It’s Getting Ridiculous
In 2016, Sacramento Kings star forward, Demarcus Cousins, ranted after a 55-point game and victory for his team. “It’s getting ridiculous. It’s really ridiculous…Yes. This is ridiculous, man. Ridiculous,” he said during a post game interview. He was big mad at the referees who had seemed to develop a habit of targeting him. These days, that post-game interview clips my consciousness at least once a week.
That’s how I feel about entering a school building with two hundred other people every day. The other day, a 47-year-old teacher who was in good health was intubated in a Toronto hospital that is a 25-minute drive from my home. I don’t want to be “intubated”. That sounds scary. I don’t want that to be me. Or anyone I know. It’s getting ridiculous.
I can feel my lung capacity worsen over the last year and change. It’s because my habits around exercise and activity and lifestyle have pivoted more times than my role as a teacher has in the last year. Wearing a mask from 8:30 a.m. until 3 p.m. probably doesn’t help. Surely doesn’t help. In fact, it’s getting ridiculous.
I used to watch the news, CP24, while I got ready for work in the morning. I’d carve out fifteen minutes to drink a tea, eat two boiled eggs or a bowl of oatmeal, check the weather, traffic and the latest stories that happened in the city. I can’t watch the news anymore. I’m tired of cases and outbreaks and shutdowns and grey zones and protocols and vaccines and variants. I’m tired of Dr. Bogoch’s updates about updates at 7:20 a.m. I gotta mask up and get to work and make sure I complete my screening and sanitize my hands and my desk and screen students and remind a few of them to keep their masks over their nose and squeeze in some lessons on math and English. It’s getting ridiculous. Really ridiculous.
