What are you doing during quarantine?

[Shanazel]

My high school chemistry class missed an authentic fire evacuation. The teacher, a truly brilliant woman named Ruth Mazuski, was preparing a demonstration involving solid phosphorous which explodes when exposed to air. The glass jar containing phosphorous slipped from her hand and landed in the sink. Talk about fireworks. Most of the class thought it was part of the demonstration. My lab partner, Lynn, and I sat right in front of the sink, though, and we saw her face as the jar fell. We dived under our table and waited it out. The pandemonium in the room was such we didn't notice the fire alarm set off by the smoke in the classroom. By the time the fire department came roaring into the room, the alarm was off, the problem was contained, we were all sitting peacefully in our seats looking at the fire fighters with mystified expressions and innocently asking, "What's going on?" It was the best class I ever had.

 

[Ariadne]

That is the kind of story you tell your children and grandchildren so they can wish that their own schooling was half so cool.

 

[Shanazel]

It was balanced by other classes that were so dull that by the end of each class I practiced counting off seconds and then looking at the clock to see how close I was to counting a minute correctly. Physics and algebra come immediately to mind.

 

[Zorba]

First semester sophomore English composition. Teacher was a class A1+ *BITCH* - really the only teacher I ever had that I actually disliked. Tick.... Tock..... Tick.... Tock... Long story, but the entire class got handed off to another teacher (thank Goddess!) for the 2nd semester - he made it fun and interesting!

 

[Ariadne]

I wish. For me it was in middle school and it lasted the whole year. I ended up with an ulcer and the teacher didn't get fired for another two years- a parent finally sued the school district over his behavior.

On the positive side I had an awesome teacher for earth sciences in High School. He let us throw an end of year party as long as we planned it ourselves. He then broke out the new beakers when we forgot to have someone bring cups for the hot chocolate. And this was after a year of, "if you are going to be late for class because you went on a donut run make sure you bring enough for the whole class"... so they did, about once a month. Heck, someone brought pizza for the whole class and he just told us to make sure and clean up after ourselves.

 

[Suzanne Azhaar]

There's road noise (cars driving on the road) this morning! W-e-i-r-d

 

[Ariadne]

We just had a flyover by the military to honor the healthcare workers and Veterans. It was so cool!

 

[Daimona]

I finally got a day out of home office (still working, but outside in open air). I really needed that.
I also met a new colleague for the first time (at safe distance). I'm still not used to not handshake when I meet new people I'm going to work with. Guess we'll have to catch up that later on that one. Looking forward to the next field trip.

 

[Zorba]

I just do a curtsey instead of a handshake.

 

[Ariadne]

My sister has started doing elbow bumps.

 

[Daimona]

I've done both bowing, elbow bumps and foot shakes, but I'm not getting used to it. And it depends a lot who it is.
In this situation, we did a proper handshake with a 2 m distance (i.e. not touching).

 

[Shanazel]

Except for doing museum work at home and not being able to travel to see our daughter, limited social interaction hasn't been a problem. In fact, limiting contact with other people has brought a measure of tranquility into my life that I didn't realize I was missing. When all this passes into memory, I am going to continue to be careful re: to whom and what I allot my time and energy.