air--likely due to the cold medicine I took for the night. I was still thinking that I was going to power through the day. It's so much work to deal with preparing and dealing with a substitute teacher that I would prefer to slog through the day. However, I reminded myself that it was thoughts like that which have allowed COVID to spread, and that--not only would I get some needed rest--it was better to be safe. It turns out that I was right. When I managed to rouse myself in the early afternoon, I realized that I still felt pretty worn-out. I decided to take another test. The instructions say to wait ten minutes, but it brought back a positive response within just a couple. I've since notified my school, acquired subs, and started making plans for them to follow. Hopefully, my symptoms remain fairly mild and end soon. If so, I should be able to be back to teaching on Wednesday. For now, I just need to survive Janelle's attempts to force me to sleep outside. I enjoyed the seven episode series, but it was not great. Sadly, its best parts were often when Boba was not on screen. It is not without reason that people have been referring to the show as The Mandalorian Season 2.5. By far, the most entertaining and interesting parts are when the Mandalorian (or Grogu) take center stage.
The first four episodes are remarkably slow, but I still found them enjoyable. It's just that they weren't what I thought a show about Boba Fett would be. My first disappointment is that Boba's story is almost completely limited to Tatooine. I had hoped that we would see more [read: any] scenes with him hunting bounties in exotic locations (even if in flashbacks). Even after it was established that he was setting himself up as a crime lord, I thought that the show would be more of a gangster-style look at Star Wars. Instead, it was overly simplistic. The strategies were something that I would have come up with as a young teenager, playing with my Star Wars toys. For that matter, quite a few action scenes almost seemed to play out like an adolescent's play session. The younger part of me appreciated that, but my more mature side (yes, I have one) would have preferred more depth. In the end, the merits of the show outweighed its faults. I was particularly impressed with the use of practical effects over computer generated animation. While this might impose more limitations (and an underpowered speeder chase), it felt more like the Star Wars that I grew up with. That said, some of the computer effects are quite spectacular too, bringing to life characters that I did not expect to see. This is a show for people who love Star Wars (especially those who followed The Clone Wars and Rebels). If nothing else, it is worth it to see the continuation of the story of the Mandalorian (and Grogu). I certainly caught the Wordle bug. There's a part of me that's a little ashamed to have caved to peer pressure, but I like to console myself by noting that I have not--as of yet--shared one of my score screens to social media. Sadly, I have become addicted enough that I tracked down another site that allows me to play the Wordle puzzles that I had missed.
The game has multiple elements that make it appealing. For one, there is only one solution to the puzzle; you either get it or don't. It also has a high chance of success. I have yet to fail at a word in the main game; however, my pass rate at the older puzzles is only about 95% ("Jaunty," Delta," and "Gamma" were some of my losses). It also only deals in five letter words, even if some of them, such as "moult," take their spelling from outside the United States (as the game was created in the United Kingdom). The game has a clean and comforting aesthetic. If a letter is in a green box, that means it's in the correct place. If it's in yellow, the letter is somewhere in the word. Grey boxes hold the letters that are not used in the word. This makes the game more of a puzzle game than just a word-guessing game. Personally, I wouldn't mind a box color that could indicate that a letter was used twice. One of the best things about the game is that everyone around the world has the same word (and only one word) every day. This is why people are posting those strange pictures of blocks. The game is set up to let you share how well you did on a particular word (as well as overall progression). There's something comforting about seeing that your friends also struggled with a particular word--and something deeply satisfying about seeing that you did much better than them. In my opinion, it's a great way to start the morning. I don't remember why I started watching the TV show The Expanse, but I nearly gave it up after the first few episodes. For some reason, I kept with it, and it quickly became one of my favorite science fiction shows of all time. Its second season, in particular, has some of my favorite moments in television.
This summer, I decided to pick up the book series on which the show is based. I just finished reading it this weekend, and I have to say that it is even better than the show. To be clear, the show is still fantastic; it's just that the books take the experience to an entirely different level. I was also surprised by many of the changes that were made for the TV series. Certainly, they condensed the dialogue and created more dramatic tension, but they also added entirely new story arcs, creating new characters while cutting others. In some ways, the TV series plays out like an alternative, if parallel, universe to the books. The books do have the edge in that they complete the story while the TV series ended with its sixth season. It's almost as though the producers were saying that people need to read the books if they want the whole tale. There are certainly some teasers left in that final TV season that made me glad that I was already reading the books. I recommend both. However, I feel that--as confusing as it might be--it is better to watch the TV series first, then read the books. Otherwise, what I feel is a great TV series could feel like a bit of a let down. Today's readings and Gospel deal with those who are willing to go out and preach to God's people. Even the psalm has the speaker wanting to sing the praises of God. In his homily, our deacon told us that this is what we are all being called to do during Ordinary (or, as he said, "extra-ordinary") Time. As he said, the Christmas and Easter seasons are set to charge us up for everyday life.
I recently heard someone say that everything about the world has been making them lose their faith in it. For me, despite all of the frustrations I have, I feel the opposite. I see goodness, joy, and beauty all around us. Even in dire situations, I see determination and even love. I see God's hand supporting, comforting, and inspiring. Sure, I suppose that it's possible to focus on the negative and see it everywhere, but I prefer to see it as the contrast to what is good. God is calling us to be witnesses to the goodness of His creation, but also to be part of that goodness and to make the world a better place. I just got home from a friend’s birthday celebration. I had a great time! This all-day event included a marathon of the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings movies as well as a series of Hobbit-themed meals (including a second breakfast and an afternoon tea).
I am certainly tired now, but I am so glad to have been invited! Yesterday, more than nine inches of snow accumulated in my yard. This is on top of the seven inches before that and the four inches before that. It made for some difficult driving. One of our friends got stuck twice in our driveway (once at the bottom and once further up) before it could be shoveled. I was temporarily stuck in the Sterling Elementary parking lot yesterday after picking up Rowen. Thankfully, it only took a little bit of gravel and a slight push from a helpful staff member to get out of it. Another friend of mine got stuck in her driveway this morning on her way to work (and she had four-wheel drive).
I don't remember having this many troubles or being this concerned about getting stuck in any of the previous winters. I believe that the culprit is the thick layer of ice that formed when our temperatures stayed above freezing for a while a couple of weeks ago. This fluffy snow doesn't have anything to bond with. Thus, we not only have the problems with the depth of the snow (which alone is manageable) and with the thick layer of ice (which can also be manageable), but with the monstrous hybrid of the two. Don't tell Mera, but I'm thinking more and more about getting a vehicle with a little more clearance and all-wheel drive. Soon after waking up, I discovered that I had two emails which I believed were phishing attempts. Both were from Sony. The first thanked me for activating 2-step verification on my PlayStation account. The second thanked me for changing the email I used for a log in. Both of them had a link I could click if I had not done the action listed.
Normally, I list such emails as "junk" right away, but these felt a bit more legitimate. There weren't any obvious spelling or grammatical errors and the formatting had that je ne sais quoi which made me think it could be legitimate. I decided to keep them in my Inbox and check my PlayStation when I got home from work to see if I could still log in (I didn't want to walk up the stair to my living room just then). Unfortunately, I discovered that they were legitimate when Janelle woke up and came into the dining room asking if I had made a bunch of purchases on the PlayStation last night. It turns out that I had the energy to rush up the stairs, after all. Sure enough, I could no longer log in. When I tried to restore my account, I discovered why the thief started by activating 2-step authentication. Doing so required me to talk to a real person to reset my account rather than just doing so online. Most likely, the thief was buying in-game currency which could then be traded in for real-world money. Thankfully, our credit card stopped them after only five transactions, and even put those into "pending" status. Meanwhile, Janelle blocked the charges they made on our card and had our card cancelled. Our credit card company reassured us that we would not be held responsible for these charges. We use a credit card for online purchases precisely for these extra security measures. Unfortunately, we now have to wait for another set of cards to arrive. The good news is that I was able to get a hold of a live representative at Sony with a fairly short wait time. I was able to verify my identity and retake my account, setting up a new password and my own 2-step verification (which now makes signing in on my PlayStation a bit of a pain). They also reimbursed my credit card for the amount that had been used (something my credit card company probably appreciates). I was vulnerable to this attack because I was still using an old password that had likely been leaked during a previous data attack on Sony. I have since made certain to change the passwords on any other accounts that used that email or a similar password. Each of of the new passwords are unique and follow a strong password formula which will hopefully avoid anything like this from happening again. As part of my annual tradition, I spent much of the day wishing students and staff a "Happy Groundhog Day!" Occasionally, I would add "Six more weeks of winter! Woo hoo!" just to watch their faces. Every once and a while I would have to correct people who said that they heard THE groundhog had died yesterday. To clarify, A groundhog died (Milltown Mel--who no one really heard of before yesterday) not THE groundhog (Punxsutawney Phil--who made national fame through the movie).
I know that I'm just one guy who seems (or perhaps is) a bit crazy. Still, I think that I made people's Groundhog Day brighter. Well, at least bright enough that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow. Six more weeks of winter! Woo hoo! It's the Year of the Tiger!
Use the vaccine to fight! Masking up to raise our chance of survival! And there will be more survivors If we do what is right And we'll all make it through the whole Year ... of the Tiger! |
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