This ride is making me sca-a-a-a-attered!

Well well,

Covid 19 is certainly taking all of us on a ride.  We're more or less stranded in the Netherlands on our boat waiting.  We're hoping that maybe we can spend a bit of time outside of the marina, and further from other people, but no one seems to know if the canals are going to be open or if they will be letting people tie up at the docks.

What is bugging me a little more is that I am finding myself constantly going to do something and not remember what I was going to do.  I am teaching two different courses, one with a university in Catalunya, with a bit less than 50 students, on tight police controlled lock down, with Covid running horribly amuck in their communities, and in some cases, their families; the other are student teachers ( a little fewer than 24)  in Canada where most of my students have been laid off work, and have been home for weeks, with increasing tension as Covid girds its loins there.  On top of that the course in Canada has some very very strict limitations put on it by the Government of Ontario and our industry specific governing body, so we're trying to tiptoe through these regulations and negotiate with those groups to try to create a situation wherein they can complete their practicums and complete the course.   Each and every student in both places, is struggling, and I am doing my very best to help them all get through their course work and pass, if they want to try.  But man o man, each and every one of them has their own challenges, which they don't have to and often are not explaining to me.  So every time I sit down to try and get some work done, I end up putting out fires, and everything I open, every classroom page, or forum or email sends me down a different rabbit hole, and then I come back and find a half-finished email from something I was working on 4 students ago.  I have so many tabs open on my window I cannot find them, and the little counter on the *four* email accounts I have to keep open for this keeps going up and up and up.  Then there is trying to plan for work this coming summer.  I currently have four separate potential schedules created, plan A, B, C, D and E. Plan A is pretty much written off, but not for sure.  I figure that the chance that any of those plans will come together is about 10%.  That feels optimistic.

So I am feeling scattered.  In fact that is running through my head to the tune of Bowie's 'Changes'. 'Sca-a-a-a-t-er-er-er-ed'

It's all good, and we are healthy, in a country that seems to be managing the illness reasonably well all things considered.  We can still go out for walks,  our family is doing well.  Chatting with lots of friends.  But focus is a thing of the past at the moment.

I am getting some painting done though, and it does let me sink in and focus, I am really enjoying that, even if I do have to force myself a bit sometimes.

Hope you're all doing well.


PS.  Just got a message from the marina that they're closing the bathroom and shower down.  Gonna shower tomorrow and that'll be the last hot shower, no the last shower whatsoever, till who knows when.

Ho hum.

PPS. And that also means we cannot get water!  Ho double hum.