April 13

Isolation 2020 – or #ISO

So as mentioned in my last post I’m completing ETL505 and while it’s not my favourite subject I’m glad I was able to enter it late and complete it this semester. I am still working toward my goal of completing my masters and becoming a qualified teacher-librarian. The world has completely turned upside down this year making me wonder occasionally if a teacher-librarian is a good career move, Covid-19 lives on cardboard for up to two weeks! I have to remember that not all of my jobs deal with physical books, that mostly it deals with people.

Let me quickly explain what is going on in 2020. Covid-19 or the Novel Coronavirus is a respiratory illness caused by a new virus. They think it originated in a wet market in China – bats or an armadillo. The fact that we live in such a hyper-connected world with people flying all over the world regularly meant that the virus spread around the globe rapidly. Thankfully the Australian government has had the balls to lock us down. All international borders are as good as closed and Australians flying home have to be quarantined for 2 weeks upon entering. All state borders are closed as well. We are urged to stay at home, with fines issued if we leave the house for unnecessary trips.

The only reasons to leave include groceries, chemist, bank or post office or exercise. Stores like Bunnings are still open and lots of people are doing home renovations and gendering. All cafes and restaurants are closed except for takeaway. Schools closed early and as of tomorrow, I will be remote teaching – teaching from home. Which sounds so weird but I’m up for the challenge, though I’m nervous about helping my son with his online learning. It’s hard to imagine if someone had told me about this pandemic last year and how everyone around the world’s lives would be changed, I doubt I would have believed it.

A few statistics: America has currently the most dead from covid-19, 22,106 dead Spain has 17,209, while Italy has 19,899. Australia isn’t doing too bad with 61 dead. It’s weird to think of America being a first world country and they have to have mass burials of their unclaimed dead. Interestingly petrol is cheap – under $1 a litre (it hasn’t been that price in 10 years or more) but we can’t go anywhere so no one is buying it anyway. Toilet paper is finally back in stock in supermarkets after panic buying saw it disappear for 6 weeks. Only 10 people can go to a funeral and 5 to a wedding, there is tape on the floor in shops to keep us 1.5 metres apart.

How your weekly food shop is changing with social distancing | The ...

They say it might be 6 months before we can go back to work/school in a physical sense and I worry for our current year 12 students. I wonder how this will change the way we interact with each other in the long term and how this will affect our economy going forward – the current unemployment rate seems in increase daily and the government is subsiding a lot. I’m so very thankful I have a permanent position at school and that position is not under threat. In fact, teaching jobs are one of the most secure along with health care workers.

Most days my son and I spend our life inside. I’ve converted the garage to a home gym and we’ve put a herb garden in. Study is keeping me busy. While the PlayStation and Netflix occupy my son. I look forward to the day when I can see my extended family again, it’s been so long since I’ve hugged them. There is so much to be grateful for at the moment, but life is changing and I have to change with it. Uni studies sometimes feel a useless activity but it does keep my mind active which is vitally important at the moment.

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Posted April 13, 2020 by jannet in category My TL life

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