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Covid fixed me in some ways and broke me in others. In chronological order, and as best as I can remember it: I'd finalized the divorce from my ex in November 2019 - and had we stayed together up until the pandemic I would've been even more miserable than I had already been. I met my (now) wife in February 2020, three weeks or so before lockdown. Dating app hell made her cautious and I was keeping one eye open for my own needs as well, but the nature of the pandemic drove us together even closer and accelerated how quickly we got to know and appreciate each other and who we were. It was the beginning of the end for me as a teacher. It had nothing to do with the kids, and virtual/hybrid model was difficult but doable for me. March - June 2020 was fully virtual, with about 4 hours of instruction and 3 hours of one-on-one/small group/"office" hours if kids needed it. Might not be great, but who can sit in front of a computer for 7+ hours straight? We went from an A school to a B school. Then in a Zoom meeting in September 2020 our principal lost her poo poo when she thought teachers were distracted talking to each other and demanded that "nobody (mess) with her scores" - I got to see what we, and the students, really meant to her. When the mask comes off, you can't put it back on and with that context handy I was witness to her doing some shady loving poo poo. Still, I loved doing what I did and kept doing it until 6 months ago. Speaking of which, I'm no longer as stressed about my job as I once was. I'm still bugged out by certain people and events at my current employer- I'm a corporate trainer now- but changing jobs at 40 for the first time in 14 years led me to realize that a job is just a loving job. It doesn't define you, and you've got to live your life for yourself and what's important to you. Even if poo poo fell apart where I'm working, I'll be all right. Last I can think of (for now) is the fantastic notion that I might not actually drop dead while I'm working because I'm unable to retire. My wife knew more about long-term investments than I did when we met, and that drove me to learn as much as I could in tandem with her because it sounded reasonable. Right now we're doing well enough with index fund investments that if we stopped now we could retire at 65 without worrying about Social Security. However, that's not the plan - we're out to retire early and just live life for what it is, for as long as we're able. I love the idea that I could work because I wanted to, not because I had to. I'm more likely to volunteer with animals in between traveling, cooking, gaming, reading, and just doing whatever else the gently caress I want. I guess to some people throwing the leash off is a "broken" mentality. As far as I'm concerned, I just learned that life is short, it isn't guaranteed, and you might as well enjoy it as much as you can while you're able. ElectricSheep fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Jul 16, 2023 |
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Jul 16, 2023 14:03
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 17:19 |
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Treecko posted:Lmao if you honestly think younger people are lazy. Yeah I call horseshit, my favorite memory of teaching the hybrid model during COVID was finding out one of my at-home kids got busted trying to play a looped video of him when he was supposed to be logged into Zoom in other classes, and would have gotten away with it except he made a movement during the loop that gave him away like that scene in Speed. I respected the poo poo out of that and still laugh about it to this day. Yeah, kids aren't necessarily lazy - they're just moving to their own beat Smart kid too, aced his state exam in Science
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Jul 17, 2023 01:21
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