Deleting Twitter & Teaching on Zoom

I deleted Twitter. That place has become a cesspool. It got to the point where I asked myself if selling a few books was worth wading through the daily shrieking and finger-pointing on that site, and ultimately I decided I'd rather never sell a book again than see one more boycott hashtag or self-victimizing-drone who thinks their mindless bleating is original thought.

Sorry.

(^Also sorry that I'm not really sorry.)

Only problem is Twitter was kind of my only venue for selling books. I'm still on Facebook, but really that's for family and friends--people who already know I have a book out without being told via a post. Twitter was how I reached the outside world. Not sure how to circumvent that, but I have faith that it'll somehow work out. I'm just so relieved at this point to have the stink of Twitter out of my life, and book sales or not, I'll never stop writing.

Which, by the way, I'm now at 76% for Spring of Crows! My goal is to get to the 80% mark before we're back to work in person.

Speaking of, work is...weird. We started back to school on August 6th, but my county is on the COVID watch list, so students aren't allowed to be on campus right now. Us teachers are teaching our classes via Zoom. It sounds easier than teaching in person, but it's not. During the school day it's the same workload as regular teaching since we're doing live classes, but the behind-the-scenes planning is more intense because I have to make sure my lessons are easily understood and accessible to students working from home. Things I'd normally cover in class in five minutes can take a dozen emails back and forth. Not to mention all the technology meltdowns my district keeps experiencing. Despite all this, I'm kind of enjoying my job. It's mentally taxing trying to keep up with all the emails, engagement logs that the state is requiring, and so on, but physically I feel like I have more energy by the end of my workday. Plus my students are very sweet and very committed to coming to classes. We have a great rapport so far, even if we're all two-dimensional. It's also fun getting to meet their baby sisters and dogs, or having students respond to questions in-between bites of Top Ramen. Zoom classes expose you to layer of your students' lives that you'd never experience in a regular class setting.

That's it for now. Remind me to tell you about our weird Laughlin trip during my next post. :)

P.S. Still keeping comments off for awhile. Maybe permanently? It sucks because I do love hearing feedback on things I'm prattling on about, but at the same time I think I'd like to turn this blog back into the original 'journal' that it used to be ten years ago.

COVID-19 Preppers

Needless to say there's a lot of frustrations on social media right now regarding Coronavirus. Not about the virus itself per say--at this point, most of us have not been personally touched by COVID-19. Mainly the frustrations are coming from those who are annoyed by the "alarmists" who are "stockpiling supplies" and "spreading fear" (to pull a couple quotes from twitter). 

So I'd like to offer another, less popular perspective on the matter (or an explanation, if you will).

Most stockpilers aren't alarmists, nor are they panicking/scared of the virus. 

So why are they piling up on supplies then?

I'm not a prepper, but I do have enough food/water for about three months if there's ever a disaster, so I feel like I can weigh in on this with two main reasons:

1. When thousands of people are suddenly stockpiling, you're often forced to do the same to ensure you have basic necessities--not for an emergency, but for next week. Take the toilet paper shortage earlier this week. Clint and I woke up to media reports that there were shortages on toilet paper. A friend/colleague of mine sent her husband to our local Costco for TP, and there was none to be found. Upon learning this, Clint immediately placed a bulk order from Amazon. Not because we were scared, or panicking, or alarmists, but because we want to be able to wipe our asses next Tuesday. Did we add to the toilet paper shortage in that moment? Yes. Do I care? Not really. Because unless I can convince thousands of people to slow their roll and quit stockpiling, I'm stuck doing the same, given that my priority is to take care of my family (and their booties). But the irony here is--it wasn't actually preppers that compounded the problem. It was the media. By advertising TP shortages to the masses, guess how people responded? By buying more toilet paper. And this is happening on social media all day long; fear mongering posts and tweets about mass-buying hysteria when in reality these posts themselves are inciting (or at least aggravating) the act.
2. The second reason people are stockpiling is because situations like this remind people to take stock of what they have and prepare for the worst. This doesn't make them alarmists. They simply aren't sheep who assume that the government will always have their backs. For example, anytime we experience a small tremor here in California, it reminds me that I should be prepared for a larger earthquake, which may lead to me buying an extra case of bottled water that month to store in my cellar. This is not me trembling in fear that another earthquake is about to strike. It's simple awareness, and common sense. COVID-19 is now spreading its spiny fingers through the U.S. and we now have 45 active cases in my state (as of yesterday), but honestly, I don't know anyone in real life whose panicking about it. However, some of us are using this as an opportunity to take inventory. Think of COVID-19 as a yellow flag. A talking point. Are we prepared for a pandemic? Are we prepared for an economy collapse? Most of us aren't worried about these things, but COVID reminds us that we shouldn't sit around, guilelessly floating in our bubbles of ignorance, either. It's a good time to have those conversations, and to get ready for an event that might happen five years down the road, ten, twenty, now, or never. (Somewhat related: I just finished reading a book about the Yellow Fever in 1793, and you better believe the people living in Philadelphia at the time desperately wished they had considered these things.)

So keyboard warriors can keep railing out on social media about how preppers are making the situation worse, but really it accomplishes nothing. You'll never be able to talk thousands of people into not preparing to take care of themselves and their loved ones in an impending (albeit perceived) event. And frankly, you might be making the situation worse by leading others to believe that preppers are about to clean out store shelves. That incites panic--not a few folks quietly buying some emergency supplies. So either grab a few extra Top Ramens and canned veggies yourself during your next grocery store run, or get over it. Let them do them, and you do you.