A World Turned Upside Down

Right now, it's about the best way to describe it. The girls are back in school...virtually. After the um disaster of the last quarter of the 2019-2020 school year, the districts at least prepared for this coming year to be pretty much anything. And right now, that's virtual. Last Tuesday was the "official" first day of school but it was a first day of school like no other. I drove Natalie to her high school to pick up her supplies and her violin for orchestra. You drove into the parking lot at your assigned time, the person noted the name we had on the sheet in the windshield, and called into a walkie talkie to let them know who was there for their supplies. It felt surreal. These last six months have felt surreal and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Isabelle at least was able to go into the building and see her teacher. First, we had to have our masks and we had to fill out a survey saying we did not currently have any symptoms of Covid-19. At the door, they took our temperature and then we were able to go in. Her teacher had on a mask and had went over all the stuff with Isabelle on her iPad so she would be ready for class the following Tuesday since it was going to take awhile for everyone to get their supplies. He helped her collect all of her supplies and that was it, more or less. No putting supplies in their desks or lockers. No hugs. No seeing other classmates. Again, very surreal. So that was the first day of school for both of them.

Natalie had gotten her laptop about two weeks before but I hadn't had a chance to do anything with it and wouldn't you know, when I do, it's the night before she's supposed to log on and I run into technical issues. Go figure. But working 45 hours a week just did not give me much time to get things done. I decided then and there I needed a break. And that's what I have been doing. I have taken some time off of work to get a much needed mental health break and to be avail to deal with all the technical issues that have so far come up with Natalie's schooling. I imagine there will be issues tomorrow as well when both of them go online for classes. Hopefully, by the time I go back on Thursday, these hiccups will be few and far between. I have no idea otherwise how I'm going to make everything work.

It's been exhausting and frankly, I'm kind of tired of feeling like I live in a dystopian novel.