Very short update today. I am feeling pretty miserable – feverish, sore throat, light-headed, a bit achey. I did a COVID RAT test and it’s clear, and I don’t have a cough, so I’m thinking it might be the flu.
This is the first time I’ve felt sick in the slightest since pre-COVID. It was a good run while it lasted. Going to get an early night and rest.
New content today:
Today was back to school day for most of the schools in New South Wales. The start of a new school year, kids going to school for the first time, kids moving up to high school for the first time. I did my 2.5k run this morning and passed many kids walking to school – a sight not seen since mid-December.
And it’s the first school year in seven years that I won’t be returning to teach Primary Ethics face-to-face with a classroom of kids. I mentioned my last class last year and why I’ve decided not to go back this year. I was still enjoying it, but wanted to get that weekly time back.
This evening I have three online classes, starting the new topic about Games. I had one student from last year returning after the school holidays. I said I hoped she had a good holiday, and she said, “Yes. I nearly died!”
I was… appropriately shocked and concerned and asked if she was okay. She said she’d been collecting shells on a beach with her family, and picked up a cone shell. I immediately gasped, as these are well-known deadly marine creatures. I asked if it actually stung her, but she said no, she managed to drop it before it got her with its sting. Phew!
In the third class, which was at 9pm, I had a new student who signed up last week. And then a few days ago I got a message asking about the time, which Outschool was informing them was 4am. They said they were in Texas, and I confirmed that the conversion was correct – the class would indeed be at 4am for them. I’m not sure how they managed to sign up for that, as Outschool should display times in local time for all users. The only thing I could think is that it showed “4am” and they misread and thought it was 4pm. Anyway, I offered to transfer the kid to a better time, but the mother replied that they were out that day and said they’d stick with the 4am class. I replied saying I’d be happy to refund the fee they’d paid if the time was inconvenient, and then next week we could work out a better time slot. She came back and said her son was super keen on the Games topic this week, and she was okay with him getting up at 4am for it… So, yeah, he showed up in the class at 4am Texas time! He was actually surprisingly awake and lucid.
In other news, I went to the dentist today. One of the fillings I had in December has been bothering me, giving the occasional sharp twinge when I chew food. I suspected the tooth might be cracked and need a crown. But the dentist said that he thought the filling was flexing. He decided to replace it with a different, former filling material and see how that goes. He used a quick anaesthetic which wore off after just a few minutes and was amazingly good, so that was good in that I didn’t have a numb face for the next several hours. Hopefully he’s right and it won’t hurt any more. Even better, he declined to charge me for the repair!
New content today:
Yes, today was a trip to the dentist. A regular clean and check-up. I mentioned an issue I’ve been having with food getting stuck between two molars, and the hygienist had a look and said, “Oh, yeah, one of your fillings is chipped.” The dentist had a look and said he’d have to fix the filling. So I’m booked to go back on Monday morning next week to have that done.
Before the appointment this morning I did a 2.5k run. And afterwards I took a walk with my wife and Scully to the Italian bakery, where I spoilt myself with a slice of their delicious ricotta cheesecake, as a reward for going to the dentist.
It was chilly today. The weather is truly bizarre at the moment. It should be hot in December, being summer here, but it was only 24°C in Sydney today, and it felt colder because of the wind. Tomorrow is forecast to be cooler and a lot windier. There’s been snow in the Snowy Mountains, which is extremely unusual at this time of year. There was a news story tonight saying this has been the coldest first two weeks of December ever recorded. And the next week’s forecast is 22°C almost every day, dropping to 21°C on Sunday. It’s really really weird. I wonder if it will warm up for Christmas. It really doesn’t feel like Christmas unless it’s approaching 40°C.
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After reporting yesterday that I seemed to be coming down with a nasty cold, today I felt absolutely fine! I downed an antihistamine tablet with breakfast, and my nose has been clear and problem-free all day. So I suspect yesterday was merely a severe bout of hay fever, brought on by the spring weather and the strong winds we had yesterday, blowing around pollen and other offensive bits of plants. I did a COVID antigen test to be sure, and it came up negative.
After a morning ethics class, I took a drive with Scully out to my favourite pie shop on the beach. We sat on a bench by the sand and watched the sea as I had my lunch.
Well, I watched the sea. Maybe Scully sat looking inland.
This afternoon I started to clean up some of my bookshelves. I want to get rid of some books to make space for newer acquisitions. I selected a handful of books and took them with me on Scully’s afternoon walk. There are a couple of community street libraries along one of our walking routes – the little boxes where people swap books. So I left a few in each of them. I didn’t take any out for myself – I do look in them as I walk past to see if there’s anything I want, but I’ve never actually found anything that I wanted to take. Anyway, hopefully someone will want the books I donated.
New content today:
This morning I did my face-to-face ethics class at the school – the second lesson of cause & effect and determinism. The kids seem to be enjoying the topic and it’s making them think, but today they were a bit chatty and many times erupted into talking over one another, rather than a nice orderly one-at-a-time speaking. This sort of thing always seems to happen when the weather is windy, as it has been for the past two days. Very windy indeed. All the teachers say the same thing – the kids get rowdier when the weather is windy, I wonder if there’s any real connection there.
Back home I did a 5k run. I wanted to get that out of the way for November on a relatively cool day, before it gets too hot.
This evening I had three online classes on this new topic of ageing. I started to feel a bit off this afternoon, with my nose running like a tap and frequent sneezing I’ve blown my nose through almost a whole box of tissues. I really feel like I’m coming down with a bad head cold. I’m not fevery or coughing, so hopefully it’s not COVID. I’ll keep an eye on it tomorrow.
Before I go, a couple of photos of birds I took in the last few days with my phone. An Australia brushturkey, sitting in a tree:
And an Australian king-parrot. This is a juvenile, without any of the orange-red plumage of the adults. And yes, I’m as close as this looks – I got the phone to within about 30 cm of the parrot. These guys are pretty tame around here.
New content today:
Despite taking it easy last night and trying not to aggravate my twinged back, it stiffened up badly overnight. I made an appointment with my physiotherapist, at midday today. The guy I see is really good and loosens up my pelvic joints and realigns things so it feels a lot better. Then it’s just a matter of getting the inflammation down, which in the past has taken a few days. But today he mentioned that if I was an athlete I’d put an ice pack on it for 15 minutes, take it off for half an hour, and repeat that all day, and by tomorrow it’d be completely fine. I never realised I could do something like that! If it helps heal faster, I’m all over it!
So I’ve been icing my back on and off for much of the afternoon. And yeah, it feels a lot better already, so it seems to be working. I’ll see how it is after another night’s sleep.
The other main thing I did today was write up my lesson plan for the new online ethics topic of Food. I included stuff on dumpster diving for discarded food, food waste, healthy and unhealthy food, and some ethical questions about the impact of raising meat on the environment, and also the impact of shipping food around the world just so we can buy peaches in the middle of winter. One kid tonight had a very interesting idea about junk food, suggesting that people should get a maximum quota of junk food per month, “maybe two chocolate bars or something.”
Oh, and the rain is back again… It was very cold today, a maximum of only 13°C in Sydney, which is the second coldest day of the year so far. It’s supposed to be rainy for the whole week. We’re definitely approaching that all-time yearly rain record.
New content today:
I’ve strained my back a little today, so I’m keeping this short to avoid sitting at the computer too long. I’ve also decided to take a bit of a break from making new Irregular Webcomic! strips, to recharge my creative batteries, and also to try to get some other things done that I really want to do, like add new classes to Outschool.
New content today:
That secret project I’ve been talking about recently – I completed a major milestone today. The hardest and most time-consuming part has now been completed, as of this morning. There’s a bit of tidying up around the edges required before it’s ready to unveil, but that’s all very minor and mechanical compared to the major creative parts that are now finished. Yes, it’s a creative project, and yes, you will see it soon. Just not quite yet.
The other thing I achieved today was finishing watching season 4 of Stranger Things. I’ve loved this show since the first episode of season 1. I thought season 3 was a bit weaker than the first two, but this new season was amazing, and my wife and I both were spellbound from start to finish.
The other main thing today was I got my fourth COVID shot. The Australian Government approved them for people aged over 30 on Monday, and I made sure to get in early before demand ramps up and makes bookings difficult to get. I had it about 5 hours ago now, and still feeling fine, so hopefully no fevery side effects like I had for one of my previous shots (I forget exactly which it was, but it was just one of them).
New content today:
It’s late and I still haven’t really done as much as I wanted today.
I had an appointment at the optometrist to check my eyesight. My reading prescription hasn’t changed, which is good, and my distance vision is still excellent. And the retinal images and glaucoma test were both good. So that’s all good news.
New content today:
I did an online ethics class today that went completely off the rails. There was a new kid, from England, who was super talkative and kept bringing up extra points to every answer – often stuff that I’d planned to ask everyone later in the lesson. Rather than talk about farming, we ended up in a huge digression about whether we should force everyone to become vegetarians or not. Given the others were also keen to butt in on the topic and offer their own opinions, I just let it meander of its own accord for most of the lesson. It felt totally out of control and my lesson script went out the window, but it was fun, and we were still talking about interesting and ethical questions, so it was good in the end.
My sore back stiffened up again overnight, and it was painful turning over during the night. But again, it’s improved a lot during today. I got a better sleep, but hopefully tonight it won’t be as painful during the night.
I didn’t have my face-to-face ethics class at the school today, because New South Wales teachers held a strike today, seeking better pay and working conditions. They fully deserve it.
New content today:
