News from February

February is over. 

It was our last month of summer. It was a cold summer, though -- the coldest summer in ten years. The temperature hovered around 20 degrees Celsius most days, which is not quite warm enough for shorts and sandals and beach days. In the past, we've had at least a couple of days over 40 Celsius in the summer, but not this year. Even so, it was still a hotter than average summer, where the average is measured over all the years of record keeping. That makes me feel sorry for all those people who lived through much colder Melbourne summers way back in history. No beach days and keep your coat on all summer long. Oh well. No one has bothered to do anything about the climate, so at least next year should be back to record-breaking hot.

Besides the cold, a few other things happened in February.

 

Jonathan was back in school full time all month. Except just at Valentine's day. We had an outbreak of the super-contagious form of Covid-19 escape hotel quarantine, and so the state government snap locked-down the city without any advance notice for five days. The five days spanned the weekend, then Jonathan spent three days doing school from home. I was part-way through a five day online leadership training course anyway, so I was already locked down, tethered to my computer by my headset for the time period in question. I just got the whole city to join me. And Tim has spent the last 18 years essentially locked down, working from home, so he didn't even notice that anything had changed. Except there were more dishes in the sink, what with having Jonathan around for those three days.

In fact, in addition to messing up plans for Valentine's day, the five day snap-down also messed up year-12 camp plans. Jonathan had been scheduled to spend three days with his classmates at camp, running Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. With the lockdown through Wednesday, the camp got shortened. When the lockdown ended as expected Wednesday night, Jonathan was able to head off to camp Thursday morning for one night away. I dropped him off, and worked in my office on campus for the day. Then I went back Friday to pick him up.

Q: "How was camp, Jonathan?"

A: "It was fine, but I'm glad it was only two days and not three."

Since the snap lockdown, we have been virus free again. Jonathan has gone to school as normal. I have been taking the train with him at least once per week, and working from campus. It is different. Sunny. With campus people. We begin to think that life might be normal again, again. Whatever normal means.

February was also the month of the Great Australian Facebook Fiasco. Midway through the month, Facebook turned off all news coming in and out of Australia. Just on Facebook, and just Australia. It was good motivation to turn off social media for me. I have found, especially in the last four years, that Facebook is where you go to find out that your friends are total morons and you hate them. It is an angry place. I have decided that from now on, instead of going to Facebook, I will go to the park.