It's Really Not The Nazis

 So, as a historian, here is a pro-tip: if it's not the Nazis (like it's not literally fascist Nazis) then put away the swastikas and stop comparing everything to the Nazis.  It's not the Nazis.

Mask mandates are not the Nazis.

Vaccine mandates are not the Nazis.

Socialism is not the Nazis (it's also not socialism - and Nazis are also not socialist).

Healthcare is not Nazis.

Democrats aren't Nazis.

George W. Bush isn't a Nazi.

There are Nazis.  They are out there marching around, lurking on the internet. Nazis exist. Amazingly, some of the people who scream the most about Nazis are the ones that support actual Nazis. They're also the ones that are most likely to do Nazi like things, like burning and banning books, discriminating against others, being white supremacists, being anti-Semitic, being fascist dickheads.

Really, every time you throw some swastika laden sign or flag every time the opposite party does something you don't like and call it the Nazis you sound like a clown. It just highlights that you have no idea about history, or current events, or really any of it, just simplified caricatures of history and events. It also unnecessarily ratchets up hostility that doesn't exist except in the minds of the people dreaming this stuff up. It's hard to lower the rhetoric when one side streams of Nazis and conspiracy theories, and the other side calls them wackos (which admittedly if you're going on about magnets in vaccines, and Nazis everywhere then I mean, the shoe kind of fits on that one).

The internet makes it hard because half to it is coming from bots, but maybe if we could just stop calling everything the Nazis and Hitler it'd be a small improvement.

Ghosted Stories

 I've never really been good at ending relationships.  For whatever reason I've always been the kind of person who is forgiving and willing to work through whatever because there are very few things that are worth destroying relationships.  That's not to say there aren't some things.  Utter betrayal, physical harm, theft, being used, etc. Yes, those are all reasons to no longer stay connected with someone.  That being said there are a few select people who have crossed the line into unforgivable territory. People who, for the most part, were once considered friends who did something that goes past the point of no return. At that point there is no turning back.  Yet, the number of people that have made it to that territory is so small that it's really in the single digits. In fact, it probably could be counted on one hand.

While I may be forgiving, and willing to work through things, that doesn't mean all people feel the same way about me.  In some cases that has caused me years of distress.  Friendships abruptly ended or a sudden unexplained distance formed.  Having moved around a lot in my younger years my past is littered with the ghosts of old friendships taken from moves from place to place as a child.  The older friends I'm still in contact with are from my late middle school or early high school years. I wonder, at times, if people from earlier times ever wonder about me.  I've done some social media investigating, when those people have floated into my thoughts, and it takes me down a strange rabbit hole into the past.

I value my relationships, probably because I had such a rootless first half of my life (well almost the first half of my life as I'm much older). However, I've also become guarded and cynical, and that's because far to many times I've been on the receiving end of the cowardly millennial trend of ghosting people.  Just abrupt silence. No explanation, no discussion, and generally speaking, not even some sort of blow up or conflict with me.  Just an empty hole, and weeks and months, or even years of me wondering why it is that people feel it's appropriate to treat others with such little respect or regard. Often times I realize that clearly I misunderstood the relationship as clearly there was not really much care or consideration for me, given the way that I could just be tossed aside. This repeated behavior also causes me to really wonder if I really matter to much of anyone given such behavior.

For the most part, while upsetting, I've tried not to let it bother me too much. Many of these incidents were newer friends that had not been a foundational part of my support/friend structure.  They were a many who were regulars and who I thought were pretty close to suddenly disappeared.  There have also been a few that were much closer that caused a lot of concern and grief.  Most of those turned out to be temporary, however it has left scars of uncertainty that have resulted in a lot of doubt and caused me to reconsider many relationships and question if it's really a close relationship. 

However, there is one that really cut me to the core, as it was a long and once close connection that about a year ago evaporated.  Of course, looking back in retrospect I know that there were warning signs. I often felt like the relationship was one sided. I sifted through text messages and communications and saw me reaching out more, initiating contact more, inviting and planning more. I was an after thought.  However, as I said, I always believe things can improve. And, given some major changes were occurring, I hoped that a rebuilding was possible as for the first time in years I felt like I had seen my friend again after disappearing under all sorts of life events.  

Instead, I got ghosted.

I reached out wishing a happy birthday, and then didn't hear from them for months. So I reached out again, and got a little contact, and then didn't hear from them for months again before getting the final message of our friendship. An impersonal happy birthday message on Facebook. It was like leaving a two cent tip at a restaurant to let them know that you didn't forget to tip, you just thought they weren't worth more. After that nothing again. Not even a response to my reciprocal Facebook birthday message. I was ghosted by a person I had been friends with for over half my life. No arguments. No conflict. No discussion. Just Casper, sitting at a pottery wheel with.

For the past year this has nagged at me, hurt me, and caused me regular anxiety, pain, and distress.  As I said, I'm not good and ending things. There was always some hope that things would be repaired. However, at some point in the past few weeks I decided I can't take that kind of thing anymore. I can't take the unknown, the hope, the pain, and decided to just cut it off. Eliminate the connection on social media, and really move it past the point of no return. I just try to hang on longer than I should when the message has been sent loud and clear that I don't mean anything and am unwanted. Actually, it's probably worse than that, being unwanted and meaningly implies at least some thought, I was ghosted and abandoned. 

Goals Update - November Edition

The year is nearly over, and I've been way behind on updating my goals. The last update was way back in July.  So, before we get into it, I've abandoned a few of these, but continue on others.  

Goal Number One - Read 12 books: The goal for this one is 12 with an 18 extended goal, and so far I'm on track for the main goal of 12, as I only need two more before the end of the year, which is two months away.  I'm currently starting my 11th book, and will start a 12th book soon because I'm reading along with the Life's Library book club. Though, I did get notified that this is the final year they're doing it, which is kind of sad because it was an interesting way to mix up my book choices.  On the list below so far numbers 6-10 are from the book club, and numbers 1-5 were related to books my students were reading in class, though Irena's Children is an actual history book that is very good. The others are YA books, on the Y end of the spectrum. I think that given there's a schedule for the book club books, there's a good chance that'll I'll start a second book this month so that I have more than one to read at a time. I'd be further along but I hated Whose Names are Unknown so much that it put me off reading for a while.  Our next book on the book club list I'm not sure about, but I also started JK Rowlings book Ichabod. 

1. Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow by  Susan Campbell Bartoletti
2. Irena's Children by Tilar J. Mazzeo
3. Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
4. The Way Home Looks Now by Wendy Wan-Long Shang
5. Discovering Our Past: A History of the United States Early Years by Joyce Appleby, Alan Brinkley, Albert Broussard, James McPherson, and Donald Richie
6. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid
7.  The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
8. Whose Names are Unknown by Sanora Babb
9. Without You There Is No Us by Suki Kim
10. Birds Art Life by Kyo Maclear

Goal Number Two - Focus on Fitness: There has been no focus on fitness at all. I'm just working to get by every day, and maybe close one of my rings. 

• Subgoal 1: Close my three rings 75% of the time.  This is still achievable. I just need to keep on it this month and next month and it'll happen.
• January - 30 out of 31 days for 96%
• February - 24 out of 28 days for 85%
• March - 27 of 31 days for 87%
• April - 27 of 30 days for 90%
• May - 21 of 31 days for 67%
• June - 18 of 30 days for 60%
• July - 30 of 31 days for 96%
• August - 21 of 31 days for 67%
• September - 20 of 30 days for 66%
• October - 22 of 31 days for 70%
• YTD - 240 of 304 for 78%
• Subgoal 2: Create a schedule that includes two different activities a week.  At this point I'm lucky if I do one thing per week.
• Subgoal 3: Complete a 5k race (pending containment of COVID - virtual run if not contained). Due to COVID this is not happening.

Goal Number Three - Use a social calendar:  Given the high rates we've been pretty locked down again. So this really isn't likely until Sal is vaccinated.

Goal Number Four - Home Repair/Improvements: This one is a win. We now have a deck on the back of the house, and I was able to repair some of the rotted wood. I didn't get to all of it, but once things warm up again I'll finish it up. We've also got some things we can do on the inside to repair the bathroom where the cats were assholes. 

Goal Number Five - Monthly Challenges: I envisioned that I'd have some monthly challenges that I'd do every month and it would be different and interesting. I tried in January and didn't enjoy the one I picked, then something happened in February, and I didn't really do it. So, I kind of gave up. I think I need people to do this with. If it's just me I'm not going to do it.

Goal Number Six - Take three photos a day:  I have not even tried.

Goal Number Seven - Have seven new experiences:  I'm not sure how well I'll be able to get to seven, but we'll see. Here's what I've got so far:

1. Got vaccinated for a pandemic.  So this sounds like perhaps not a thing because I have been vaccinated for things before. However, I feel this is a different thing because the pandemic has changed how we live so much for the past year that getting a vaccine so quickly is amazing, but also the freedom that it will bring also is a lot, so I think it counts as a new experience.
2. Repaired a dryer! Our heating element went out, and with the assistance of YouTube, I was able to order the part and repair the thing. Thanks, The Internet!
3. Left a teaching job.  Last week I was offered a position at a high school, so I had to leave my last job, that I was at for five years. I've never gone through this process, and it's a bit of a pain, but also exciting because I'm also leaving middle school teaching.
4. Became a high school teacher which has been somewhat of a disappointment, but I'm trying to find my way on it all.
5. Got Covid and had to isolate in my basement for 10 days.  Not a fun experience.

With two months to go, I'll soon have to start thinking about next year and the goals I'd like.  

Week, Bro.

 Today is the 8th day of isolation.  In terms of isolation venues, it's pretty good. I've got a queen sized air mattress, a couch, a tv, my computer, and about 500 books if I feel like reading.  In fact, I have been reading.  Not every day, but every day for the past four days or so.  The problem was that I was reading a book called Whose Names Are Unknown by Sanora Babb.  Apparently, they never published it back in the 30s or whatever because it was too much like The Grapes of Wrath. However, in recent years they decided to publish it.  To say I didn't like it is an understatement.  The book was barely 200 pages, and I've been reading it since July or something.  It was just so boring. However, since I had nothing else to do I figured now was the time to force myself through it. I got to the end, and it just ended.  Not really compelling.  

Then two days ago I started Without You, There Is No Us by Suki Kim.  This one was about the author who posed as a missionary so she could teach English in a school in North Korea for the sons of the more elite in the country.  I basically finished this one in two days. I found it really interesting to get a peek inside such a closed off place. Since I finished that today I've now moved on to my next book, Birds Art Life by Kyo Maclear. I have to say that in the first 13 pages I've read so far I'm not so sure it's going to be something I enjoy.  However, it's very short, so my hope is that I can power through it while I'm still in isolation and don't have much to do so that I can move on to the next book.  Really all these books are part of the book club that I'm in, that I'm really behind on.  The book I just started we are supposed to be done with next week.  My hope is that I can get on schedule and do the next book on time, but we'll see.  I haven't really been one to join the discussion so it's not like I'm missing much.

In the week I've also done a ton of cleaning and rearranging of things in my office, as well as some things on my computer also.  I also was able to do some updates on my computer to extend the life of it a bit longer, which is pretty good since I got it in 2012. I've also gotten ahead on my grading, so that with report cards coming out this week I'm not frantically grading.  Or perhaps I am frantically grading but it's not really an imposition because there's nothing else for me to do. I can't watch tv or hang out with my family except on video calls, and those only last so long because they're only so much to talk about when you're staying in the same 400 square feet. In fact, I haven't been off this floor in 8 days when I got home from getting my Covid test. It's going to be weird to be upstairs in a few days.  In fact, I've got three nights and two days left until I'm free. Or about 56 hours really. 

The end is near!

Burn Out

 What do you do when the job you wanted your whole life, you don't want to do anymore?

Today was a rough day when it comes to my job. We now have five teachers with confirmed cases of Covid, and so the decision was made that we can no longer keep a school running with that level of teacher loss, so the solution is that we have to go to a virtual format until next week when teachers are again able to return to the classroom.  The thing is, when you have Covid there are two options for you. Either, you work through it virtually and retain your pay, or you take leave and only get a percentage of your pay.  Never mind that you have a deadly disease that makes you feel exhausted. Never mind that you the only reason you are sick to begin with is because the school.  Never mind that you also need to isolate away from your family so the emotional toll is also very high. Never mind that you've been going through this shit for 20 months and it's already a lot.  Never mind that your staff is constantly having to amazingly shift gears between these different formats and have not had a normal moment of teaching in nearly two years.  Never mind that you've worked for six years and taking a single sick day in all that time Fuck all of that, you're working. No time off for you.

This is probably a large reason why my satisfaction with my job is so low.  It's exhausting to be constantly in a state of worry about all these kids everywhere, fighting with them about masks, distancing, on top of the other normal student behavior issues.  Plus, these kids haven't had a normal school year since they were like 8th or 9th graders, so they don't even know how to act. Everything has just gotten so exhausting and it's hard to make it through the day, much less a week or whole school year.  It's only the beginning of the 8th week of school and I'm already as exhausted in a way that usually doesn't happen for much after in the school year when there's a glimmer of hope that it doesn't have much longer.  We're still three weeks from Thanksgiving. It's weeks until we get some recharge time.

That being said, I'm also just kind of not sure what to do about teaching anymore.  I used to feel like teaching was a job where I could make a difference and do something that matters.  I think that may be true somewhere, but I don't know that it's really true.  Most of them don't do any of the work, and as far as I can tell they don't seem to have any interest in learning just getting their check mark and moving on. There's such a negative view of education that's been building for years now with attack after attack on education. It's expensive, it's to get a job, it's a waste of time. And on, and on, and on.  It's really demoralizing and I don't know if it's really even worth it.  There's so much stress, so much nonsense, so little of it is what I went in to teaching for.  I don't feel like I make a difference at all. I don't think I'm doing anything good. I don't even know.  What is the point? I could be making more money elsewhere and making a difference for my family instead.

I'm just so tired all the time. Perhaps some changes would help all this, and the world getting back to a reasonable point might make it not so bad. But right now it's a struggle.

Cabin Fever?

 Today is the fourth day of isolation to keep the family from catching the Rona.  Yesterday, given that I have lots of time I decided to do some office reorganization that I had been planning but haven't gotten around to. The biggest thing is that quite a while ago I bought a new monitor, since my other one is so old that I got it at a CompUSA.  That being said, it still works and I wanted to set up a two monitor system but my giant hutch does not allow for such things. So, I had a plan that might take down the hutch, move the components other places to retain the storage.  Well, since I have time I decided to take it down.  My office has this lovely shelf around one side of it, and the cabinets fit perfectly on them, so that went as planned.  The other positive thing was that the corner part has a piece of board that comes down in the back creating a massive L-shaped piece, and that back part comes off making it easier to store. The downside is I'm not entirely sure where to store that piece as it is very large, oddly shaped, and the only space it could have worked is too thick so it's not possible. 

As I was rearranging I had to go through the many keepsakes that litter my desk. The top of a hutch is a great place to display and store these items as I don't have enough shelving or display cabinets to cover them all.  The downside on that is they all get covered in dust.  However, as I'm moving some of this, I had a thought about how things that once a lot of value change over time and become less valuable.  Part of that comes from changes in relationships, but also as we go and our identify evolves, sometimes those things are tokens of an identity that has shifted. For example, 20 years ago being from Virginia was a large part of my identity, but I moved from Virginia nearly 25 years ago, so it's not really a large part of my identity anymore, it's rather more of a fun fact.  So now, my rock from Virginia, while I enjoy it, also isn't something that is like super special in the same way.

At the same time, I'm old and realize that who knows, in 25 years my family will have to throw all this stuff out because it means nothing to them. Is there any point in keeping anything? I mean, of course they become memory touchstones, but eventually even that isn't true. They become things that remind us we did things, but those memories of the things fade.  Like, I was watching an old home movie and had no memory of any of the things happening for the most part.  There were a few parts that I recall because of photos and conversations, but most of it had been lost and the items from the trip simply reminded me that I went on the trip. 

The past is a funny thing.

The Cellar Dweller

 Let's start with the good.  So far, thing have been very mild. No one else has gotten sick. I have a comfortable space to isolate in. I'm able to work from home so I'm not losing any of my pay.

That being said, I have friggin' Covid and I'm not pleased about it.  

How could this happen?  Well, school.  It's the only place I go. It's also not able to socially distance, especially in the hall ways.  Half the student body is not vaccinated. I'm forever yelling at them to pull up their masks. Oh, and I get lunch duty where I have to walk around a lunch room with hundreds of unmasked, unvaccinated children where there is a high level of community spread in our area.  We currently have at least one other teacher as well as five students who have tested positive. I also know that there were students with coughs and some sort of illness in my room. Surely, it's possible that I got it somewhere else right?  Not likely.  Generally the only time I go anywhere is on the weekends, which consists of occasionally going to the grocery store, though usually Becky does that and I stay home with Sal as I have school work to do.  I have been to a few stores over the past two weeks, but it's unlikely that is where I got this as I was not in any of them long, not near the same people for long, so the exposure likelihood is that this came from school. 

I always knew that if I got it, it would be from school.  That's because for the past 19 months we have been cautious and considerate of those around us. We have stayed home, we have not gone to restaurants, we have not gone on vacation. We have avoided large gatherings, and limited our gatherings to vaccinated people, usually outside with the exception of our family dinners (which everyone is vaccinated, and many test before coming over).  We have gone without for nearly two years to keep the unvaccinated, like our child, safe. It's irksome that after months of precautions, to now get it. I was supposed to get my booster next week, which probably would have avoided this outcome.  Sal was going to get the vaccine as soon as it was available in a few weeks.  We were almost to a level of normalcy, and to get it now is really insulting.

A while back I had a rather unfocused post about what we owe each other.  Well, this is the prime example of that. I am in this situation, not because I was reckless and foolish. I'm in this situation because of those who failed to get vaccinated. I'm in this situation because of those who refuse to wear masks. I'm in this situation because too many people think that their experience is the only thing they have to consider and any level of inconvenience for them is too high of a barrier.  Meanwhile, I got Covid because of them.  Because they wouldn't socially distance, wouldn't wear their masks, wouldn't get vaccinated. Because they just do whatever they want. No inconvenience for the,

Well, getting Covid is a huge inconvenience.  The most severe inconvenience being hospitalization and death.  This is not something I'm worried about for me, as I was responsible and was vaccinated.  However, my live is now utterly inconvenienced for 10 days.  I can't go to work, so I have to try and adjust my lessons for a sub.  This inconveniences every student I have, and the people I work with because now someone has to cover my class.  I also have to stay isolated from my family so they don't get sick.  This inconvenienced everyone in my house.  I can't spend time with them. I can't put my daughter to bed. I can't have dinner with the family. I can't see them or be around them. I have to stay isolated in the basement. I also have no taste or smell, which can last up to six months or even longer.  While this happens, my family is down a member, who can't help do things around the house. Who can't help take care of a child, cook, and do all the chores.  It also inconveniences them in that they want to see me.  Tell a six year old that she can't see her dad and see how well it goes.  Further, they now have to worry that they caught it. So for the next 10 days my daughter can't go to school because she's not vaccinated, and my vaccinated family have to look out for symptoms and test after 5-7 days to see if their vaccines worked.

People wants to go on about how it's their choice, and it's personal, and no one would tell them what to do because it's only affecting them.  Well, you selfish dimwits, it's not any of those things. It's not personal. You're going to get it from someone else, and you're going to pass it to someone else.  You getting sick is going to affect many other people, which in turn is going to affect many other people.  There is no such thing as a personal choice when it comes to public health.  There's no such thing as a personal choice when your personal choice has major consequences for other people. 

Get the damn vaccine, wear your fucking mask, and shut the hell up about your personal choices. No one else should pay the price for your personal choice.

So, What Do I Owe Ya?

It's a well established fact that the internet is the worst possible place that has ever existed. Think of all the horrible things that it has brought us: pop up ads, click-bait listicles, not to mention the forums being used to destroy the republic.  But also, social media.  Social media is the worst. It's fully of stupid people connecting with other stupid people. In the 1900s, stupid people had to physically go out and find other stupid people t spread their stupidness. Now, thanks to social media, the stupid people don't have to go anywhere, instead they take their stupid memes and share them so other stupid people can see it and share it. It's like Covid in Florida, but for stupid.

One of the things the internet made that I hate most is the meme psychology and interpersonal advice that spreads like herpes at a nursing home. It takes the stupidity of self help books, and puts it into bite sized turds that are easily shared on the internet.  It's a self help books, only it's lazier. At least self help books require you to read something more than a picture with a dozen words on it. Some of the worst examples of this is the concept of toxic relationships, which is a valid idea, but has been memes into anyone who may make you unhappy or disagree with you is toxic. Another related memeified idea is cutting out these toxic people. Like, yeah, actually toxic people you should cut out, but your aunt makes you made does not make them toxic nor does is validate your choice to cut them out forever. But of course, as the next meme will tell you, you need to protect your mental health. Which of course means anything that makes you sad can't remain. The memes told you that you could.

However, the one that has irked me the most is idea that you don't owe anyone anything. This one is pervasive and applied to all sorts of things. You don't owe anyone an explanation. You don't owe anyone your time. You don't owe anyone respect. You don't owe anyone anything. To quote another meme, talk about toxic.  

The idea that people don't owe anyone anything is a perfect illustration of why the world is in the state that it is. This idea that you doesn't owe anything to anyone leads to a pernicious self centered outlook on the world. It's why you have people refusing to wear masks or get vaccinated. These people don't believe they owe anything to anyone. It's why people act like assholes in traffic, all that matters is them, they owe nothing to anyone else. Its why people feel that it's ok to just ghost people, cancel on plans, and act in a way that doesn't consider anyone else. Because they don't owe anyone anything. I mean, it's about them. This idea gives permission for selfish behavior and permission to become the victim if anyone has a problem with your selfish behavior. It gives a blank check to inconsiderate and rude behavior that is beyond reproach.

The truth is, you owe people a lot.  We live in communities, we live with other people, we have relationships and families. You owe these people things. You owe them your time. You owe them your understanding. You owe them the benefit of the doubt. You owe them explanations. You owe them your support. You owe them just as much as they owe you. Each relationship we have comes with expectations and behaviors that we owe each other because we can not have these relationships if we believe we owe them nothing. We owe each other everything, and this obnoxious ultra-individualistic and self-centered outlook that you owe nothing to anyone is truly toxic. Like so many of these memes, it's the kind of outlook that a young teenager might believe, and results in adolescent egocentric behavior. Often times I feel people who use this know it's not true, and know that they are really just deflecting after behaving badly and being called out for it. Perhaps they internalize that idea, and play the victim.  Perhaps I'm wrong and people truly believe this, but I guess I just think too highly of others that they can't be stupid enough to really believe things so unreasonable.

Our society needs us to owe each other, because that owning reminds us that we are community of people who must come together. It reminds us that there are those outside of ourselves that must be considered too. It is the basis of kind and warmhearted interactions, and reinforces compassion and empathy. The American myth of rugged individualism that brings us down he road of thought that we owe nothing to those around us has created some of the worst aspects of our society today. However, our lives are not our own, they are part of a larger community, and we owe it to those in our community to consider others, explain ourselves, give, thing long term, hear feedback, put others ahead of ourselves, serve, and be compassionate. 

So, what do we owe each other? Everything. So, let's grow up and stop pretending that we don't.

What Happened to the Original Plot of the Movie?

I am a history teacher, so therefore it would be safe to assume that I teach history. I mean, you would think that would be the case, but really I'm not so sure. This year I was excited to make the leap to high school, and pleased that I would be teaching U.S. history as well. I really wanted to get into a public school, but that wasn't going to work out. Luckily, my company merged with a company that runs high schools, so I had the opportunity to move up. This all seemed like good news going into the summer, and my biggest worry was that the drive would be a little bit longer.

We are about to finish the fifth week of school, and the entire thing has been a huge disappointment. There are a number of reasons that this job has been a giant let down. There was a lot of chaos at the beginning where there were constant changes, poor communication on those changes, and just a general lack or preparation somewhere in the process of starting a school year.  All of those things are well over my pay grade to worry about why they happened or how to fix them, but they contributed to the massive disenchantment with my job.  

However, the biggest point of friction and dissatisfaction has been with the thing that I thought I would be doing every day, which is teaching history. In that area of my job I feel like our system is a complete failure.  The system fails students, it fails the goals of social studies education, and it fails the teachers who want to teach their subject, but the system has led to huge incentives for students to not do any work whatsoever and no incentive to worry about the content of our classes.

When I first met with my principal she told me that we used standards based grading.  This didn't worry me much because at my last job we had something that I thought was similar in that each assignment was linked to a state standard in social studies. It's a more intentional way to track progress. I knew that students had multiple opportunities to take assessments to show growth and learning. This all seemed fine and I would just have to get used to the new tech systems and adjust a little bit here or there, but a pretty minor transition.  However, that is not what I've experienced. The standards that they are being graded on are not social studies standards. For example, in the first semester they have two standards, standard one is perspective, standard two is cause and effect.  Basically, the entire class is based on being able to interpret sources, generally primary sources. Can they identify the perspective of an author. Can they identify the main idea of a source. Can they explain what a specific key word or phrase in a source means, and explain how that key word or phrase supports the author's argument or main idea.  

This is not a social studies required standard. I could do this with Harry Potter. I could do it with a comic book. I could do it with the script to the Karate Kid.  In our instances, we are using speeches generally, but the point is, this skill does not require any real history do learn to do these things. Sure, we're using historical documents, but it doesn't need to be that.

Now, this isn't necessarily the worst activity to teach students. In fact, I've been doing variations on this for years. Reading and interpreting primary sources is important, and a skill to practice.  So, if that's the case why are you crying like that person who wanted everyone to leave Brittney alone?

Well, here's the first problem, reading and interpreting primary sources is REALLY HARD. It's also not every fun. We are reading things from two hundred years ago, and teenagers generally really struggle trying to understand what they are saying, much less being able to figure out their main idea.  Does this mean they shouldn't do it? No. Like I said, I've been doing it for years.  However, the problem is that the entire class revolves around this. This is what they are being graded on the entire semester. This is the skill they are trying to practice every day.  This is the central activity, and the history becomes secondary to all of that.

This brings us to the second problem.  In order to be able to do all of the analyzing of these sources, you must know the context.  Ok, so that means you must teach the history in order for them to understand the documents. So I see how this plan can work. You create a skill to repeatedly test, you teach the context, then they perform the skill.  In theory, this could work. However, the way things are set up 80% of their grade is based on doing the skill, 10% of the grade is "moral focus" which is their participation in the class.  The last 10% is on the content. There is no real immediate incentive to actually learn the material, to learn the history. If you think you can do the skill, there's no need to do the work, no need to do really participate too much because 80% is enough for most people to be happy with their grade.  Further more, no assignments get grades, it's all just feedback. You grade it, but it doesn't affect their grade at all, except perhaps their moral focus participation grade. Further, those moral focus grades come later, it's a long term planning thing, and I'm not sure if you were away, but teenagers aren't the best with long term planning. In fact, we've been told that multiple times in our summer PD sessions that the brain of a teenager is not fully developed to be able to judge those type of things and plan that far ahead, yaddayaddayadd. Yet, we have a system where students have to think about the long term implications of not doing their work and how that will effect them in January when the semester is over?  This is lunacy.

We've created an entire system where there is no incentive to bother learning any history as long as you can identify perspective, or the main idea of a document.  If that's the case, why are we hiring any social studies teachers at all? This is a literature/reading skill. An English teacher would just as easily be able to do this. Yet, it seems to me giving the world and the way that our society has no idea about anything historical or civics related, that the teaching of history and social studies is more vital now than any time in living history. Meanwhile, every day I have to try to overcome the massive incentives students have to not bother worrying about my class or the content I'm trying to teach them. The content is secondary, the consequences are months int he future. 

I try to remember that I'm not in a public school, where nonsense like this isn't the standard. However, I feel more and more like schools are actually failing. Not because they can't do the job, but because they are choosing to do absurd things like this.

When I Got Done, I Was Tired

 I get the impression that this might be a problem that many people are having, but I just feel exhausted all the time. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. I just feel like I'm at capacity, like when your phone tells you that you don't have enough room left to take that picture of your meal (remember going out and having dinner?), so you'll have to delete one of your old meal pictures so you can take your new meal picture.  Or when your computer is like, you need to do an update, but your hard drive can't download it because it's full, so you can't actually do that update so now you have a huge security hole and some Nigerian Prince is going to steal your bank account number. I know that's not how that scam works, but I'm using it as an example.

The problem is that we've been in this godforsaken pandemic for over a year and a half. At first I could deal with it. It was a bit stressful, but we stayed home, we got our groceries delivered, we didn't go out, and we were pretty safe.  Then schools opened back up, without great plans to keep our students or ourselves safe, but a lot of kids stayed home, so again there was some level of comfort despite the stress and worry that came with teaching online and in person during a pandemic.  This year it's just packed full classrooms with students who haven't been in proper school in two years.  My Juniors have not had a regular school year since they were in middle school.  They are acting like fools. There's also the worry about the family. We've been vaccinated, but Sal can't get it yet, so there is worry that she'll get sick.

This is all so draining, however, there's nothing to refill or recharge.  In regular times you'd get friends together, play games, have some snacks and unwind. But, as we are still in a pandemic with an aggressive version of the virus, that's still not really something that most of our responsible friends, or us for that matter, are really feeling comfortable with. So it's been over a year and a half of stress, anxiety, and worry, but no way to relieve it.  There's nothing that recharges my batteries except for a few interactions every now and again. It's exhausting. I know we're all going through the same thing, so I try not to complain too much and just carry on. I also know that I'm not generally one that people check in on, and I'm just so exhausted and every day is becoming a struggle. 

The result of this is that the unvaccinated just make me angry. I have little compassion left for them and I feel like we should put them all in a room and let them get it so this thing will finally run out of places to spread. They keep going on about natural immunity, well let's just test it out and get it over with so we can just be done here. Get vaccinated or get Covid so that we can't move on and start living a more normal life. I don't like having that negative outlook, but that is what 18 months of dealing with this is moving us toward because it's becoming too much and we're just all exhausted and tired in every way possible.

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time I was a regular blogger. For many years I blogged on a regular basis. Over the years I have racked up 2,380 posts... well now 2,381.  Blogger tells me that my blog has been viewed 33,095 times as of writing this, though I'm sure a number of these are just bots or some sort of sad accident were somehow someone ended up here.  This blog has been around since 2008. In fact, my first posts were on the election of 2008, where I was astonished by the stupidity of the Sarah Palin nomination, and celebrated the victory of President Obama.  It's crazy to see how things have gone since those days in politics, though I don't really post much about that anymore. In reality, I don't really post about much of anything any more.

Why is that?

I mean, it's not really that I don't have time. Most evenings are filled with watching some shown, and lately playing Canasta online with random people from around the world. Becky tells me what an old person thing to do, but then again, when I played mindless games like SlitherIO, that was equally critiqued.  I could be using that time to do something constructive, or even blog. But I don't.

Why is that?

Somewhere along the line, I figured what was the point of it all? No one really cares what I have to say, and I never thought it was something that was meant for a wide audience. A lot of it was just for me to get thoughts out of my head, and to be able to say things. For a number of years, the darkest years when everything was falling apart, it was also just something to fill the time. I had so much of it to fill that I needed something. I also had a lot of disappointment, sadness, and general struggles that it was an outlet to spew my greatest annoyances without burdening my friends and family with my negativity that none of them wanted to hear. I mean, it was the Great Recession, shouldn't I have just been happy to have a job? Did I have a reason to complain. Is that really what friends are for, because I was just a mood killer?

So, somewhere as time when I just stopped. I had nothing worth saying, and who was listening anyway? I've never really gone back and read any of those old posts, but I'm sure they're unremarkable. Why add more unremarkable content to something already filled with nearly three thousand posts of mundane lamentations. But then again, for whom is this little endeavor? Is it for you the reader, or me the writer? 

Why come back now? Isn't this thing been reduced to being simply for goal updates that I never achieve and a monthly recounting of my shortcomings? Well yes, we can't let hot content like that go the way of the Dodo.  However, I feel like I may have other things to say. I'm kind of mad about things. I'm kind of disgusted by things. I'm kind of at the end of may patience about things. The stress of Covid is finally wearing me down, and the stupidity of the world today is becoming intolerable. I may, once more, have thoughts in my head that I need to get out because it's absurd in the world today. 

Or perhaps...

I decided for this one day to post something, and then once more will recede into the sea of the internet to play canasta and scroll through Instagram.

Only time will tell.

Goals Update - July Edition

 Well, it's the midway point of the year, but I haven't posted since April, which was the midway point of the first half of the year.  As always there are a variety of reasons for this, but we'll skip all that and instead check in on how the goals are going for the first half of the year. Spoiler alert: I've kind of given up on some of them. 

Goal Number One - Read 12 books: The goal for this one is 12 with an 18 extended goal, and so far I'm on track for the main goal of 12, as I'm over halfway through the year and halfway through the goal. I'm currently starting my 8th book, which is part of the Life's Library book club. I think it'll do a good job at keeping me on track, and it's nice because Becky is doing it with me so that we can discuss the books.  ON the list below so far numbers 6 and 7 are from the book club, and numbers 1-5 were related to books my students were reading in class, though Irena's Children is an actual history book that is very good. The others are YA books, on the Y end of the spectrum. I think that given there's a schedule for the book club books, there's a good chance that'll I'll start a second book this month so that I have more than one to read at a time. The nice thing is that the last few books I have really enjoyed and haven't had the same dread and aversion to reading. I think so far The Song of Achilles is my favorite book. I'd like to hit 18 this year, but we'll see how it goes over the next six months.

1. Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow by  Susan Campbell Bartoletti
2. Irena's Children by Tilar J. Mazzeo
3. Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
4. The Way Home Looks Now by Wendy Wan-Long Shang
5. Discovering Our Past: A History of the United States Early Years by Joyce Appleby, Alan Brinkley, Albert Broussard, James McPherson, and Donald Richie
6. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid
7.  The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Goal Number Two - Focus on Fitness: The first part of the year didn't go well here, but lately I've been moving along, so I suppose we can check in on this one and see some improvement.

• Subgoal 1: Close my three rings 75% of the time.  
• January - 30 out of 31 days for 96%
• February - 24 out of 28 days for 85%
• March - 27 of 31 days for 87%
• April - 27 of 30 days for 90%
• May - 21 of 31 days for 67%
• June - 18 of 30 days for 60%
• YTD - 147 of 181 for 81%
• Subgoal 2: Create a schedule that includes two different activities a week.  This has been something that I've sort of been doing the past few weeks, in that I've been running and walking. Not the best in terms of differentiated activities, but it's something so far. I've also thrown in the occasional other activity, usually yoga. I could be better.
• Subgoal 3: Complete a 5k race (pending containment of COVID - virtual run if not contained). I'm not sure about this one. Most things are opening up as if COVID is over, but I'm not sure I want to be out running and breathing heavily around a group of other people. It's not something you'll be able to mask for, so I'm thinking this might be out for this year. I feel we're going to see a resurgence since half the country still won't get vaccinated.

Goal Number Three - Use a social calendar:  Now that the entire family and our friends are all fully vaccinated, things have started to open up. However, we're still being very cautious with all of this. We've had a few things, mostly outdoors. Though we did have a visit from Kara who we haven't seen since 2019! I'm not sure that it makes sense to try and get a social calendar given half the year is over. Though maybe I can get one at a super discount. It actually might be helpful as it's not felt like the easiest thing to reengage socially.  I dunno, we'll see. At the very least, it's been nice to see real people sometimes, even if it's only been for the past month and a half to two months.

Goal Number Four - Home Repair/Improvements: When I conceived of this goal, I mentioned wanting to repair some rotting wood outside, and to fix the damaged bathroom on the main floor. I haven't done either of those things yet, however, the bathroom is actually on the list and we've discussed starting on it soon.  We've had a ton of rain the first two weeks I've been off work, so the outside things have not yet been attempted.  However, we are also in talks to have a deck added. So, that may be a thing too.  I think the minor items that I've posted for this goal will happen.

Goal Number Five - Monthly Challenges: I envisioned that I'd have some monthly challenges that I'd do every month and it would be different and interesting. I tried in January and didn't enjoy the one I picked, then something happened in February, and I didn't really do it. So, this might be a goal that's just done for the year. I didn't do it, it was poorly conceived, and I'm not sure what I'd do the rest of the year anyway.

Goal Number Six - Take three photos a day:  This has been difficult to complete. Maybe I scale it back to try and do one per day for the rest of the year? A picture of the day instead of three.  For a while, I was getting one with a drawing per day, but I found it difficult to come up with something to draw a while back, so I haven't been doing that either. Everything is just difficult.

Goal Number Seven - Have seven new experiences:  I'm not sure how well I'll be able to get to seven, but we'll see. Here's what I've got so far:

1. Got vaccinated for a pandemic.  So this sounds like perhaps not a thing because I have been vaccinated for things before. However, I feel this is a different thing because the pandemic has changed how we live so much for the past year that getting a vaccine so quickly is amazing, but also the freedom that it will bring also is a lot, so I think it counts as a new experience.
2. Repaired a dryer! Our heating element went out, and with the assistance of YouTube, I was able to order the part and repair the thing. Thanks, The Internet!
3. Left a teaching job.  Last week I was offered a position at a high school, so I had to leave my last job, that I was at for five years. I've never gone through this process, and it's a bit of a pain, but also exciting because I'm also leaving middle school teaching.

So, there we have it, half a year in, and things are like this. It's not too bad, especially considering how hard this year has been.

Goals Update - April Edition

I've been lax on updating, which is really pretty standard for how this blog has been. I mainly use it as a way to just log what I'm up to, and really I haven't been up to much.  So, despite missing two check ints, let's see where we are so far, or more likely where we aren't so far.

Goal Number One - Read 12 books: The goal for this one is 12 with a 18 exendend goal, and I have finished one book so far. The book was one that my students were going to read for their ELA class, and as it was on the Holocaust and I was giving them some lessons on the subject I read it to know what they were going to come across. It was ok, though I had a number of notes about it. 

1. Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow by  Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Goal Number Two - Focus on Fitness: Let's not pretend that this is going well. But below are the goals I'm not meeting.

• Subgoal 1: Close my three rings 75% of the time.  
• Subgoal 2: Create a schedule that includes two different activities a week.  
• Subgoal 3: Complete a 5k race (pending containment of COVID - virtual run if not contained).

Goal Number Three - Use a social calendar:  Given that we're still in a Covid situation, not much for this one, though with the vaccines rolling out, I feel the second half of the year may improve.

Goal Number Four - Home Repair/Improvements: No projects yet, but it's not project season yet.

Goal Number Five - Monthly Challenges: This made it about two weeks, and I stopped, so we should probably just forget this one for the rest of the year.

Goal Number Six - Take three photos a day:  I started out ok with this, but again nothing lately.

Goal Number Seven - Have seven new experiences:  We'll see, but I'm not optimistic on this one either.

So, this was fun. I'm not doing anything. Hooray! But at least now you know, and now I know that you know.

Anti-Social Media

 Yesterday I outlined my goals for the year, and one of those goals was to have a series of mini-goals every month in the form of challenges.  For January I decided that I wanted to do a month of no social media.  There are a few reasons why I settled on this, the first being that it wastes a lot of time.  There's lots of scrolling and scrolling, and I do that instead of the other things that I could be doing that would probably make me feel more productive or at the very least be more rewarding. I know a lot of the reading I do on Twitter is actually news articles, so much of the time related to that is reading what's going on in the world. However, when I get to the end I just keep scrolling waiting to see something update, and I should be doing something else with my time instead, so it seems to make sense to limit social media.

That being said, I'm not going to give up my Instagram because I use it for my photo challenge, so it'd be hard to complete that if I wasn't on Instagram.  The other reason that I'm sticking with Instagram is that I don't follow all that much, so the daily scrolling is pretty low because it doesn't take long to scan through the photos. I also don't feel like it's quite as mindless scrolling as I generally only follow people I know, so I'm just seeing their pictures which is fun. I also follow places like the Department of Interior that post some amazing photos of the national parks.

However, that goes into my second reason for wanting to avoid social media (especially Facebook) for a bit, which is I just don't enjoy the culture on it anymore.  I rarely see posts that people make, it's just a bunch of nonsense that they are sharing. A lot of that sharing is also part of that social media psychology/social outlook that I really detest.  It's the kind of thing that old people use to shake their fists at and complain about Millenials (who are entering their 40s, so it's not really a good term to describe youths anymore). Everything is about "toxic" this or that, and immature viewpoints on communication and relationships.  I've found that just seeing all of it annoys me and I don't like it.  It's different when it's about things that people are doing or posts about what's going on, but it's really just become a drag and not worth it.

So far I'm on day two, and I'm not feeling like I'm missing anything. I mean, I don't know what's going on in the world, but I can always read the news, or watch the nightly news or something to see what's up rather than doom scrolling Twitter.  I of course don't feel like I'm missing anything on Facebook either since it's all reposts nonsense. I also don't feel like I'm missing much because the algorithm just doesn't show me anything I want to see. So, I'm feeling pretty good with my social media hiatus thus far, though there's still another 29 days to go, so who knows how it'll turn out.  

Goals 2021!

We're all glad to have 2020 in the rearview, and obviously, things aren't going to be instantly better this year because it's not 2020. However, things in 2020 were sucky, and we have the hope that things will start to get better than it was because things are changing.  There's a vaccine that's starting to get rolled out, there's a runoff in Georgia that could change the power in the Senate, and of course, the worst president in American history is getting shitcanned in less than three weeks. Hopefully, this year will start to feel more normal, and life can stop being so disrupted. Things might not be all that different from yesterday, but there is hope.  That being said, it's time to focus on what's going on for my goals for 2021. 

Goal Number One - Read 12 books: The past few years, this goal has been easy, in part because I had to do a ton of reading for classes.  Last year I didn't do well at all, and that was disappointing to me.  So, I'm going to again keep this goal at 12 since I only did 4 in 2020. One a month is reasonable, but I"m going to give myself a reach goal of 18, because that's also reasonable.  I think this year to help keep me on track and to try something new, I'm going to follow along with Life's Library book club.  I've never done a book club, and while I don't know that I'll subscribe, I may just get the books and perhaps join the discussion chats.  At the very least, I'll know what they're talking about when they discuss it on Dear Hank and John.  I think it'll also be fun to read books that perhaps I wouldn't pick on my own, but we'll see how it goes.

Goal Number Two - Focus on Fitness: Fitness is always my second goal, but I'm not sure what exactly to do for it. I've done weight loss goals lately but I've missed them. However, last year I did a bunch of mini-goals that were attainable, so I think I may go with that method this year.  My mini goals this year are:

• Subgoal 1: Close my three rings 75% of the time.  
• Subgoal 2: Create a schedule that includes two different activities a week.  
• Subgoal 3: Complete a 5k race (pending containment of COVID - virtual run if not contained).

Goal Number Three - Use a social calendar:  When I set this goal last year, I had no idea that Covid would really screw it up.  There was a large portion of the year that did not involve any socializing at all except for those in the house.  As it started to drag on some virtual game meets, as well as socializing via Zoom popped up, but it wasn't very organized.  I think this is a good goal to carry over again, and this time include being more focused on the virtual meets because they're good, but easy to overlook. 

Goal Number Four - Home Repair/Improvements: With all the work we did last year, I'm not sure where to go with this one, but there are some smaller projects I'd like to take care of this year.  First, the jerk cats have done some damage to our main floor bathroom, so fixing that will be a focus.  Then, there are outside projects that need to get done that include landscaping, repairing rotting trim work, and of course a deck. So, those are the goals for this year.

Goal Number Five - Monthly Challenges: I decided that I'm going to try some monthly challenges for things that I want to adjust, or perhaps avoid.  Maybe it's fitness, maybe it's mental health, who knows.  What I do know, is that for January I'm going on a social media diet.  It stresses me out, and I waste time on it, so I'm going to avoid it for the month of January, with the exception of Instagram.  I will say, I accidentally opened Twitter earlier and then realized what I was doing and shut it immediately, so that was a fun slip on the first day.  I don't think I'm going to miss it much.

Goal Number Six - Take three photos a day:  I started a daily Instagram last year to track my daily photo challenge, and I enjoyed it.  I thought I'd continue doing that this year, however, to help me on a goal I'm not including this year I'm going to fold it in here (just fold it in). So, one of the three photos I post must be something I did creatively such as drawing, painting, etc. 

Goal Number Seven - Have seven new experiences:  I always do this one, and I always enjoy it.  Last year didn't work out quite the way I expected, but I look forward to some new experiences in 2021.

So, there we have it, the 2021 goals. A lot of them are carried over, but was last year a real year? Let's be honest. Might as well just pretend that 2020 didn't happen and delete it and start over. But maybe 2020 is cursed, so we should call it something else, like Year Spicy Ramen or something. Good luck in 2021!