About Face

Last weekend (Saturday evening), after I had finally made peace with our “new normal” (for as long as it lasted before it changed again), I got a message from school saying that two of our staff had tested positive for COVID during the mandatory testing performed on Thursday and as a result, we were required to move to online learning until we receive approval to go back in person. The four days of in person school for Camille were great while they lasted. Sigh.

Anyway, moving on, because I’ve decided that I’m not going to let this get to me . . . our school kicked it into high gear and by 9 am on Sunday morning the kids all had received emails with daily schedules, meeting links, assignments, and encouragement from their teachers. Way to go, ACS.

5th grade 2.0. She was disappointed, but bounced right back.

One week of online school down, one week to go . . . inshallah. The process is that all staff have to be retested at the end of this week (and those who were positive have to have 2 negatives before they are considered “clear” and then maybe they’ll let the elementary kids go back in person . . .

That is the process to return, but it’s unclear when that will happen or if it will be allowed to happen because numbers are increasing in UAE. Deaths are not, but numbers of cases are (1000 new cases yesterday when we had been down to 300 or something back in early August). Of course our percentage of infection is still under 1% (out of 100 tests, less than 1 person is positive), same as before, but no one is making the logical leap that increased testing naturally equals an increase in raw numbers of positives and doesn’t necessarily mean that things are out of control again.

I’ve got lots more to say on that, but you can attend my Ted talk on numbers and statistics and test specificity and margin of error and the drawbacks of testing large numbers of asymptomatic people when I live in America and have freedom of speech. Amen.

Meanwhile, Carter turns 19 tomorrow and he’s doing something like this:

These photos aren’t him (believe me, I’ve zoomed in until it’s completely pixelated and had no luck finding his chicken wings), but they are of people in his unit from photos taken when they arrived to ROM (restriction of movement/quarantine) in Wisconsin.

We still haven’t heard from him, which is great news. That means he left Wisconsin at the end of the 14 days and was transferred to boot camp in Great Lakes, IL. These past 5 days he should have been doing medical checks, paperwork and all the other details related to in-processing, like shots and his initial Physical Fitness Test, and if all goes well, tomorrow his birthday present will be his first day of official training with his new unit.

I’ve been doing a bit of detective work and can see from his bank transactions that he’s alive and well and that they took them to the NEX yesterday. I’m sure he’s buying stamps so he can send me lots of letters. Ha! More likely it’s Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, sunflower seeds and Big League Chew, but I’ll keep dreaming.