Day 221

 Sunday October 18, 2020

Today we voted. We are hopeful for change. We are hopeful the people who take office can make the changes needed in this country to help us re-establish our nation as one of diversity and unity. A nation which allows immigrants to arrive and thrive here as a true land of equal opportunity for all people. 

The world needs hope now more than ever with a pandemic known to the world as Covid-19 rifling through the planet and making life difficult for most and unbearable for others.  The novel coronavirus has infected nearly 40 million people and taken the lives of over one million.  The world will never be the same.  In our efforts to regulate we have sacrificed time and luxury. Many opportunities have been lost.

Many lives have been shattered. This past month has seen a second wave of infections hit the world and countries devastated early on (France, Spain and Italy) are being ravished again. In the United States the number of daily infections has increased in over 75% of our states. 

 The dire conditions many areas were in during the months of April to July are rearing again. All this as we enter the cusp of flu season. How will this virus and the flu react together? Little is still unknown and a vaccine is still months away.  The school district we currently work in has seen both exposures and positive cases in several schools.  The in-person hybrid model is four days old and only in elementary and middle schools. High schools are set to open this week, but with state infections on the rise and a multitude of quarantines it seems this may be the last week before all goes remote. The challenges of the hybrid model are many and our feeling is it may not have made the impact on those in-person students as hoped. Remote learning certainly is not the answer, but the safety of students and staff is and always should be the precedent. The superintendent will make a decision no later than October 22nd regarding the model we use in the coming months. Needless to say, education has been thwarted by this virus as much as our economy and travel industry if not more so because it affects our future population of working adults and potential world leaders.  Where will we be a year from now?

Maybe school districts around the world will move to year-round schooling to make up the gaps in learning?  Maybe a longer four-day work week with a remote-learning Friday will be the new standard?

It will certainly be interesting to see the world in one year and note the changes in an array of areas most assuredly what our government will look and act like. We are in need of a leadership with empathy and understanding for those less fortunate than the 1%. However, the U.S. is just one piece of a large global puzzle and many nations need reform and healing. The remaining few months of 2020 are a mystery for many reasons and let us hope the unwrapping of those unknowns will be wrought with a feeling of hope and relief rather than despair and pain. I voted today. I voted for change and hope for a better tomorrow. A better country. A better world. And a resurgence of caring persons who are unified for the good of all humans in the spirit of empathy and love.

In a effort to supply my readers with support I offer an article How to destress

I wish you all good luck and safety this upcoming week.