I wrote a post last year about some of the things my students (I’m a teacher) and colleagues said to me as the only COVID conscious person in our building. One of my students told me, “Y’all still acting like it’s COVID,” because I mask and follow basic hygiene. I made a comment on another post last night that was similar, so I thought I’d do it again.

When I tell my students how I don’t want to get COVID or other illnesses and they look at me like I have two heads. It’s like COVID has destroyed basic hygiene knowledge. So this time around, I’ve decided to write down some of the things I have said to students and staff so far this school year.

To a student, “Cover your mouth with your shirt or a tissue when you cough. No, not like that. You have to catch the germs. Yes, you actually have to trap them.”

To a teacher, “Yeah I noticed a bunch of your class is sick too. Just saying, nothing’s stopping you from masking again. There’s not just effective against COVID. I’ve got extras.”

To a student, “Take it out of your mouth. See, now there’s spit on your pencil. And you use your hand to write with that pencil. And you’re touching the tables where your friends sit. Do you think they want your spit on them?”

To a teacher, “I don’t think they’re faking it. If a kid feels sick I make a nurse appointment for them. They’re not going to be effective learners if their body needs rest.”

To a student, “You’re right, I did get COVID last year even though I mask all the time. I would have probably gotten it a lot more if I didn’t. Where do you think I got it from? My house?”

To the principal, “Thanks, we practice hygiene a lot in my room. It’s not that hard. You just have to model how to do these things for them. I honestly think we should have a hygiene clinic/assembly at least at the beginning of the year.”

To a student, “Okay why in the world is your used tissue lying on your worksheet rather than in the trashcan? Yes, you have to do it again. I’m not grading your snot.”

To a special education teacher, “I know some of my students on your case load need fidgets and other manipulatives. I don’t want to step on your toes, but maybe these chew toy things aren’t the best choice for this student who struggles with motor function anyway. He’s literally covered in saliva by 10am.”

To a student, “You still have to wash your hands after using the free-draw markers. 20 seconds. Warm water. Soap. Get your finger nails.”

To a teacher, “They’ve been empty for weeks? The custodians have thousands of refills for the soap and hand sanitizer dispensers. Just ask them for a few boxes at a time and change them as needed. You don’t have to just live with them being empty.”

To a student, “Hand sanitizer doesn’t clean off your hands. You literally just rubbed snot all over the your hands. No, you can’t just use more hand sanitizer.”

I could go on and on. But I think you get the picture. Kids have always been gross. Apparently more and more adults are too. You’d think a pandemic would make some of these basic hygiene practices common knowledge. Why the hell am I teaching 11-year-olds how to blow their noses and wash their hands? Why am I the only one on staff who actively tries to not get sick.

Today I was with a group of colleagues. We’re all teachers. We’d just got done with a meeting and were gathering up our things before lunch. I asked the group if anyone had a certain resource. “Hey, does anyone have a copy of such and such standard I could print?” No answers. Not that everyone was quiet. They just kept talking amongst themselves. It’s not like I was trying to but into their conversations either. I was participating, at least somewhat. So I asked again when I felt like there was a natural lull. Still nothing. I looked directly at some of them too. Just blank stares.

This doesn’t happens to me a lot, but often enough that I fear it. And when it does happen it causes me a lot of anxiety. I don’t know what it is. I feel like a child, like when my older brother would purposely ignore me when we were kids.

I’m pretty attentive to other people when they talk to me. When I’m in big groups I try to make sure everyone is heard. I never want anyone to feel left out or unheard. Am I missing some social understanding that seems obvious to everyone else? Should I speak louder? Say different words? Most of the time I just shrink and walk away from whatever I wanted to say. I feel like people hear me but don’t want to respond.

I don’t know. It just stings. Maybe it’s just an insecurity I’ve harbored since I was little. I feel silly for posting this, but I’ve never really asked if this happens to anyone else.

I’m getting over my second infection, that I know of. I think almost everyone in this comm says that qualifier. Because we understand things like asymptomatic spread and false negative tests. And no matter how diligent we are with precautions, there’s still a chance you can get it. (Blessings on our brethren who haven’t left home in almost 5 years).

I mentioned I had COVID to someone I was speaking to over Zoom yesterday.

They said, “Yeah my son and my wife had it in 2022, but thankfully I’ve never had it.”

What the hell do you even say to that?

I’m going to the internet for medical advise since my doctors aren’t giving medical advise anymore. I honestly trust y’all more than my children’s pediatrician who claims COVID “isn’t a big deal for kids anymore.” Cool shit.

My kids are younger than age 5. Masking is difficult for them obviously, and I can’t expect them to wear a mask properly at daycare when I’m not around. What’s a good option for them when it comes to nasal sprays? Any suggestions? Not going to daycare is unfortunately not an option.

I’ve noticed over my short tenure here there are a few teachers on Lemmygrad. I’ve browsed the comm list before and haven’t found one specifically for teachers and people involved in educational systems.

Is there/should there be a comm like that?

I would love to have a place where educators could share resources, successes, and frustrations. I would not want it to devolve into an r/teachers hellhole. I have no idea no idea how to make one or even if that’s an option because of boomer brain. I’m not sure I want that responsibility either.

It’s been 15 days since I cleared my throat only to find nothing to clear. Just a dry, unproductive cough. Thats when I knew it had finally happened. Almost four years. I so fucking ashamed of myself.

Just let me vent. I’m just going to write this all out and hit post without reading it over. Sorry for typos and nonsequiturs. Aside from my partner, y’all are some of the only people who would understand.

How I got it isn’t a mystery to me. I’m a teacher. The viral load in my classroom is somewhere between an Italian hospital in March 2020 and a Stuckey’s restaurant in rural Kansas any time of the year. I’ve been trying not to blame myself, but I know I slipped up in my masking / handwashing / prevention protocols somewhere.

I don’t have an air filtration system available. When my students leave for another class I open the exterior windows and door to try to draft the air in my room. Ten minutes later I’ll go into the attached storage room to eat my lunch since I can’t leave the building to eat in my car. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s what I have. 14-18 days ago I must have forgotten to open the windows. Maybe I didn’t wait longer enough before taking off my mask. If I’m being charitable to myself, the viral load in my room was probably just too much. Hell, it might not have even mattered that I had an n95 on because half of my 25 students were hacking their lungs all day.

I went back to school this Monday. My students were so confused. It’s diffficult fielding their questions when all the answers are just me explaining that COVID is not normal and there is still a pandemic.

“How could you have gotten it if you wear a mask all the time?”

“Why are you wearing a mask if you have it now?”

“Why is it taking so long for you to get better?”

Each one of my students, their parents, their family members has had COVID multiple times. They’re elementary students. They literally cannot remember a world without this pandemic. It’s a common part of life that everyone tells them if fine and normal. Everyday I act as a reminder to them that something is not right. One my students got mad yesterday that I’m still wearing a mask now. I had to send them out to the counselor. They came back some minutes later and said, “I’m sorry. I know it’s because it’s hard for you to move on.”

Of course the hardest part is not seeing my kids or my partner since well before the thanksgiving holiday. I’ve been living in our basement, relegated to an old couch on a 10x10 square of carpet. It’s undoubtedly been harder on my partner, having to shoulder the burden of being a single parent when we’re so used to working as a team. I just want to go upstairs. The footsteps make me lonely. I tested again tonight. The line is so faint now. Maybe tomorrow it will be negative, and I can see my family with a mask until I test negative in another 48 hours. But time has crawled these two weeks. Even slower than the past four years.

I have a lot of feelings that I don’t know how to put into words. Shame and anger. Depression. Hopelessness. Rage. While I still had a fever my brother texted me. He asked, since I’ve gotten COVID now, if my kids can start hanging out with his kids. I told him, “No.” and left it at that. We haven’t talked since. We won’t be coming to Christmas again this year.

I want to go back to March 2020.

I have two small children below the age of 3. The oldest has had every available vaccine up to the newest updated COVID-19 vaccine. The youngest has recently reached the vaccine age. Despite this, it’s been incredibly hard to get them vaccinated with the updated vaccine. Here are the hurdles we’ve faced.

• The pediatrician’s office (part of a large regional hospital chain) will only vaccinate 12-years-old and up.

• Our oldest sees a cardiologist at the children’s hospital in the closest major city to us. They have recently changed their policy to only vaccinate inpatients against COVID-19.

• Our local health department has did not receive any updated vaccines for a while.

• When they did we called to schedule an appointment for the two kids. They will only vaccinate uninsured people as part of the Bridge Program. When asked if we could just not use our insurance they said it doesn’t work that way.

• Using the link in this post we searched for more locations that could possibly vaccinate our kids. There were options in the neighboring state, which we live close to. Called to schedule but they only vaccinate people from in that state.

• The website is not updated. There are actually a lot of places available, just most of them are part of the Bridge Program as well.

• The only place close enough to us is 2.5 hours away, oddly enough in one of the reddest parts of our red state.

• We call to schedule. They only vaccinate on random Wednesdays and will not schedule more than a few weeks out.

• Convinced them to schedule a date in December, 8:00 am on a Wednesday. I’ll have to take off work. Spouse can’t go because no more PTO. This is the last PTO I have for my contracted year.

Edit: Greatest healthcare in the world

…is what one of my students said to me today. She’s 6. For all intends and purposes she does not remember a time before the pandemic. It is “still COVID” despite what her Escalade driving mother says.

This is just a post to complain. One of those yelling into the void screeds you gotta get one once in a while. Feel free to skip.

I’m an elementary school teacher. I’m new to my current school building, but have been a teacher since before lockdown. I take great measures to keep myself, and by extension my family, safe from the on-going pandemic. First and foremost by masking. Everyday I come to school in what I call “business casual black bloc”, which is just typical teacher clothes but with a black hoodie and an n95/kn95 with a neck gator over it. And my long hair makes me look either like I’m going to throw a Molotov into a police precinct or fix a printer.

Allow me to tell you some more things I’ve heard this school year so far.

“Oh I get it. My sister has lupus, so I’m really careful,” is what a colleague says. She then hugs a student with a visibly runny nose and dead eyes. She hugs two more zombie children after that.

“You’ve never had it?!” the music teacher asks me as I’m washing my dry and cracked hands for the 80th time today. I guess he hasn’t realized that he has never seen my mouth or nose before.

“I just HANDISIZED!” cries a disgruntled student. I told them to go wash their hands after they wiped their nose on their palm. They turn the sink on for 0.006 seconds. They get frustrated when I tell them to try again.

“My sister-in-law is a yoga instructor and she got these for free from when we were all still, you know, crazy about COVID,” is what the office secretary says as she hands me a box of Lululemon designer masks. I will never wear them. The cloth is all but translucent.

“My son is worried he’s doing something wrong,” a parent says to me. Their son asked about my mask. I told him I don’t want to get sick. The parents says their son is now worried they’ll get sick. You can see how this is my fault.

“Do you have a duffle bag?” the resource officer asks me, accusingly, in front of my class. A parent called to say a shifty looking man with a duffle bag and a mask came in the side door this morning. I have a duffle bag by my desk. It’s full of more masks.

“Haha I guess I still have a little brain fog that gets me sometimes,” an instructional assistant says. I have flashbacks to ten years ago, when my depression induced brain fog was so bad I didn’t leave my apartment for nearly a month.

“GRHSAAHHACK,” a student sneezes directly onto my water bottle.

“I could get a mask if you want,” another teacher says in the doorway of the secluded supply room where I eat my lunch. I tell them it’s fine as I feel peanut butter stick to the inside of my kn95 I hastily slapped on my face. It was a newer one too.

“No no! It’s just that, you know, we figured with your newborn you’d probably not be able to come,” says a colleague about the grade level team’s monthly outing to Applebees. Don’t worry, I don’t feel left out. In fact, thank you for not inviting me. I am morally opposed to Applebees.

TLDR - My friends think r/combatfootage is totally fine and are offended when I point out it’s kind of fucked up. This isn’t an AITA post. I am the asshole, but at least I’m NOT a fascist.

I’ll be clear about what I think about the proliferation of combat footage forums like r/combatfootage and the myriad of duplicate communities on various fediverse instances. I find it abhorrent because of what it has done to my friends.

I have a very close group of friends who for the most part are fairly compassionate people. I love them with all my heart. We’ve helped each other for a lot, and they even helped me on my journey from being a rightwing libertarian to a democrat. While I continued to be radicalized by other events and communities online, they’ve stayed relatively the same, left leaning liberals. You know the type. They hate the republicans and will vote blue no matter who. They support the LGBTQ+ community, abortion rights, the recent rise in labor action in the US, and the Palestinian people. All good things to support. But they’re also armchair “socialists” who don’t know the difference between a socdem and a communist.

Which is fine. Not everyone is going to interested in theory, especially in their comfortable, white, micro-borgeious (three attempts is enough, I’m not looking up how to spell it again) slice of American life. They don’t know what they haven’t learned. And I’m not going to info dump our group chat with theory. I’m good with just sprinkling in class conscious takes into our conversations.

Last night I learned of this Reddit post from the mods of r/combatfootage. It amounts to a feckless update of their rules, to disallow footage from terrorist groups (ie Hamas). You and I know what that really means though, no Palestinian footage. I bring this up in our group chat. This is an exchange between me and one of my friends who is in the US military. (Please note that I use terms that are very general in nature, like “right wing” instead a more accurate term like “reactionary.” My friends are liberals. Their vocab is small.”

Me, “So you know how r/combatfootage is a right wing hate farm like r/politicalcompassmemes? Apparently Reddit is putting their foot down about them… by banning all videos from Palestinian perspectives. Really cool and good, right? (Link to post)”

Friend, “Are we talking about a group called combat footage or actual combat footage?”

Me, “R/combatfootage is a subreddit for sharing footage of actual combats and armed fighting. It’s pretty gruesome. Lots of really gross memes of Russians soldiers being droned. I’ve never been a fan of watching shit like that let alone making fun of a Russian teenager freezing his nuts off in a Ukrainian corn field getting killed by a grenade dropping on his head.”

Friend, “How is that right wing?”

Me, “Dehumanization is kinda step one for a lot of right wing radicalization. Plus equating people to a enemy figurehead. Stuff like, ‘All Russian soldiers are mindless orcs and just as sadistic as their leader Putin.’ Or, ‘All trans people are degenerate child molesters who want to brainwash your children like their leader Joe Biden.’ You know, bullshit like that.”

Friend, “The trans stuff and combat stuff aren’t really the same thing. How does that relate to combat footage? It’s kind of a stretch. Don’t get me wrong, trans bashing is real right wing but combat footage is pretty different. Maybe I’m not reading the comments but I do watch that stuff. If I go into combat I really want to be aware of a drone dropping a grenade on me when I’m taking a nap.”

Me, “The footage itself isn’t the problem, I guess. It’s the discourse and comments around the footage, and the presentation of it. What I’m saying is that the discussions around combat footage on Reddit are in a lot of ways similar to how bigots talk about queer activists in those ‘Ben Shapiro Owns Leftist Morons!’ videos.”

Friend, “Aren’t all comments sections full of monsters?”

Me, “Well yeah lol. But that doesn’t change how a lot of the videos on r/combatfootage are titled things like ‘10 Israelis killed tragically by HAMAS’ vs ‘100 rebels dead after IDF scrimmage’. So it’s not always comments. The posters are making a conscious choice of words in their titles. And a lot of them are fucked up.”

Friend, “This seems like a lot of spider webs and not super strong arguments. I think you might be right for maybe some people but are making too many over arching generalizations. Some of us can see both sides of the combat. Soldiers are Soldiers. They are enemies until they pass and then they are fellow fallen soldiers. Dehumanization is a part of war. There are a lot of papers about it. ‘How do I kill the person next to me? They are [racist term], Nazis, Antifa, MAGA assholes, etc.’”

Me, “That’s valid…from a soldier’s perspective I guess. You’re able to compartmentalize an enemy combatant from the person they are. Especially when not you yourself aren’t actually engaged in the conflict, right? But let’s be honest here, there’s not a whole lot of ethically minded soldiers on Reddit forums giving enemy combatants the same amount of respect. The most popular stuff I’ve seen is pretty tasteless. One video in particular stands out to me was shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It showed a group of Russian soldiers running and trying to find cover. And the footage was sped up slightly and Yakkity Sax was played over it as they all got picked off. And the comments were filled with “Putins dogs” and other dehumanizing language. If you laugh at that you’re being radicalized.”