Nothing is Automatic

 These weeks are long. My sense of time has been "off" for quite some time, but in a new way now that I am teaching in person four days per week. On Thursday nights I find myself forgetting that I have to prepare my presentation for the morning Zoom check in and that the weekend hasn't started yet. I seem to always be end-of-the-week tired. Even this week, after a teacher work day (no student Zoom last Friday) followed by a bona fide day off on Monday, was a long week.

One of my co-workers put it this way: Nothing is automatic. Everything is brand new. Teaching on Zoom at the same time as teaching in person, while trying to be engaging and keep everyone physically distanced... Nothing is automatic. Everything is brand new. There's snow on the ground, but I have to open the window and turn on the fan. I have to remember to open my Zoom room and check in with the remote learners while answering questions and allowing the in person learners to go refill water bottles (from our hands free fountains with the drinking spout taped over) or use the restroom... but the protocols in place for those normal in-person routines, are all new and therefore not automatic.

I leave my classroom to pick up my kids from recess without my mask at least twice a week. Thus far I haven't made it more than a step or two outside my classroom before remembering. Even though I have no problem ripping my mask off as soon as I am alone in my classroom, it certainly isn't a habit to put on a mask after my breaks.

The kids really want to do the right thing, but they need constant reminders about physical distancing, keeping their noses covered, physical distancing, not touching their masks or faces, physical distancing, changing their masks when they get wet (from saliva), physical distancing, putting up their plastic shields before they take off their masks to eat snack or lunch, physical distancing... Walking out to recess and lining up at the end of it is when they are most likely to clump up. They run to their friends and engage in conversation, as they should! And really, most of what they want to say, have been dying to say for several hours (or at least minutes), I'm sure they don't want to broadcast to a six foot radius. I walk out to recess and back in chanting, "Six feet! Six feet! Six feet!"

I got my second dose of the Moderna vaccine last weekend. Two school parents work for a local medical group and offered vaccines to the entire school staff just before MLK weekend. We weren't told the specifics of their reasoning, but the prevailing hypothesis is they had "leftover" vaccine after all of their phase 1A appointments and either wanted to ensure a full compliment of their 1B doses by getting all of their first set distributed, or they were running against the clock, worrying about how many days the doses had been at a certain temperature. 

The first dose hit me like a ton of bricks. Most of my co-workers had mild to severe pain at the injection site. I had severe injection site pain but also was pretty much non-functional for 48+ hours due to fatigue, fever, dizziness, and achiness. I spent the three day weekend on the couch, feeling grateful that the second dose was also on a three day weekend. My husband made sure I ate and reminded me that making COVID antibodies was a very productive use of my weekend. In anticipation of the second dose, I cleared my calendar and to do list. I made sure there was *nothing* I had to do for the weekend. And then the snow came. The clinic texted everyone scheduled for their second dose saying they would be open despite the storm, but that we should call on Tuesday (after the President's Day holiday) to reschedule if we couldn't get there for the Saturday vaccination clinic.

Unlike most of my co-workers I live fairly close to the clinic that was offering us the vaccine. It's only 10 minutes from my house. But I live 15 minutes from the freeway, and 10 freeway miles from the school where I work. I knew I was going to brave the snow to get my second dose because I knew I needed a three day weekend to recuperate.

I asked my husband to drive me and we elected to see how our minivan handles in the snow since our AWD vehicle has been in use by our 18 year old since October and was iced over, covered with about a foot of snow in our driveway. The minivan failed the snow test. We got out of our driveway just fine, but then got stuck blocking TWO of our neighbors' driveways. A different neighbor saw our predicament from his window across the street, and literally came running to our rescue. First he dug out our tires enough, and helped to push so that we were able to re-position the minivan so that it was only blocking our own driveway. (It stayed there until Monday afternoon.)

But our neighbor's real heroism came when he discovered why we were trying to leave the house in the middle of a snow event. He said more than once, "Oh, you can't miss that," before offering to drive me to the clinic for my second dose. Not only did he have a 4WD truck that was in his garage, but he was a cool, experienced snow driver. In the 20+ years I have lived here, I have never seen the main streets outside my neighborhood so covered...possibly because I have never left my house at the height of a snow event before. No bare pavement was visible anywhere. I felt like we were driving on at least six inches of snow pack. As a California native married to a California native, even with the right vehicle we weren't cut out for driving on that. But I felt completely comfortable with my neighbor, a retired state patrol accident investigator, at the wheel. I love my neighborhood!

That was all six days ago. I needed a nap that afternoon and spent the next day on the couch, even though I woke up full of energy. A shower and breakfast sapped it all out of me. Monday was better, much better, but my arm felt like it was on fire and/or it was going to fall off. I still did laundry and swept the kitchen floor. The second dose wasn't a picnic, but for me, it was not as bad as the first.

I know I still need to wear a mask and stay six feet away from others whenever I am outside my home. But I do feel significantly less anxiety teaching in person now that I am "fully vaccinated" (...and am I the only one that thinks that makes me sound like a dog??).