Classroom
It's the place where the bus-kid needs to show up on Fridays from now on, although the new restrictions order us 'we all stay home for 30 days'. With 'all' children at high schools are not meant. Daycare, kindergarten, and primary school continue. Parents need to work and these children are too young to be left home alone.
Personally, I can't say it's a bad idea. The fact is most teachers do not have the quality to teach online. They just do something and each teacher uses different methods to meet and teach the class. In short, it is a mess!
The school sites run by the government are overcrowded or ignored and google classroom hardly functions, especially not to those with a slow connection like us. To the providers, this all is just a joke.
Students struggle, teachers use video calling, Discord, and whatever they can think of to make their life easier. Easy means chatting for hours (which is fine during language lessons) and homework at midnight. Many teachers have no clue how the internet works and it's clear school did not make the students any wiser either. As a parent, I keep wondering why it isn't explained during 'informatics'. As the school started again (September 2020) each school knew the next lockdown was on its way after the summer vacation was over. They mentioned it several times but preparing is not what the schools did, they talked, invested in thermometers, shared keys with the students and that was it.
So one child goes back to school and takes the bus at 5:50 a.m. for one hour drive to the capital city again.
A plus is school has an internet connection. In short, this means practical lessons (7) are followed without a break, next to it the class is divided (my child is happy since those with brains no longer need to follow lessons with the jokers and big mouths). Most likely the child can use a school computer to receive the homework sent to Google classroom by its teachers and upload the homework made (no way we can do that with 18 lbs (2G/3G max).
Cupboard
Yesterday, November 19, 2020, was a miserable day. A new day with hardly internet connection, only one child could follow partly the German lessons given via MSN. I said partly because the connection was gone every few minutes and video calling isn't possible. Good for frustration and more stress.
The other child and I searched for the source of mouse pee and poop. From a few bags of mouse poison someone ate (not much). I bought a mouse glue (without any result) and emptied the cupboards days ago (everything smells after pee) but no mouse.
We ripped the kitchen. If you open the doors of your cupboard and smell what I smell you know why. It was without any result. We cleaned, used bleach but no stinking mouse. It had pulled pieces of kitchen paper apart and took it to it's place but the question remains: where is that nest?
The children checked their room, I checked some parts in my room (there is a mouse in my room too I hear the scales making noise at night and it ate from the poison bag but so far no result. Let's say the kitchen is clean thanks to a child who hates the dirt and felt motivated enough to scrub.
I still have two empty cupboard. I don't know where to store what I took out. I threw away a bag with bowls which were too smelly and the food?
Covid-19 vaccination
Twohundert different vaccinations are developed and if it comes to Europe Brussels buys whatever is possible. This means if you want a vaccination you can not choose the one you like. You have to do it with what they give you.
According to specialists it's questionable if the vaccination works.
According to the government it's your own free choice if you go for a vaccination and there's no need for a vaccination booklet. The doctor can magistrate which brand your shot was. That sounds a bit odd since we all have a vaccination booklet and doctors do not vaccinate and hardly know their clients.
Vaccination isn't a must, they say. Really?
Only 4% of Brussel's order is meant for the Netherlands. 4 Percent isn't much, it's peanuts and that's why the government decides who will be vaccinated first.
"The elderly and sick will receive the first vaccinations," the headline of the paper shouts.
Another fake message. The article is not about saving the weak people, caring it's to make the headline reader believe the government does care about the elderly after all. Those people (70+ years old) who are not taken to the hospital and therefore died. In reality, not the elderly and sick only receive the first vaccinations but the caretakers. It's all fine with me and I hope the vaccine will not harm them. Imagine what the country will look like if all caretakers get serious side effects, drop dead, next to the older (60+ years old) left and ill people? It feels a bit like cleaning the nation from the elderly and sick in an 'accepted' way.
Since more people are infected it may be clear fewer need a vaccination. Like we know the vaccination is tested on people without any sign of the coronavirus (we have no idea if these test rabbits are immune, since a part of the population is) which means it's a waste of an expensive vaccine to inject those who are cured or already infected (anti malaria tablets, medication given against rheuma and dexamethasone help to recover faster too).
The enthusiasm of the amount of people willing to vaccinate should be decreased. What does this mean for a government not able to vaccinate the whole nation (lack of vaccines), therefore cannot force the people to get one and announced who they will give priority to first?
They will force people to get one! How? By giving more freedom to those who are vaccinated and give more restrictions to those who refuse or don't need any.
Let's see if the government can make her threat true if the sick and elderly together with their caretakers can fly around the world, visit Disneyland, and leave their facemask at home.
Lol, I loved your mouse story.
I've seen similar complaints in the US about the vaccine and condition of schooling (I'm assuming you're from Europe). High schoolers in the states are not doing great; motivated students are still doing ok but others are getting distracted by the loose schedules. I know they tried to give some of the kids would didn't have computers laptops so that no one slips too far behind.
I think vaccines may become mandatory in the states but there's still a lot of discussion about how well it'll work. Fingers crossed that it does.