Last first day of school -- probably

The school year started on Friday. Assuming we don't stop, go online, and start again (as we did twice last year), this will be his last first-day-of-school photo.

Year 12

In a day of record-breaking rain.

I took the train with him to campus, and worked from my office while the rain pounded outside. Aside from the rain, campus was very quiet. And in terms of my workday, it just meant I held Zoom meetings from a new location. But with access to a printer! 

Jonathan was willing to stay a little late and come home with me when I had finished work, so I got to hear about the last first day on the train. 

Just for fun, some other first-days:

Year 11

Year 10

Year 9

Year 8

Year 7 -- Melbourne

Year 7 -- New Jersey

Year 6 -- Utah

The first time we came to Melbourne, since we weren't going to be in Australia long, we just put Jonathan into a class with others his age, rather than trying to match his grade level.

Year 4 -- Melbourne

And then we have the years in which no one took first-day-of-school photos. But these photos were taken near the first day of school.

Near Year 5

Near Year 4

Near Year 3

Year 2

Year 1

That's a lot of years of school. 

 

A day back

On Wednesday, I went to my office far far away at work, on campus, for the first time in months and months and months.

 

I wore my face mask on public transit and in the buildings. 

I picked up a new spare keyboard, mouse, and webcam for my computer, since I took all those home last year and I'm still planning to use them at home. Lucky for me the department had extras.

I wiped ten months of dust off the surface of my desk. 

I emptied the bottom desk drawer of the cookies that had been kept there for women in maths teas that never happened. All the packages were long expired. 

I turned on the computer that had been off since March. It needed to reboot itself. 

While it rebooted, I walked over to the Faculty building and got access to the new office that comes with my new position. I ordered a computer for that desk. I wore my face mask.

I wandered to the library to meet the librarian who works with people like me in my new position. We sat around a huge table in a huge meeting room, just two of us, in our face masks, talking about libraries.

I then walked back to my department office to check on my rebooting computer. After ninety minutes, it said it was only 86% finished. And don't turn it off!

I packed up the expired cookies and walked back to the bus stop, wearing my face mask.

I almost fell asleep on the train -- the adventure had been that exhausting!

I walked home, carrying my backpack full of cookies.  

The end.

Epilogue:

The cookies taste stale. We are eating them anyway.

Maybe in a couple of weeks, I'll go back to campus again.

Eating like a vegan

We buy onions in bulk these days. 

And bell peppers. Only they call them capsicums here in Australia. I don't know why. They don't call them capsicums in England, or in the US. They call them bell peppers. On the other hand, in England, it is called a courgette, while here in Australia and in the US it is called a zucchini. 

Anyhow, onions and bell peppers. We used to buy one every so often and keep it in the corner in the back of the refrigerator in case there was a recipe that used it. It would be there hiding in the back, hopefully without too much freezer burn for having lived in that back corner for weeks. 

Now we go through an onion or two per day. Per day! What kind of crazies have we become?

 

Onion-eating crazies. That's the kind. The crazies who have to make our own sauces rather than buy a pre-made jar. Those pre-made jars? They have non-vegan ingredients hiding in them like cream or fish sauce.

I'm not vegan. Tim isn't vegan. But with a vegan in the house, it's easier just to make meals that all of us can eat, rather than cooking multiple times. So make your own sauces. 

We've also bought spices we never bought before. Ingredients we never knew existed. I wouldn't say I'm finally learning to cook. Rather, I'm following recipes I've never followed before. With onions. Lots and lots of onions. 

I'm just glad we're not dealing with the vegan on top of food allergies.