The Pandemic boon and not so much

 

Yes, the pandemic was a boon to this woman who has extreme crowd anxiety. A boon and also a back-slide, I have been able to avoid crowds or to put it more distinctly I am in charge of when I engage with others in person. Now with going to “Hermiston Hybrid,” my anxiety is increasing. But I will endure and I will do my best not to inflict it on my students. I have had only three students say they are considering not coming back to in person. I wish instead of dropping all four grades into this “hybrid” situation they had started with 9-10 for two weeks and then moved to adding 11-12. Having all four grades moving about the building, plus staff, should have a learning curve. All of this is dependent on our metrics, though our Governor has said all schools need to move to in person in some fashion by mid April.

While I cannot say that I flourished and thrived under the restrictions of the Pandemic, I did relax. I read and webinared my free time and learned so much about Civics and History. So much that I couldn’t use it with my students because my two Civics/Economics colleagues though both younger and in the profession fewer years than I had the blessing of the admin to arrange, I won’t say dictate, the what and when of both Civics and Economics. I was allowed some input, but my expertise when asked for was ripped apart by the former lawyer each time. So I stopped, I stopped not because I was wrong or had things turned around I stopped because his rapid fire questions never allowed me to think my answers through. After waiting a short time he would begin to  rephrase the same question for me and if I began to talk before he was done, “I hope you don’t do that students. Or I am still talking.” Loudly and angrily. I always wanted to say back, “Is that how you talk to your students?” But my nature does not allow me to be so extrovert, my pathology keeps me from defending myself when confronted with males and some women who see me as below them, allow their misperception of my silence as stupidity or worse acquiescence. It is obvious to me that what I need to do is get all this negative out of me. I start writing a piece and it inevitably begins to get more and more negative. So I stop. Pack that piece away and in a few days move on to something else. I have been trying to write in my old blog every day or at least a few times a week. I will have to continue to do that, to flush bits of negativity out and hopefully to also bring some joy back to my writing.