Category Archives: Daily Life

7 Quick Takes: The Delta (Variant) Blues Edition

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7 Quick Takes

I’m at the point where I have no chill left, and I’m calling out all of you reading this who are being difficult about masking up and who are refusing to get vaccinated because you just don’t want to. (Spare me your anecdotes and stories about the friend of a friend you read about on the Internet. Having COVID once does not offer sufficient protection, and I don’t care about the studies you send me unless they have been peer-reviewed by experts in epidemiology.)

If you don’t want to hear what I think of you, feel free to skip this post.

— 1 —

Masks. Y’all, I’m not fond of having to wear a mask everywhere. I’m not fond of my singer’s mask giving me hot flashes on Sunday morning. However, the Delta variant of COVID is hitting the country super hard, and I’m in favor of protecting the people around me. So…

Philippians 2:3, y'all!

And wear your mask properly WITH YOUR NOSE COVERED!

COVER YOUR FREAKING NOSE!

For all of you howling about YOUR RIGHTS, here’s some wisdom:

Adolescence

— 2 —

Regarding the “we don’t know what’s in the vaccine” stupidity… I have a few thoughts.

The contents of an apple.

Apologies for the profanity in this one.

Mind the profanity.

One of my friends also pointed out on Facebook that the people making this claim about the vaccine somehow have no problem eating a McRib sandwich or McDonald’s chicken nuggets… and those are foods of unknown ingredients. You can get a list of vaccine ingredients.

— 3 —

The stupidity of protesting mask mandates in schools… I have no sympathy here. None. Kids pass viruses around classrooms, and the mask mandate is part of the safety measures in place. My autistic 12 year old son can wear a mask without a problem. My three year old nephew has worn one in public since he was 2 years old. If they can wear them, your kid can too. If you don’t want your kids to have a mask mandate at their school, feel free to homeschool them.

There is a local school board candidate who is making a stink about it (especially after our governor announced that masks will be required indoors for everyone in the state), and I think it’s so nice of her to be open about it so that people know not to vote her onto the school board.

How masking contributes.

— 4 —

Refuting the fallacy that the COVID surge is solely “breakthrough” cases… I found some lovely infographics illustrating the truth on this.

Mostly unvaccinated people here.

Yep, not all breakthrough cases here either!

— 5 —

Decisions made by school officials. I back every school district that has chosen to defy state governments and institute a mask mandate and every school district that has chosen to delay the start of school because of the Delta variant.

Did we do enough?

— 6 —

Compassion fatigue regarding people refusing to be vaccinated. Y’all who refuse to be vaccinated are putting a serious strain on the doctors who will be treating you in the hospital WHEN (not IF) you end up in there with COVID. Knock it off.

— 7 —

What people with COVID say about getting vaccinated. Here’s what some people in the hospital with COVID say about getting vaccinated.

— Bonus —

While y’all are stewing about me calling you out, please pray for my friend M’s daughter Millie who is fighting severe COVID. She is too young to be vaccinated and contracted it despite her parents’ attempts to protect her. She has Down Syndrome, and the trisomy issues are messing with her airway badly.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: Tutoring Commandments Edition

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Some of you know that I work as a tutor at a community college, so I thought I’d share my “tutoring commandments” this week. It’s mildly sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek, but it’s all stuff that I’ve dealt with and deal with frequently.

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Thou shalt not stand up thy tutor. My students have my cell phone number and my email address so that they can text, call, or email me to let me know that they can’t make that session, so it’s a bit irritating when they don’t contact me or give me very little warning. It’s not as important to have advanced warning right now while I’m working on Zoom, but it’s a headache if I’ve made the effort to change out of my pajamas, driven to campus, and lugged my laptop bag across campus to meet with someone. Thankfully, I do get paid for part of the session because my bosses have a heart, but I still resent losing grocery money because people can’t be bothered to let me know something came up and they won’t be there.

Also? When I email my boss about your no-show and you get a warning from them, don’t throw me under the bus. I save all conversations with my students. I know you knew about the session because I texted a reminder yesterday.

— 2 —

Thou shalt not treat me as a homework machine. It’s OK if you need help with homework, but don’t save all of it for me. I have a very finite amount of time with each student, and we can’t get through all of your homework for every class in that one session. Attempting your homework ahead of time means that we can focus on the stuff you don’t understand.

Also? I can’t hold your hand through every assignment. It is frustrating when a student pulls out the homework we worked on last time and hasn’t done anything else on it. The frustration intensifies when the due date for that homework has passed and the student is now even more behind and only eligible for partial credit on the homework they pulled out to continue. Pleasepleasepleaseplease make the effort to do your homework after I work with you, especially after I’ve given you the notes and skills to finish the assignment in a timely fashion.

— 3 —

Thou shalt not try to get me to help thee on a test, midterm or final. Guess what? Your instructors know I tutor their subjects and said instructors notify me when a test, midterm, or final is coming up. They tell me how much assistance I can give to students, and I am not going to jeopardize my job by helping you on this test. In many cases, I’ve taken the test and aced it on my own merits, so I expect you to do the same.

If you try to ask me questions on the subject matter, I will tell you that I cannot help you the first time and will reply “asked and answered!” cheerfully every time after that. (The record for me saying that is 15 times in succession.) I know what you are doing. You are not being devious.

— 4 —

Thou shalt not scream at thy tutor. I don’t like it. Don’t do it. If you do, my boss will be happy to deal with you.

Also? If you make me cry, my boss will end you.

— 5 —

Thou shalt manage thy time appropriately so that thou dost not end up in an emergency situation. Lack of preparation on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine. You got that assignment a few days ago, and you’re waiting until now to start it? Sucks to be you. You could have had help with that assignment during that time, and now you’re coming to see a drop-in tutor in the last 5 minutes of her shift. Once the end of my shift comes around, I’m done and logging off Zoom or walking out of the room.

What’s that? The assignment is going to take SOOOOOO long? It’s going to take longer if you don’t start on it right now. Your choice.

— 6 —

Thou shalt not expect me to solve all thy problems because thou canst be bothered to talk to thy instructor. I have had students who are assigned to me midway through the quarter, and I find out that they have been having computer issues/issues with the course website/issues with Zoom/issues with software the entire time… and they haven’t bothered to reach out to their instructor to let them know. They may or may not have done any classwork, but they expect their instructor (who has a NO LATE WORK EVER policy) to let them turn everything in for full credit…. and apparently, I can fix *EVERYTHING* for them at that moment and help them get an A with no problem.

…

Meanwhile, my stomach is in knots because I’m going to have to email my boss and that student’s advisor in the program to let them know that this is a situation where there is next to nothing I can do because the student can’t be bothered to advocate for themselves. I usually have to tell the student tactfully that they should have been in conversation from the beginning of the quarter with their instructor about things not working, and I have them email the instructor to find out what can be done for the quarter to be salvaged… *IF* it can be salvaged. (I also deal with students who want *ME* to email their instructors and fix things… which I cannot do as it would be a FERPA violation and a potential firing offense.)

Please, I beg you, DON’T PUT ME IN THAT SITUATION. It ruins my day.

— 7 —

Thou shall respect your tutor’s off-hours. I’m limited in the number of hours I can work weekly, and my bosses do not expect me to check and respond to email outside of my working hours. If you contact me at 10:30 p.m. and tell me that you have a problem and I need to contact you IMMEDIATELY to fix it (especially if you’re not on my tutoring roster and have stalked me online to get my contact information), I’m going to ignore you until noon the next day when my drop-in tutoring hours start. Once my drop-in hours start, I will email you back and tell you to lose my number and my email address. The email will be copied to my boss, and they’ll be more than happy to weigh in on the subject. My off-time is mine. Please respect that.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: Olympics Edition

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Simone Biles. As I’m starting to draft this post on Tuesday night, this is the best thing I’ve read concerning Simone Biles’ decision to withdraw from the team final. (The Tl;dr of it is that people are horrified 25 years after the fact regarding Bela Karolyi ordering Kerri Strug to “shake it off” and vault again on her broken ankle.)

P.S. Kerri Strug supports Simone’s decision to withdraw.

— 2 —

Why Simone’s departure was important. Want to know why Simone said she was not comfortable competing with “the twisties”? Hannah Renno explains the damage that can happen with a bad landing on a twisting element.

There’s also the story of Elena Mukhina that illustrates why gymnasts need to be able to advocate for themselves.

— 3 —

Also… HOW COMPLETELY AWESOME WERE GRACE McCALLUM, JORDAN CHILES, AND SUNI LEE ON TUESDAY NIGHT?!?!?!?!?!? HOW AMAZING WAS SUNI LEE TONIGHT?!?!?!?!?

They proved that the US Women’s team is not just Simone Biles. The girls gave Russia a challenge on Tuesday night. Suni Lee fought hard and won a well-deserved gold medal tonight.

— 4 —

Katie Ledecky. She may not have won gold in all her events in Rio, but she had the fastest split time of every swimmer competing in the 4×200 relay. She was also swimming the 1500m race faster than some of the men at the US Swimming training camp in Hawaii, so I’m not remotely surprised that she won it.

I can’t wait to see her in the 800m freestyle final tomorrow.

— 5 —

Caeleb Dressel. Loved the 100m race last night, and I’m looking forward to the 100m butterfly final tomorrow night!

— 6 —

The Olympic dream. One of the really cool thing has been when an unexpected person wins the gold. Case-in-point: Ahmed Hafnaoui, the teenager from Tunisia who won gold in the 400m freestyle. It was an absolute shocker to everyone in the pool.

— 7 —

Divided loyalties. There’s an Irish gymnast that is a medal contender on the pommel horse as well as an American who is also in the event final. Do I go with the ancestral homeland or the USA? Decisions, decisions!

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: COVID, Politics, and 21st Blogging Anniversary Edition

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Andrew Fauci vs. Rand Paul. I saw this meme today and was curious about it.

Apparently, Rand Paul (who has a medical degree but is not certified by any reputable board) decided to repeat the fallacy about Anthony Fauci having ties to the lab in Wuhan that created COVID. Sorry Rand, I’m with Dr. Fauci on this one, given that he actually has the credentials to back him up, something you don’t have.

— 2 —

Dispatch from a doctor. My friend Katie is a pro-life Catholic hospitalist (adding the adjectives in case people might listen better with them), and she posted the following message:

Vax up!

For those who aren’t aware, a “hospitalist” is a doctor who takes care of you IN THE HOSPITAL. (The red spot on her forehead is from the faceshield she wears in addition to her mask when she walks into a patient’s room.) In other words, she’s seeing scary cases coming into the hospital again. Listen to Katie. Vax up!

— 3 —

Break-through cases. For those who are going to cite the fact that there are still people who are vaccinated that get COVID, here’s the difference between someone who is vaccinated and someone who is unvaccinated:

Vax vs. un-vax

— 4 —

Make good choices. I thought this was interesting advice.

Make good choices.

— 5 —

Finally, someone putting my feelings into words. For those people who say that other people should deal with [insert thing] because they had to deal with it, I have a message for you:

Weird, miserable energy.

— 6 —

U.S. residential school stories. For those who remember me blogging on residential schools for Native Americans a few weeks ago, one of the things I promised to do was learn more about the issue in the USA. Here are a few stories I read this week:

AP: US churches reckon with traumatic legacy of Native schools

AP: Tribe claims remains of kids who died at assimilation school

Salt Lake Tribune: Lost lives, lost culture: The forgotten history of Indigenous boarding schools

— 7 —

My blog is old enough to drink. So, um, my blog turned 21 on July 20th. *raises my can of Coke to it*

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: Home Free Edition

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7 Quick Takes

I’ve been binging Home Free’s music lately, so here are some cool vids with my sparkling commentary.

— 1 —

“Everybody Walkin’This Land”. My priest shared this on Election Day, and I blame him for addicting me to this group. It made an impression me, both because of the words and the harmonies.

— 2 —

“Children, Go Where I Send Thee”. I usually post a song on the church Facebook page on Sunday mornings that has something to do with the readings or Fr. Paul’s sermon. This particular song happened to be the one I posted last Sunday.

— 3 —

“American Pie”. Yes, that is the amazing Don McLean (the person who WROTE AND RECORDED the original song) singing with them. No, I am totally not singing along. I’m not! I’m not! I’m not!

— 4 —

“Sea Shanty Medley”. This is absolutely worth watching, especially as I grew up listening to people like The Irish Rovers and The Kingston Trio do these… and Home Free is just as good if not better!

— 5 —

“The Gambler”. I think I actually prefer this to the Kenny Rogers version.

— 6 —

“How Great Thou Art”. It’s an amazing video, beautiful harmonies, beautiful scenery, and they even mix a little bit of my favorite hymn (“It Is Well With My Soul”) into it. 🙂

— 7 —

“Elvira”. This video one big fanboy jam session with The Oak Ridge Boys. They all look like they are having the absolute best time!

— Bonus —

“Castle on the Hill”. I had never heard the Ed Sheeran song, so this inspired me to go look it up. (I like Home Free’s cover better.)

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum. While you’re there, congratulate her on Accepting the Gift being a semi-finalist in the OSV Challenge.

7 Quick Takes: Residential Schools and Other Things Edition

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Residential school take #1. I’ve been horrified in recent weeks by the discovery of 751 unmarked graves at the Indian residential school in Marieval and the discovery of the remains of 200+ kids at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. I mean, these are the kids who went missing for decades, and families were told that they “ran away”. Yeah no, they didn’t. One of the most horrifying things for me to see is that Marieval was functional until 1997. In other words, THESE SCHOOLS EXISTED UNTIL I WAS A SENIOR IN HIGH SCHOOL.

I also just found out while reading about the situation that there’s another cemetery of 182 unmarked graves near Cranbrook, BC that was found a few days ago.

— 2 —

Residential school take #2. This is all hitting me hard because I used to judge speech meets in north-central Montana, and one of the teams was from Browning High School. Browning is located on the Blackfeet reservation. Most of the students are Native-American as are the coaches. The reservation looks like the ghetto of a major U.S. city because of the poverty there. It’s not surprising that there’s a lot of crime, alcohol and drug use, and poverty there given what the government has done to many Native-American tribes. The high school is beautiful, however, and the kids were amazing competitors. We got to know some of the kids and the coaches in the 3 years we judged speech meets, and I got to judge two of them AT the high school. Their team fed everyone (judges, kids, and parents) an amazing lunch (Indian tacos and blueberries), and they stocked the judges room with every kind of snack food and soda imaginable. For the awards ceremony, they had a cultural program aspect. I’m really bummed that I missed the hoop dancers one year, and they’d have an elder from the tribe doing an honor song every year. Miss Heart Butte (in her special tribal dress) would hand out the awards.

When I hear about the mass graves at the residential schools, it’s these speech and debate kids that I am envisioning. Many members of the tribe were sent away to Chemawa Indian School in Oregon among others, and I only found out about it while reading the obits in the Great Falls Tribune few months ago. While Chemawa isn’t a horrible place (at least today), I’m really wondering if some of the blight I saw on the Blackfeet reservation is due to the abuse done in some residential schools that tribal members attended.

— 3 —

Residential school take #3. Something that I think is meaningful was the Calgary City Council going to the Treaty 7 First Nations and asking them the city should do. The Treaty 7 leaders told them to make Canada Day an occasion to actually *TALK* about what happened so that there could be an ability to move on together as a nation. The fireworks went ahead at night, but they were in honor of the lost children instead of celebrating Canada’s confederation.

My friend Dave posted a picture of his family on Canada Day, and I was heartened to see that the flag was at half-staff per Justin Trudeau’s instructions.

— 4 —

Residential school take #4. As much as I’m talking about Canada’s horrible history, the same thing happened in the USA, and I haven’t seen a lot of talk about it except for some statements by Deb Haaland, the Secretary of the Interior. She has created the Federal Indian Boarding Schools Initiative to investigate the damage done by them further and to see if there are unmarked graves. I’m really happy that President Biden chose her as the Secretary of the Interior for many reasons and this is one of them.

One of the things I’m going to be doing is learning more about the issue in the USA as well as learning more about the tribes in my area. My church is actually reaching out to one of them to get to know them, so that is going to be part of it for me.

— 5 —

Heat wave. We survived the weekend where we had temperatures of 104F. We thankfully have air-conditioning, and we used all the tricks we know from not having A/C in my childhood home. We are pretty lucky because a lot of homes don’t have it, and people were having severe problems with it as a result. I think the HVAC industry is going to be jumping for a few months…

— 6 —

Progress. On Tuesday, I managed to tell my depression to take a flying leap, and I got my desk cleaned off as well as a corner of my room decluttered. I feel proud of myself even though it’s kind of pathetic.

— 7 —

Mount Rainier’s Osceola Flow. This is my latest YouTube rabbit hole. It’s fascinating that a lahar from Mt. Rainier created the bedrock on which the city of Tacoma is built.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: Hot! Hot! Hot! Edition

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Hot! Hot! Hot! We are looking at temperatures in the 80’s and 90’s up here this weekend… and possibly triple digits! We get some days in the summer that are in the 80’s this year, but it is really rare for us to get into the 90’s. I’m not even sure if we’ve had triple digits in my part of Washington while I’ve lived here! The county is setting up cooling stations for those who don’t have A/C this weekend.

We were talking about the weather last weekend during the call with my brother’s family, and his father-in-law (who is up visiting from Arizona) snarked that it will be mildly warm. It was a 108F when he left Arizona. (Yeah… that’s why I don’t live down there.)

— 2 —

COVID deaths now mostly among unvaccinated. I saw this story on Facebook, and I’m sharing it because the Associated Press tends to be one of the most middle-of-the-road and unbiased media sources. I also looked to see if there was anything from the CDC or National Institutes of Health (a.k.a. REPUTABLE sources for medical information) on vaccine efficacy for those who have already had it, and they are saying that it looks like only one dose of the two-dose series is needed to achieve immunity comparable to those who got the series but did not have COVID.

Get vaccinated, y’all.

— 3 —

Daniel and COVID shot #2. Kiddo got his second vaccine on the 18th and did very well again. Skagit Regional Health’s Vaccine Clinic was really focused on making this a positive situation, and we had a shot giver who was touching everything to Daniel before putting it on the site. I thought she was going too slowly because he was anticipating it, but it worked out well. He has one week to go before he can start doing errands with me (wearing a mask of course).

— 4 —

Phone games redux. Since my post on them last week, I removed Klondike Adventures from my phone and finished all the puzzles on Cross Logic. I’ve since gotten into a new game called Einstein’s Riddle Puzzle, which is the logic games on steroids. I kind of wish it had the format of the boxes like Cross Logic does (so you can figure out the main parts of it), but it has kept my attention.

— 5 —

The Far Side. If you are a fan of Gary Larson’s comic, The Far Side, there is a Facebook community for you! It’s a highlight of my day to find all of my favorites on there.

— 6 —

Volcanic eruption videos. Given that I was born the day after Mt. St. Helens erupted, it isn’t surprising that I have a fascination with them. I came across this video a few nights ago, and it’s fabulous. My favorite part is when you can actually see the shockwave from the first eruption propagating in the clouds.

— 7 —

Supervolcanoes. My family jokes that the Discovery Channel has documentaries for the purpose of scaring the public. Stuff on Yellowstone’s supervolcano falls into that category. It’s the first one mentioned in this video.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.