Steven Harper's Blog, page 38
March 6, 2021
The Great Pandemic Weight Loss Campaign Update
Since I started the Great Pandemic Weight Loss Campaign, I've lost ten pounds. That's in one month.
My Level 1 goal is to lose 15 pounds, and I'm already two-thirds of the way there. ("Level 1" is my own term for "I'll be happy if I make it here.")
My Level 2 goal is to lose 20 pounds, and I'm halfway to that. ("Level 2" means, "This would be awesome, but I don't need to kill myself to make it.")
My super-sekrit Level 3 goal is to lose 30 pounds, and I'm a third of the way to =that=. ("Level 3" means, "Holy cow! You're the master of the universe!")
comments
My Level 1 goal is to lose 15 pounds, and I'm already two-thirds of the way there. ("Level 1" is my own term for "I'll be happy if I make it here.")
My Level 2 goal is to lose 20 pounds, and I'm halfway to that. ("Level 2" means, "This would be awesome, but I don't need to kill myself to make it.")
My super-sekrit Level 3 goal is to lose 30 pounds, and I'm a third of the way to =that=. ("Level 3" means, "Holy cow! You're the master of the universe!")
comments
Friday Nights as a Teacher
As many of you know, last night was Friday evening.
This past week was difficult. Because of the pandemic and the way I have to teach (converting everything to electronic format so students at home can do the same work as the students in school), I have to start lesson planning on Mondays in order to ensure I'll have time to get everything done in time to start the following week. I don't dare grade papers until my lesson plans are done. Late grading is no big deal, but late lesson plans? Not unless you want to be stranded in a classful of teenagers who have nothing to do.
I usually get plans done by late Tuesday afternoon. This is because I'm a highly-experienced educator, and I have a deep well of plans, activities, and knowledge of previous years. But this week, I unexpectedly got caught in the Great Electronic Conversion, ironically for OEDIPUS REX, a bronze age piece of literature. It took for-bloody-EVER to convert my unit test for Sophocles's masterpiece from paper to online. On top of it, I had to reconfigure the opener to the next unit. All this meant that I didn't finish my planning until very late Wednesday.
Meanwhile, I hadn't touched any grading for the week in any of the my classes (and I have six now instead of five). It was piling up fast. Worse, I recently collected a major project about poetry from my seniors, another time-consuming thing to grade.
I came home from work, tired and cranky. I ran for an hour, made supper, and then, even though it was Friday evening, I decided to move the pile.
I sat down at my computer (one of the few good things about virtual teaching is that I don't have to carry around piles of actual paper) and set to work. I pounded through EVERYTHING. Poetry, grammar exercises, annotated readings, vocab quizzes. A headache pounded behind my eyes, but I kept going. At last, around 10:30, I entered the last grade. I synced Google Classroom's grade book with Skyward, my district's grading program, then wrote a parent letter and emailed it out, along with a progress report for each student.
This is what teachers do on a Friday evening.
comments
This past week was difficult. Because of the pandemic and the way I have to teach (converting everything to electronic format so students at home can do the same work as the students in school), I have to start lesson planning on Mondays in order to ensure I'll have time to get everything done in time to start the following week. I don't dare grade papers until my lesson plans are done. Late grading is no big deal, but late lesson plans? Not unless you want to be stranded in a classful of teenagers who have nothing to do.
I usually get plans done by late Tuesday afternoon. This is because I'm a highly-experienced educator, and I have a deep well of plans, activities, and knowledge of previous years. But this week, I unexpectedly got caught in the Great Electronic Conversion, ironically for OEDIPUS REX, a bronze age piece of literature. It took for-bloody-EVER to convert my unit test for Sophocles's masterpiece from paper to online. On top of it, I had to reconfigure the opener to the next unit. All this meant that I didn't finish my planning until very late Wednesday.
Meanwhile, I hadn't touched any grading for the week in any of the my classes (and I have six now instead of five). It was piling up fast. Worse, I recently collected a major project about poetry from my seniors, another time-consuming thing to grade.
I came home from work, tired and cranky. I ran for an hour, made supper, and then, even though it was Friday evening, I decided to move the pile.
I sat down at my computer (one of the few good things about virtual teaching is that I don't have to carry around piles of actual paper) and set to work. I pounded through EVERYTHING. Poetry, grammar exercises, annotated readings, vocab quizzes. A headache pounded behind my eyes, but I kept going. At last, around 10:30, I entered the last grade. I synced Google Classroom's grade book with Skyward, my district's grading program, then wrote a parent letter and emailed it out, along with a progress report for each student.
This is what teachers do on a Friday evening.
comments
February 27, 2021
Parsla
I came across a dessert called Parsla on Facebook group for Latvian food. It looked tasty, and several people in the group asked for the recipe. The person who made it posted a recipe of sorts--it was just a list of ingredients.
Darwin happened to be looking over my shoulder and said, "That looks fantastic!" So I decided to make it. I studied the ingredient list and realized it was really a basic cake with an enriched cream topping. It also seemed to be a refrigerator cake. All right then!
I combined eggs, flour, sugar, and vanilla, spread it in a square pan, and slid it into the oven. While it was baking, I whipped together cream, ricotta cheese, sugar, and vanilla until it was cloud fluffy.
I had to estimate the baking temperature and time. Most baked goods require 350 d., and a cake of this size and density would probably be 35 minutes. I watched it carefully, and at 35 minutes, checked for doneness with a toothpick. Yep--done! I let it cool a bit, then slipped it out of the pan and put it in the refrigerator for an hour.
After the cake was completely cool, I put it back into the pan and spread the topping over it, then sifted cocoa powder on top and summoned Darwin to the kitchen for taste-testing.
It was wonderful! Like most Latvian desserts, it goes for heartiness over sweetness, and does it very well. The cake was both tender and chewy (in a good way), and the curd topping was a sweet wonder, while the cocoa powder gave it just a bit of a bite.
One nice thing about this recipe is that it makes a small cake--a fine thing for those of us who live in small households where sweets need to be limited and a full-size cake would ultimately go to waste.
Here's my recipe, if you want to try it yourself:
PARSLA
INGREDIENTS
For cake:
1 cup wheat flour
3 large eggs
2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 t vanilla
1 t baking powder
a pinch of salt
For curd cream:
1 cup cottage cheese, farmer cheese, or ricotta cheese (I prefer ricotta)
1/2 - 2/3 cup granulated sugar, to taste
1 cup cream
1 t vanilla
a pinch of salt
cocoa powder
Grease 9x9 cake pan and preheat oven to 350 d. Mix cake ingredients together until just combined. Spread batter in cake pan. Bake at 350 until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clear, about 30-40 minutes. Do not allow the top to brown. Let cool in refrigerator for at least an hour.
Cream together curd cream ingredients with a whisk attachment on high speed until fluffy. Spread on top of cold cake. Dust with cocoa powder. Keep refrigerated.
9 servings.
comments
Darwin happened to be looking over my shoulder and said, "That looks fantastic!" So I decided to make it. I studied the ingredient list and realized it was really a basic cake with an enriched cream topping. It also seemed to be a refrigerator cake. All right then!
I combined eggs, flour, sugar, and vanilla, spread it in a square pan, and slid it into the oven. While it was baking, I whipped together cream, ricotta cheese, sugar, and vanilla until it was cloud fluffy.
I had to estimate the baking temperature and time. Most baked goods require 350 d., and a cake of this size and density would probably be 35 minutes. I watched it carefully, and at 35 minutes, checked for doneness with a toothpick. Yep--done! I let it cool a bit, then slipped it out of the pan and put it in the refrigerator for an hour.
After the cake was completely cool, I put it back into the pan and spread the topping over it, then sifted cocoa powder on top and summoned Darwin to the kitchen for taste-testing.
It was wonderful! Like most Latvian desserts, it goes for heartiness over sweetness, and does it very well. The cake was both tender and chewy (in a good way), and the curd topping was a sweet wonder, while the cocoa powder gave it just a bit of a bite.
One nice thing about this recipe is that it makes a small cake--a fine thing for those of us who live in small households where sweets need to be limited and a full-size cake would ultimately go to waste.
Here's my recipe, if you want to try it yourself:
PARSLA
INGREDIENTS
For cake:
1 cup wheat flour
3 large eggs
2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 t vanilla
1 t baking powder
a pinch of salt
For curd cream:
1 cup cottage cheese, farmer cheese, or ricotta cheese (I prefer ricotta)
1/2 - 2/3 cup granulated sugar, to taste
1 cup cream
1 t vanilla
a pinch of salt
cocoa powder
Grease 9x9 cake pan and preheat oven to 350 d. Mix cake ingredients together until just combined. Spread batter in cake pan. Bake at 350 until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clear, about 30-40 minutes. Do not allow the top to brown. Let cool in refrigerator for at least an hour.
Cream together curd cream ingredients with a whisk attachment on high speed until fluffy. Spread on top of cold cake. Dust with cocoa powder. Keep refrigerated.
9 servings.
comments
February 17, 2021
Cover Reveal!
Check this out! My story, an SF hard-boiled detective piece set in near-future Detroit, will appear in this anthology. Awesome cover!
The official word:
This is the art we'll be using for the upcoming Zombies Need Brains sff anthology WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, edited by S.C. Butler & Joshua Palmatier. Art by Justin Adams of Varia Studios.
You can order art prints, wallpapers, or preorder the anthology at: https://zombies-need-brains-llc.square.site/
Throughout history, different cultures have collided in different ways, whether it be the peaceful contact between Rome and Han China in the second century that established the Silk Road, or the more violent interactions between Europe and the Americas thirteen hundred years later. Such first contact stories have long been a staple of speculative fiction. The stories featured in WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE will continue this long tradition as the authors explore the myriad ways in which two cultures—alien or fae, machine or human—can clash. Will the colliding societies manage to peacefully coexist after they finally meet? Or will they embark instead on a path of mutual self-destruction? Find out—WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE.
Anchor authors include: S.C. Butler, Esther Friesner, Auston Habershaw, Steven Harper Piziks, Nancy Holzner, Howard Andrew Jones, Stephen Leigh, Violette Malan, and Alan Smale.
comments
The official word:
This is the art we'll be using for the upcoming Zombies Need Brains sff anthology WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, edited by S.C. Butler & Joshua Palmatier. Art by Justin Adams of Varia Studios.
You can order art prints, wallpapers, or preorder the anthology at: https://zombies-need-brains-llc.square.site/
Throughout history, different cultures have collided in different ways, whether it be the peaceful contact between Rome and Han China in the second century that established the Silk Road, or the more violent interactions between Europe and the Americas thirteen hundred years later. Such first contact stories have long been a staple of speculative fiction. The stories featured in WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE will continue this long tradition as the authors explore the myriad ways in which two cultures—alien or fae, machine or human—can clash. Will the colliding societies manage to peacefully coexist after they finally meet? Or will they embark instead on a path of mutual self-destruction? Find out—WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE.
Anchor authors include: S.C. Butler, Esther Friesner, Auston Habershaw, Steven Harper Piziks, Nancy Holzner, Howard Andrew Jones, Stephen Leigh, Violette Malan, and Alan Smale.
comments
February 14, 2021
Air Fryer Diet Trick
Air fryer diet trick:
I dehydrate apple and banana slices in the air fryer, then put the results in a bowl on the counter for nibbling. It takes me a couple days to get through an entire apple, so the calories aren't worth bothering about, and I have something to satisfy the nibble urge.
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I dehydrate apple and banana slices in the air fryer, then put the results in a bowl on the counter for nibbling. It takes me a couple days to get through an entire apple, so the calories aren't worth bothering about, and I have something to satisfy the nibble urge.
comments
February 13, 2021
Sweet Potato Pasta?
One of the veggie substitutes for pasta I found is made of sweet potato cut into spiral shapes.
I chopped up a sweet red pepper and sauteed it with onions and minced garlic, then added jarred spaghetti sauce. While that was simmering, I heated up the "pasta." Combined the two and topped with a bit of grated Asiago.
I wasn't sure this would work--I don't like spaghetti squash, for example--but it completely did. The sweet potato pasta had a good texture, and it tasted great. The beefed-up sauce was really good with it. And according to my food app, that portion of the meal had fewer than 200 calories. So it's a keeper.
comments
I chopped up a sweet red pepper and sauteed it with onions and minced garlic, then added jarred spaghetti sauce. While that was simmering, I heated up the "pasta." Combined the two and topped with a bit of grated Asiago.
I wasn't sure this would work--I don't like spaghetti squash, for example--but it completely did. The sweet potato pasta had a good texture, and it tasted great. The beefed-up sauce was really good with it. And according to my food app, that portion of the meal had fewer than 200 calories. So it's a keeper.
comments
Real and Virtual Exercise
As part of my weight loss program, I've upped my exercise levels. Normally, I'd jog on my treadmill five or six times per week for 35-45 minutes. I've pushed that up to an hour.
I've also started using the VR unit for exercise. The Supernatural workout is a Beat Saber variant. When you put on the VR gear, you're transported into various exotic, and usually stark, locations. Targets fly at you, and you have to either slice them in half or dodge them. Virtual coaches give you pre-recorded pep talks.
According to my fitness monitor, my heart rate on this game goes higher than it does when I run, which is a good thing. It's all aerobic exercise--no weights to lift or resistance to overcome. I don't mind this. My joints don't like it when I lift weights, and this is more fun anyway. The point for me is to burn calories.
So these days, I alternate. Run one day, swat virtual targets the other.
comments
I've also started using the VR unit for exercise. The Supernatural workout is a Beat Saber variant. When you put on the VR gear, you're transported into various exotic, and usually stark, locations. Targets fly at you, and you have to either slice them in half or dodge them. Virtual coaches give you pre-recorded pep talks.
According to my fitness monitor, my heart rate on this game goes higher than it does when I run, which is a good thing. It's all aerobic exercise--no weights to lift or resistance to overcome. I don't mind this. My joints don't like it when I lift weights, and this is more fun anyway. The point for me is to burn calories.
So these days, I alternate. Run one day, swat virtual targets the other.
comments
Dumping the Pandemic Pounds
Like a lot of people, I gained weight during the pandemic, though this problem really began before-hand. In all, I've gained about 15 pounds since Darwin and I got married, ten since the pandemic began. So I've joined a commercial weight modification program.
Like most such programs these days, this one de-emphasizes denial and emphasizes behavior change. It has an app for keeping track of your weight, watching your daily eating, and sending you chirpy "You can do this!" messages. One thing this program DOESN'T emphasize is exercise. In fact, they barely even mention it. It's not until you're in for more than a week that the program off-handedly mentions that for every calorie you burn in exercise, you get half a calorie added to your daily allotment. You would think this would show up prominently as a way to encourage movement, but no. And while food and weight entries are easy to get to on the app's menu, the exercise section is buried a couple levels down. I'm not sure why this is.
The program also tries to move you toward a plant-based diet without actually saying so. They don't say, "Eat vegetarian," but they definitely de-emphasize meat of all kinds. The recipe section is filled with vegetarian offerings:
Crisp Stir Fry Vegetables
Winter Squash Risotto
Lemony Fennel Salad
Tofu Pad Tai
Eggplant and Mushroom Pasta
They seem to have a love affair with soups:
Mushroom and Rice Soup
Minestrone Soup
Carrot Ginger Soup
Vegetarian Barley Soup
Corn and Tomato Chowder
Autumn Harvest Pumpkin Soup
I don't object to this. It's just odd how they quietly emphasize this without actually saying so. Maybe they figure if they draw your attention to it, you'll resist.
My goal is to lose at least 15 pounds, and make a run for 20. (I always find it useful to tell myself, "Get this far with and you can stop, but you can keep going if you want to.") Right now, I'm in the honeymoon phase, when weight loss is quick and easy. I've lost five pounds, in fact. Eventually, my metabolism will say, "Wait--what?" and slow itself down, making it harder to lose more, but for now I'll enjoy being a third of the way toward my first goal.
I'm also discovering the plethora of what I call fake foods. There's a vogue on for creating food substitutes out of vegetables. We have spiral-cut veggies that masquerade as pasta. Frozen risotto and rice dishes filled out with vegetables. And, of course, plant-based meat substitutes. The Impossible Burger is the most famous substitute for ground beef, but I've found plant-based sausage and plant-based sweet-and-sour pork.
In a self-inflicted orgy of "what the hell," I snagged a big pile of all this stuff. I've long been a fan of the ground beef substitutes, but rarely bought them at the store because they're expensive, but I decided I'd spend it now. So far, I'm liking the results.
I've also become a fan of pre-made salads, another new-ish item in the store. They're various styles of salad that come in a sealed bowl and separate packets of the dressing and crispy ingredients inside. I like these because the only other way to make a mixed salad involves buying an entire head of lettuce, a bag of carrots, a head of cabbage, and so on. You chop up ingredients for a bowl of salad, and you're left with huge amounts of leftover ingredients that, in my case, usually go bad before you can use them all up. These bowls let me have a variety of different kinds of salad without leaving piles of vegetables in my crisper drawer that turn into black sludge. The only objection I have to them is the amount of packaging. By volume, the packaging is nearly as much as the salad itself!
My goal is to lose fifteen pounds by early June. We'll see what happens!
comments
Like most such programs these days, this one de-emphasizes denial and emphasizes behavior change. It has an app for keeping track of your weight, watching your daily eating, and sending you chirpy "You can do this!" messages. One thing this program DOESN'T emphasize is exercise. In fact, they barely even mention it. It's not until you're in for more than a week that the program off-handedly mentions that for every calorie you burn in exercise, you get half a calorie added to your daily allotment. You would think this would show up prominently as a way to encourage movement, but no. And while food and weight entries are easy to get to on the app's menu, the exercise section is buried a couple levels down. I'm not sure why this is.
The program also tries to move you toward a plant-based diet without actually saying so. They don't say, "Eat vegetarian," but they definitely de-emphasize meat of all kinds. The recipe section is filled with vegetarian offerings:
Crisp Stir Fry Vegetables
Winter Squash Risotto
Lemony Fennel Salad
Tofu Pad Tai
Eggplant and Mushroom Pasta
They seem to have a love affair with soups:
Mushroom and Rice Soup
Minestrone Soup
Carrot Ginger Soup
Vegetarian Barley Soup
Corn and Tomato Chowder
Autumn Harvest Pumpkin Soup
I don't object to this. It's just odd how they quietly emphasize this without actually saying so. Maybe they figure if they draw your attention to it, you'll resist.
My goal is to lose at least 15 pounds, and make a run for 20. (I always find it useful to tell myself, "Get this far with and you can stop, but you can keep going if you want to.") Right now, I'm in the honeymoon phase, when weight loss is quick and easy. I've lost five pounds, in fact. Eventually, my metabolism will say, "Wait--what?" and slow itself down, making it harder to lose more, but for now I'll enjoy being a third of the way toward my first goal.
I'm also discovering the plethora of what I call fake foods. There's a vogue on for creating food substitutes out of vegetables. We have spiral-cut veggies that masquerade as pasta. Frozen risotto and rice dishes filled out with vegetables. And, of course, plant-based meat substitutes. The Impossible Burger is the most famous substitute for ground beef, but I've found plant-based sausage and plant-based sweet-and-sour pork.
In a self-inflicted orgy of "what the hell," I snagged a big pile of all this stuff. I've long been a fan of the ground beef substitutes, but rarely bought them at the store because they're expensive, but I decided I'd spend it now. So far, I'm liking the results.
I've also become a fan of pre-made salads, another new-ish item in the store. They're various styles of salad that come in a sealed bowl and separate packets of the dressing and crispy ingredients inside. I like these because the only other way to make a mixed salad involves buying an entire head of lettuce, a bag of carrots, a head of cabbage, and so on. You chop up ingredients for a bowl of salad, and you're left with huge amounts of leftover ingredients that, in my case, usually go bad before you can use them all up. These bowls let me have a variety of different kinds of salad without leaving piles of vegetables in my crisper drawer that turn into black sludge. The only objection I have to them is the amount of packaging. By volume, the packaging is nearly as much as the salad itself!
My goal is to lose fifteen pounds by early June. We'll see what happens!
comments
January 26, 2021
Darwin: Ninety Days Out of Town
Darwin has accepted a position as interim village administrator for Blissfield, which is just north of the Michigan's lower border, about 20 minutes from Toledo. The place is a smidgen closer than Albion is, but it takes 90 minutes of driving to get there, and he can't commute daily. He'll be working there for about three months or until they find a permanent administrator, whichever comes first.
This means we're spending a chunk of time apart again. Darwin drives down to Blissfield on Sunday evening, works four ten-hour days, and drives back up Thursday evening. The village is paying his housing costs when he's down there.
Darwin reports that Blissfield is a very nice town with very nice people. The council really likes his work, and they've made noises about maybe making his interim position permanent. Darwin nicely told them that his family is up here, and he unfortunately can't take a position that far away from home on a permanent basis.
He likes working in Blissfield, though neither of us likes being apart again. I thought this aspect of his job was over when he left Albion, but apparently not. It makes for lonely evenings for both of us.
So to cope, I bought an Oculus Rift. Who needs a husband when you have VR?
comments
This means we're spending a chunk of time apart again. Darwin drives down to Blissfield on Sunday evening, works four ten-hour days, and drives back up Thursday evening. The village is paying his housing costs when he's down there.
Darwin reports that Blissfield is a very nice town with very nice people. The council really likes his work, and they've made noises about maybe making his interim position permanent. Darwin nicely told them that his family is up here, and he unfortunately can't take a position that far away from home on a permanent basis.
He likes working in Blissfield, though neither of us likes being apart again. I thought this aspect of his job was over when he left Albion, but apparently not. It makes for lonely evenings for both of us.
So to cope, I bought an Oculus Rift. Who needs a husband when you have VR?
comments
January 22, 2021
The Plague Diaries: Steven Gets Vaccinated, Stage 1
A while ago, Michigan declared that teachers were Class 1B for COVID vaccines. This means teachers are basically second in line after healthcare workers and seniors. I learned about the health department's vaccine registration web site going live for 1B patients by sheer accident, when a friend mentioned it in passing. When I visited the site, it took me six tries to get registered because the site kept crashing under the pressure.
The web site scheduled my first vaccine for January 22--the day I'm writing this--and my second for February 15. But here's the thing: Wherever Schools decided to start face-to-face instruction for all secondary students on Wednesday, January 20. I was (am) very much against this decision, and feel the schools should remain virtual until at least teachers and staff can be vaccinated. I'm frankly terrified that I'll pick up the virus somewhere--especially at work--and bring it home to Darwin, who is in a highly-elevated risk group. This is a serious, wake-up-sweating-in-the-night kind of fear.
I couldn't see taking the risk.
And so I elected to stay home Wednesday and Thursday, using my personal leave time. And the district grants 10 extra COVID-related sick days. Getting vaccinated falls under those days. So I'd only be losing two days of my own time. Okay, then.
My thinking is that once I get the vaccine on Friday, I'll have the weekend to start building immunity. The Pfizer vaccine has a 50% immunity rate after the first vaccine (though it take several days to get there). So when I go back to the building on Monday, I'll have at least some immunity, and get more every day. I intend to maintain strict protocols in my classroom as well, which will also help.
I don't think my principal was very happy when I told him I'd be out for the first three days of the semester, and I got the impression that substitutes are already difficult to come by, but he didn't fight me about it and he said he understood why I was doing it. I think for a moment he thought I was quitting, which would have made his life really difficult, but that wasn't the case.
Today--Friday--I drove out to the vaccination site, which is the fire station in Holly about 20 minutes away. Signs near the station directed me to go around back, where I found a line of about twenty cars. I joined it, and it moved briskly ahead. When I got close to the front, a masked lady approached the car to get my information and check my ID.
I suddenly realized I hadn't grabbed my wallet when I left. Several frantic moments followed. The woman wasn't sure if I could get vaccinated without showing ID first and was going to find a supervisor to ask, and I wondered if I would have to drive back home and potentially lose my vaccine. Then I remembered that I keep an expired driver's license in the car just in case. I dug around and produced it, and the lady said that would do. Whew!
Then another snag: the lady told me that although I'd been scheduled to get the Pfizer vaccine, the fire house actually got a shipment of Moderna vaccine. This wasn't a big deal, except that the time frame for the second dose was different. I would have to reschedule that by calling the health department after February 1. Well, great. After the Great Web Site Challenge, I didn't think it'd be easy to get through to DHS by phone. But there was nothing for it.
The lady gave me a sheaf of papers with vaccine information printed on them and directed me to drive into the fire house. I was expecting (hoping) that a bunch of hot firemen would descend on my car like the pit crew at a racetrack to give me the vaccine. My hopes were dashed. A roly-poly woman in a tie-dyed mask leaned into the car with a syringe instead. "I have mad skillz," she told me, and poked my arm.
I drove to another parking lot where I needed to wait fifteen minutes under the eye of another set of medical staff to make sure I had no adverse reactions. While I sat there, I did a web search for the efficacy of a single dose of the Moderna vaccine.
Hello! The studies reported that the Moderna vaccine has a whopping 80% immunity rate after the first dose.
Suddenly the snag didn't seem so snaggy anymore.
I drove home after the allotted wait time. Later in the evening, the injection site became sore and I felt a little off, so I took some Tylenol. Now I'm feeling perfectly well.
And . . . 80%. I feel a lot better about returning to work.
comments
The web site scheduled my first vaccine for January 22--the day I'm writing this--and my second for February 15. But here's the thing: Wherever Schools decided to start face-to-face instruction for all secondary students on Wednesday, January 20. I was (am) very much against this decision, and feel the schools should remain virtual until at least teachers and staff can be vaccinated. I'm frankly terrified that I'll pick up the virus somewhere--especially at work--and bring it home to Darwin, who is in a highly-elevated risk group. This is a serious, wake-up-sweating-in-the-night kind of fear.
I couldn't see taking the risk.
And so I elected to stay home Wednesday and Thursday, using my personal leave time. And the district grants 10 extra COVID-related sick days. Getting vaccinated falls under those days. So I'd only be losing two days of my own time. Okay, then.
My thinking is that once I get the vaccine on Friday, I'll have the weekend to start building immunity. The Pfizer vaccine has a 50% immunity rate after the first vaccine (though it take several days to get there). So when I go back to the building on Monday, I'll have at least some immunity, and get more every day. I intend to maintain strict protocols in my classroom as well, which will also help.
I don't think my principal was very happy when I told him I'd be out for the first three days of the semester, and I got the impression that substitutes are already difficult to come by, but he didn't fight me about it and he said he understood why I was doing it. I think for a moment he thought I was quitting, which would have made his life really difficult, but that wasn't the case.
Today--Friday--I drove out to the vaccination site, which is the fire station in Holly about 20 minutes away. Signs near the station directed me to go around back, where I found a line of about twenty cars. I joined it, and it moved briskly ahead. When I got close to the front, a masked lady approached the car to get my information and check my ID.
I suddenly realized I hadn't grabbed my wallet when I left. Several frantic moments followed. The woman wasn't sure if I could get vaccinated without showing ID first and was going to find a supervisor to ask, and I wondered if I would have to drive back home and potentially lose my vaccine. Then I remembered that I keep an expired driver's license in the car just in case. I dug around and produced it, and the lady said that would do. Whew!
Then another snag: the lady told me that although I'd been scheduled to get the Pfizer vaccine, the fire house actually got a shipment of Moderna vaccine. This wasn't a big deal, except that the time frame for the second dose was different. I would have to reschedule that by calling the health department after February 1. Well, great. After the Great Web Site Challenge, I didn't think it'd be easy to get through to DHS by phone. But there was nothing for it.
The lady gave me a sheaf of papers with vaccine information printed on them and directed me to drive into the fire house. I was expecting (hoping) that a bunch of hot firemen would descend on my car like the pit crew at a racetrack to give me the vaccine. My hopes were dashed. A roly-poly woman in a tie-dyed mask leaned into the car with a syringe instead. "I have mad skillz," she told me, and poked my arm.
I drove to another parking lot where I needed to wait fifteen minutes under the eye of another set of medical staff to make sure I had no adverse reactions. While I sat there, I did a web search for the efficacy of a single dose of the Moderna vaccine.
Hello! The studies reported that the Moderna vaccine has a whopping 80% immunity rate after the first dose.
Suddenly the snag didn't seem so snaggy anymore.
I drove home after the allotted wait time. Later in the evening, the injection site became sore and I felt a little off, so I took some Tylenol. Now I'm feeling perfectly well.
And . . . 80%. I feel a lot better about returning to work.
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