JFC. Ace's teacher last year was absentee. Like she let them watch youtube on their chromebooks all the time, and Ace spent much of 2nd grade watching LOL Doll unboxing videos.
This year, she got a great teacher. After 3 weeks, that teacher got transferred to 5th grade. (Pokey actually has her now and loves her.) There was 2-3 weeks of subs surrounding that move and hiring the new teacher. I just learned that the new teacher resigned last week, and now there's going to be another week or two of subs until they get teachers moved around.
None of this matters that much. I just want Ace to keep hearing Spanish (although I'm not sure how much that has been happening.) It may take a higher toll on the students that don't yet speak English, though.
Either way, I'm just ready for her to be engaged in school finally.
oooh! Just learned that Kim Stanley Robinson is giving a lecture at the cathedral tonight. Tickets secured, I think.
My brother and his wife are both teachers in TX and he is fully at the end of his rope. He's in a weird situation where he's the only teacher for his language at a K-8 school, so he has like 7 preps per day (it's something vaguely like K-6 meet 40 minutes a day, and 7&8 meet every other day for longer), and there's a new principal with really harsh rules about documenting classes and how every class needs specific separate me/you/us components (he's all "How are Kindergartners in a foreign language class going to do a solo activity?") which is just not feasible when you have 7 separate preps a day.
She's also at the end of her rope, but it seems to have as much to do with losing all her friends to QAnon than teaching specifically.
Fortunately, the healing power of med-beds will fix that.
3: Jammies is also at the end of his rope (although not planning on quitting).
The newest thing is the state school board announced that if you failed the TAKS test last year, the school has to give you 30 hours of 1-on-1 tutoring this year. This is mathematically impossible at the Heebieville high school. There are not enough hours left to give 1/3 of your students 30 hours of individualized tutoring.
So now during flex period, which was supposed to be for tutorials, Jammies will have 30 students, and they're supposed to get into groups of 3 and do remedial problems on some website, while he wanders around and helps them.
Which is fine. It's not a terrible idea. It's just piling more shit on your very strained teachers. (And honestly, they probably couldn't hire more teachers and they probably are trying to very hard.)
nd there's a new principal with really harsh rules
This. It seems like the trend is for many principals to adopt this "my teachers are wayward students and I must punish them into being strong teachers" mentality.
Not really at the elementary level, but at the middle and high school level for sure. Well, actually yes at the pre-K level. My friend got written up for things like: not being on the "schedule", ie the admin dropped by and was like, "Why are you doing reading at 10:30? you're supposed to be on counting!" (and my friend has 20+ years of experience with teaching preK. It does not matter when you teach counting during the day.) She has also been written up for not having her attendance forms submitted by 10:30 am, and for wearing jeans. To teach 4 year olds. We must look professional when we sit down on the floor with our class of 23 four year olds.
oooh. Kim Stanley Robinson lecture in the cathedral this evening, and we have bagged tickets
You should meet up with the guy from 2!
A lot of people feel a deep emotional need to identify any kind of flexibility or accommodation as a weakness and to see themselves as keeping disaster at bay by virtue of being an asshole to decent people.
We really are headed for a situation where there are no teachers. Here enrollment in our teaching majors has utterly plummeted (to the tune of like a 60% decrease in less than a decade). It was always a poorly paying job which free rode on the fact that young women weren't allowed to have other kinds of jobs, but it used to be that teaching at a lot of schools had relatively pleasant conditions in terms of hours (especially after the first few years of developing curriculum and materials) especially with summers off. But more and more it's just a terrible shitty job.
We really are headed for a situation where there are no teachers.
I think so too.
We're supposed to be part of some big grant (that I had no role in) where we're supposed to encourage STEM students to consider teaching, and I'm very reluctant to play along. If they're super excited to get into a classroom, then go for it, but I'm not going to sell anyone on the idea if they're on the fence.
I guess the movie-set armorers who think like that are right.
We get weekly calls from the principle. The one last week opened up with, 'we desperately need substitute teachers. If you have a bachelors, please consider it.' I was surprised they're at the point of begging all the parents to please become a substitute teacher.
There's a huge push from upper-admin types to have uniformity for uniformity's sake, and I don't understand where it comes from. What is the actual benefit of every department website looking the same? But admins think the first priority is that they all look the same, and any actual use of the website is of secondary importance.
I just read NY2140 so the other thread title made me think of KSR.
Getting boostered on Thursday. Triple Moderna.
SPouse may get drafted into doing sub teaching because of shortage in her district. She still gets her contract pay which seems really inefficient since teacher salaries around here are quite high. She also does a lot of stuff no one else is going to pick up if she has to sub instead so I guess those things just won't happen.
13: They should point out that you can bully any kid that bullies your kid.
I should try to confirm this in the wayback machine, but my favorite example of this counterproductive uniformity for uniformity's sake is that if you go to Mammoth Caves National Park you are inundated with signage telling you that "you are in central time now." Because it really is surprising that it's in central time, especially because many people are coming from Louisville. And since all access is guided tours you have an appointment and many people arrive an hour early. But if you go to the website there's nothing prominent about the time zone! I feel really confident that 15 years ago the website had prominent warnings about the time zone and then everything got uniformized and now it's useless at its one job.
15: is that for health reasons, occupational exposure or because anybody can? I'm trying to figure out what I want to do and when. I got Pfizer x 2 and was thinking about getting a Moderna but might not be enough different to be worth the effort of asking for a different one.
I'm in the same spot and leaning toward Moderna.
I'm hoping to get my third Moderna today. The idea of mixing and matching seems appealing -- you get the benefits of both, right? But Moderna has held up well over time, so I figure I'll just stick with that.
I want Moderna because it looks better than Pfizer against delta.
I qualify under one health and maybe under occupation depending on how health care field is defined. Want to get it because we still have one unvaxxed kid and we're going to be doing some travel. Hopefully the unvaxxed kid situation is resolved next month.
17: I don't know about that specific park/issue, but you are absolutely correct that the NPS made a big push a few years back to standardize the park websites and it's led to a lot of important park-specific information no longer being highlighted.
I've got my appointment for the Moderna booster for Friday. Sticking with the same vax because of Delta performance also.
Third Moderna tomorrow on the way home.
I'm trying to decide when I should try to get a booster. I don't fit the eligibility criteria, but I'm hearing from other people that they aren't checking.
For the moment, I'm inclined to wait, but I'm not how I should decide.
The idea of mixing and matching seems appealing -- you get the benefits of both, right?
My two doses were a mix and match: AstraZeneca (similar to the US J & J), followed by a Moderna jab. Last spring and summer, stupid conservatives were actively contributing to vaccine hesitancy (anything to own the libs...) by suggesting the (Liberal) government was performing some kind of dangerous "experiment" on the Canadian public by allowing mixed doses. Turns out (quelle surprise!) those dumb conservatives were completely wrong, of course.
I tied to sign up for a booster (as an education worker?) but they won't let me sign up until it's been 6 months since my shot (which happens on Wednesday). I was thinking they might let me schedule it for Friday or something, but no.
Here's the paper on heterologous boosters. Table 2 summarizes the info folks are looking for. It's a preprint, so not peer reviewed yet.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.10.21264827v2.full.pdf
The bigger question to me is whether folks who aren't at higher risk of complications need boosters at all. I haven't seen any convincing data. We'll get ours if eligible, of course.
I feel pretty safe with two doses of Moderna (second in early March), but over 50 and overweight is enough to qualify and it seems like the prudent thing to do, especially before visiting elderly and immune-compromised parents.
I just scheduled mine for Friday. At Walgreens.
Before 30, I hadn't noticed that overweight (as opposed to obese) was enough to qualify. I didn't count as having an underlying medical condition the first time (unless I ate a lot of cheese and no fiber for three days and then drank as much water as I could hold before stepping on a scale).
i have a group-knowledge/researching skills favor to ask. my better half, soon to be boosterized, is heading to the southwest of england in the latter half of november to visit his mum. she's old enough that he is going for it, despite - gestures at everything ---
i am trying to get some kind of handle on the comparative generalized virus situation in sf vs. southwest of england. i think hospitalizations for covid is the most comparable and relevant metric, because of the disparity in testing rates (uk - ubiquitous, usa - virtually non-existent unless direct exposure + sense of civic responsibility and/or rampantly symptomatic).
sf reports the current number of hospitalizations for covid here: https://sf.gov/data/covid-19-hospitalizations
our total population is roughly 880,000.
am i correct that this https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.england.nhs.uk%2Fstatistics%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2021%2F10%2FWeekly-covid-admissions-and-beds-publication-211021.xlsx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK
is reporting the total number of hospital beds occupied by covid patients? i.e., for the southwest 540 as of 19 oct 21??? if so, could you all please reassure me by pointing me to where i can confirm that the population of the south west is 9 million+++??? how is this rate of hospitalization not absolutely terrifying?
thanks in advance!
I only know U.K. populations by ceremonial counties.
I only know U.K. populations by the BritBox detective series I have been devouring during the pandemic.
There seems to be an emphasis on the North of England (Endeavour; Vera; Inspector George Gently...); because the accents, and the manners and mores, are so authentic, and so charming...
Anyway, googling says 5.6 million people in southwest England, but I have no idea if that's the same "southwest". The spreadsheet in 33 isn't opening right for me.
that bristol has about half the population of sf is super not reassuring. yikes. i am bad with numbers, please explain how i have this wrong!
I'm pretty sure Bristol is safer than the rural counties around Pittsburgh were a few weeks ago. San Francisco is kind of an outlier in a good direction.
I am a total Morseverse fan (John Thaw as DCI Endeavour Morse; Kevin Whately [my lifelong crush] as DS Robbie Lewis...). But I can no longer watch Inspector Lewis, thanks to Laurence Fox, that ars*h*le, with his Covid denial, and his anti-vax nonsense...
dq, I'm not sure where you're getting that 540 figure. Looks like all of England is admitting about 800 patients per day. The SF numbers are total beds, not new admissions, so you're not getting a good comparison unless you want to take a stab at how long average hospital stay in England is and do some math.
I think the NYT tracker is pretty good at apples-to apples. I can't speak to testing, but San Francisco's numbers are amazingly low compared to nearly everywhere else. 7/100,000 new cases vs 110/100,000 in Bristol. Deaths are 0.09/100,000 in SF and 0.30/100,000 in Bristol (deaths lag new cases by 3-4 weeks minimum, and Bristol's new cases are on an upswing, so I would expect this to diverge more in a week or two). No data for hospitalizations outside the US there, but I think the two comparisons you can make definitely give unambiguous information.
That said, although those numbers are highly concerning, if better half stays in mostly and is vaxxed and boosted, I don't think you need to worry too much about him.
For comparison, Pennsylvania appears to be running at about .50/100,000 deaths a day.
Yeah. The town where I live is 31 new daily cases per 100,000 and 0.38/100,000 deaths. There is no question the UK is doing generally better than lots of the US. Just not San Francisco.
West Virginia is 1.3 deaths per 100,000 and Ohio is .7/100,000. I'm guessing this end of the state is actually quite a bit above .5.
I'm waiting for it to burn through the unvaccinated before I (hopefully) can go to the bar again around Christmas.
thank you ydnew! he's promised six ways from sunday to assiduously wear his v effective & well fitting mask on tranist/indoors in shops and not eat indoors in restaurants (all of this is the same as what normal for us here in sf). i so want him to see his mum and also if he is there in london i want him to have the joy of going to what he fancies at the wigmore hall and catching any other concerts that may be on (masked!). i will attempt to regain some calm. thank you. jesus this is all such a complete disaster.
Does anyone know if Heriot-Watt University is good. A friend of mine's daughter here is thinking of applying there
re: 46
It has a solid reputation, especially in science and engineering, and technical subjects like architecture, planning, etc. Friends of mine from school went there and seemed to like it. It's not in the "first tier" of British universities, although it's highly rated in some specific subjects.
One big caveat, it's not actually in Edinburgh proper. It's on a suburban campus outside the Edinburgh peripheral ring road. It takes about 45 minutes to get into central Edinburgh (or it's about 7 miles on a bike). So, if the friend's daughter wanted the experience of living in Edinburgh--and it's a very nice city to live in--they aren't going to get it, unless they made the conscious choice to live in the city and commute out to the campus. I expect, based on experience of similar universities, that students do do that, especially in their later years at university once they have friends and established connections, but I expect most people start out living on campus outside the city, at least for the first year or two.
If they wanted the Edinburgh experience, they'd really want to go to Edinburgh University.
There's an academic journal with a fucking app. Can we make this stop please.
ONe problem with the South West is that the testing there was being done by a private company that fucked up badly. The government denies this has anything to do with the present surge. It is barely possible that is true.
re: 45
https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/coronavirus--covid-19--cases
Is pretty good at visualising the current state of play with CV-19 in London. The numbers aren't as high as they were at previous peaks, and they aren't rising especially fast, although they are increasing. Rates among young people are high, though. It has been ripping through the local schools where I live.
Ydnew, you can get daily admissions and patient numbers from coronavirus.data.gov.uk. There are 600 patients in hospital in SW England with COVID.
for a population of around 3.2 million, i think. so it really & truly is far worse than here.
47 Thanks, that's just what he was looking for
He's also asking about Loughborough University
52: Thanks. I just was too lazy to hunt for the exact data to give that comparison and figured one of you would almost certainly have a better source specific for hospitalizations. Case rates and death rates seem OK as a comparison, even given the assumptions that the US is catching only a small fraction of cases.
Every time I've compared US and UK data, it's been overall comparable, but the US data I can easily see at a regional/state/county level is hugely variable. DQ has the benefit of being in a location with a very, very low case rate.
50: Fuuuuuuck.
Do y'all agree with the assessment that dq's spouse would be fine traveling? I felt pretty weird attending a concert a few weeks ago that required proof of vaccination or negative test and masks at all times for entry, but I think that was more that it was weird to be back than some kind of rational assessment.
I think it's fine. Anyway, I went to see my mom for what sound like similar reasons when covid was worse. But I was able to avoid airplanes.
I think it would be fine. Things will get worse here over winter and you really don't want to need a hospital at the moment. But your chances of being one aren't worryingly higher than normal.
I've started ketamine treatments for my depression. No noticeable effect on the depression yet, but holy fuck is it interesting. I've never tripped before so I can't compare it to other drugs, but it is blow-your-mind-lose-touch-with-reality-wait-what-even-is-a-mind-is-reality-even-a-thing weird.
59: Hope it helps! Sounds distracting anyway.
59: I did ketamine once as part of a paid study, and while it's plenty weird by the standard recreational routes, IV ketamine was like being shot out of a psychedelic cannon.
"for a population of around 3.2 million, i think"
No, the population of SW England is 5.6 million.
50: Kraabie! fingers crossed!
I haven't done much K but I remember thinking it was like being a plucked guitar string.
thank you ajay that is slightly better, still a big yikes but his mum is v much getting on so what the hell.
Ketamine for depression is the first argument I have ever heard in favour of US medicine. As you say, it might not work but it will surely be interesting. What are the possible harms?
55: Loughborough? Pronounced LUFFboro, just to get it out there, and famous for mechanical engineering, sport, and sports science. It didn't actually have arts or humanities subjects until 1998. Small town but very, very industrial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loughborough If you're the kind of person who'd like that, you'll love it, if not...
56: it's pretty normal. wear your mask (get a proper one), be vaccinated, and lay off licking people's faces and she'll be right.
69.1 is a lie- it is pronounced Loogabarooga.
re: 56.last
I'd have no problem travelling in and around London and the rest of the UK. That said, I live in London, so ...
re: 55
Seconding Alex's 69. It's very well known for a small number of subjects, where, despite not being a big/old prestigious university, it has genuine world-leading strengths. It's another campus university experience, like Heriot-Watt, i.e. you aren't going to be living enmeshed in some vibrant city (and Loughborough, as per Alex, is no Edinburgh/London/Glasgow/Manchester/etc).
This reminds me I once met an American in the performance car parts trade* who told me his daughter was agonizing between Loughborough and either Mönchengladbach or RWTH Aachen, which sounded pretty eccentric until the point came up that she wanted to study automotive engineering. It strikes me that Loughborough and RWTH are *the same school*, just one's in Germany - launched by the local civic authority, absolutely explicitly to train engineers and scientists for the local industrial cluster, about the time the relevant country got serious about that (1870 for the Germans, 1920 odd for us, tell me about it)
*it was that time I was stuck in the Peabody Hotel in Orlando, although incredibly I can't find any of the threads in which I basically liveblogged the experience
Loughborough is also the go to university in the UK for sports science type qualifications. Is RWTH likewise?
Only if you can squeeze it into medicine, I think,
50: The link in 50 just went back to this thread. Is there something else out we're trying to point to?
69, 71 thanks
73 that's what she's interested in
thank you all the uk-ites, it's not me traveling to london and cornwall it's my guy - he's older than me by a bit, has kidney disease (not crisis mode but not great and slowly degrading over time) and had a heart attack this last spring. so. a bit nervous and you are all remarkably sanguine. but he'll be triple-moderna'd, is very good about wearing a very well-fitting mask with an actual filter, and it would be inhumane to expect him to be in london and not go to a few concerts. i'll just have to go for long swims and breathe through my anxiety until he is back here. we all have to figure out how to live with this wretched virus, and so long as his mum is still around we have to figure out how he can visit her.
re: 76
Loughborough is famous for sports science, and has been one of the leading places for that for years. It's where a lot of the high-end sports science and performance research and training is done for lots of elite sportspeople. So yeah, if that's her interest, Loughborough is going to be academically a strong place to study.
This is off-topic except in the sense that this is the general check-in thread, but I've been on Unfogged far more than usual over the past few days. My personal computer isn't usable at the moment, so I dusted off my corporate laptop for the first time in months, and Unfogged is the most safe-for-work time-waster that comes to mind.
Someone, probably the kid, got gum or other candy on the AC adapter of my personal computer. I made a minor problem into a major one by not being careful when I tried to clean it. The computer itself is fine, but I can't recharge the battery until I get a new adapter. Hopefully tomorrow but who knows. The moral of the story is, don't wash computer parts with soap and water, kids.
Just won a case. Man, do I like getting summary judgment. Lesson: don't get injured in Idaho.
I'm going to make an app that blocks Facebook and call it Meta-filter.
The United States passed Belgium in covid deaths per capita. We're now the covid-deathiest of the developed countries. Except San Marino.
Just saved a woman at a bar here from what was going to be almost certain sexual assault by one of the royals here and I don't think I've ever been more terrified in all my life
wiw, excellent work but jeez scary!
Barry, I'll be honest: if most other people in the world had posted that, I would be skeptical, but you are a magnet for exactly this sort of crazy thing. Are you still freaked out? Is the perceived/real danger past?
A bit freaked out, especially since he's a regular there and my friends and I are too, as is the woman.