On Thursday, New Zealand dropped down to Covid-19 Alert Level 2, and things are starting to reopen. Well done NZ!
We decided that Mama would re-start in-person teaching on Monday, in our new (hopefully) Covid-19-proof schoolroom (what used to be Mulan and Miya's bedroom).
Just in time, we finished the painting yesterday. This is what it looked like six days ago:
And this is what it looks like today:
The students will go in and out the French doors, staying at the desks and a couple of metres away from Mama.
We ordered three new (wipable) chairs two weeks ago from Warehouse Stationary. According to the website they still haven't been packed yet. We've got a couple of old wooden stools that the students will have to uncomfortably perch on until the new chairs turn up.
At the same time we ordered a multimedia projector from Harvey Norman -- it also hasn't arrived. Mama will have to teach old-fashioned style for now.
One of these bedrooms is set up as a schoolroom for Mama's work, where students come for Chinese language lessons.
In our new Covid-19-world we've had to change things. Our schoolroom was upstairs, with the students walking through our living area to get up there. But that's not going to work, once in-person lessons restart in (hopefully) a couple of weeks.
So, we've done a bit of room-moving.
Last night, Miya moved into the upstairs (ex-schoolroom) bedroom. Up until now the girls have shared a room, and Miya was super-excited to have her own space:
We'd painted the room five years ago when we set up the schoolroom, so it only needed a quick freshen-up repaint before she could move in.
Out of sight around to the right in the photo there's a second bed, and for now Mulan is also sleeping in there. Our next task is to finish painting the guest room, and when that's done Mulan will move into her own room.
Finally, the girls' old room will be done up and turned into Mama's new schoolroom. It has French doors that open up at the front of the house, so students can come and go directly from there.
My warmest sympathies go out to all those who are suffering from the worldwide pandemic that is Covid-19.
The situation around the world is truly awful -- people are suffering and some are dying. And many more are hugely struggling from the necessary restrictions and financial shutdowns.
From what I understand, the strict lockdown is the best option we have right now -- it's the lesser of two evils. Without a lockdown, too many people would get Covid-19 in a short space of time. Too many people would require hospital treatment all at once, and the hospitals would not have the room or resources to treat them all at the same time. Many more people would die at home without proper treatment. I trust the experts on this, and I fully support the lockdown. Stay home; keep safe!
But the lockdown has its own problems -- important but non-essential work stopped, families with reduced incomes, follow-on financial ripples, etc. It's going to take a long time to recover.
But dare I say it, personally I'm enjoying the lockdown!
At least in my little bubble we're fairly well protected. And life is so peaceful!
In many ways it's like the summer holiday I never had this year (only a bit cooler).
For us, typically over summer paid work slows as our students take a break from their studies. The girls' outside activities stop, too, as most are term-based. So, typically over summer we spend more time at home on other projects -- gardening, painting the house, etc, etc. Or. to put it another way, during the school holidays homeschooling becomes more homeschooling.
So, I'm genuinely enjoying the lockdown, and it's very satisfying to potter about at home and get to do some of the things I really wanted to do over summer.
Overall, I could count on one hand the number of times our family has gone out the gate in the past three weeks. And I haven't missed the outings at all.
We're not even needing to go out the gate for groceries -- we're ordering everything online. Mostly we're getting what we need -- the minor struggles with delivery errors or items not available are merely First World Problems. In normal life we almost never eat out or get takeaways, so our home cooking is just the same as always.
Financially, right now our work and income is reduced, and it's not great to have two slow work periods in the year. But where possible we're working online and our income is still enough to be comfortable. None of us need to go out the gate for work. We haven't applied for the work subsidy -- while we may be able to get it, at this stage we don't need it, and best to leave it for those who genuinely do need it.
Mama has stopped a lot of her teaching work, but is still teaching some students online via Zoom. I decided to not teach my paying students online -- they're getting a break! Mama has been busier than usual with NZ government translation work (I hear she had some urgent Covid-19 documents to translate into Chinese). She's also been doing a bit of TV documentary research work.
For the first several days of lockdown I was busier with Belmont Music Centre manager duties, but that's eased off now. We'd decided to cancel music lessons on Saturday 21 March (just before the lockdown started). I was then busy organising online teaching, and from Saturday 28th we've been back up and running with online classes (also using Zoom).
The big change for us is that the girls' outside activities have stopped. Mulan is suffering the most with this, and is eager for things to return to normal. We can't do swimming, gymnastics, athletics or netball. Music and ballet have continued, but they are now all online on Zoom.
Our usual schooling deskwork is mostly the same, though I'm happy to report (I'm not sure if Mulan and Miya will be happy to read the report) that with more time available I'm adding (and planning to add) some learning topics that I've had in my head but hadn't had time to get started.
Right now, our gardens are looking much better than they've done in months -- the lawns are mowed, and the hedges and trees are trimmed. We emptied everything out of our garage, waterblasted the floor, and returned everything neatly. I chopped all the firewood -- our five-year-old pile of branches is gone. I sewed and put up a new curtain. Mama's been painting the fence. If lockdown continues into winter we'll start painting the inside of the house.
We're lucky. Lockdown's been pretty good for us. I'm tempted to try a Jojo Rabbit trick -- lie to the family and tell them that New Zealand is in Level 4 lockdown for another six months.
