Well, my parents who are in their 80s have not seen ANYONE since March. They have not gone to church, to the grocery, to a shop, or visited with friends or family. My dad pumps gas for the car - with gloves and then hand sanitizes afterwards. They are NOT going out, they are NOT seeing anyone. My mother in law is 92 and she lives alone in her own home. She has seen family (who have quarantined for 2 weeks) 4 times since March. She goes to the grocery store once a week at 7am. She no longer goes to church, she sees not friends, she does not shop. She is completely ALONE. She knows that at 92 if she gets it, she is likely to die. I say it is beyond depressing because of what our family is going through.

Nope. We had a quarantine worker last week create a minicluster of 4 individuals, which they have tracked and traced. They are busy this weekend making sure it has not spread further. Luckily, we can genome test and link back to the border, so they can tell by the mutation rate that there are no intermediaries between the original case A and the other 3 cases. so direct transmission. This will be the 4th time that covid has escaped from the border. And the 4th time the government has knocked it down on its ass.

I remember in highschool being asked to read classics like 1984. Not only could I not read the words, I could not understand the concepts. I got the cliffnotes and had NO IDEA what the book was about. I remember being given the 'Invisible Man' by Ellison in high school. I tried to read it. But I just kept waiting for him to go invisible. I never understood ANYTHING about the book, like not even that it was about a black man who *felt* invisible. It went completely over my head. It would not have helped to have an audiobook, the concepts were just too much for me. My savior was time. I just needed to get older. I will also add, that even though I went to a daily afterschool private reading program from that age of 10 to 11, it was not until I was 35 and teaching my older to read that I found out that two vowels side by side made a sound. So oa in boat and coat made the O sound. I was so surprised. I had no idea. Like NONE. My brain was just not wired to recognize patterns in language. I just never noticed nor did I internalize all the phonics I was taught and quite happily memorized. This made spelling very very hard because I memorized every word like a phone number. And all reading I ever did was sight reading. I was taught phonics, but I just never made any sense of it. I was 35 when the epiphany came. So just because you teach it, and they pass a test, does not mean that they are *using* it to read.

As an adult, I read only nonfiction. I can listen to fiction if I have to, but I don't enjoy it at all. I am currently reading Piketty's Capital and ideology. But my best type of reading is active reading -- I ready textbooks and do problems or write about ideas. It is good, because I can read 1 paragraph, and then process it in writing. I have lots and lots of notebooks. My best, favorite, and most rewarding reading is where I read and then work with the concept and interact with the text to make sense of it. Write, take notes, do problems, make diagrams, etc. To this day, if I just read without writing, I really get nothing out of it. This is likely why I don't like fiction, not even to listen to. I think that 'required' reading is a bad idea. I think required *time* to read is what you should do. But I would suggest that you model it. Both of you sit for 30 minutes in the same room and have SSR - Silent sustained reading.

I wash them in 40 degrees C. I hang them to dry, which they do overnight. I have 7 pairs, and they have lasted 3 years so far, but I am careful not to wash them with zippers. They are merino wool, so super soft. The difference is like night and day compared to cotton.

This is beyond depressing.

Yup. But they last and they are a lot cheaper than a yeast infection. My younger ds loves them, so he gets wool underwear for his birthday gift because they are so expensive. Mens: https://www.icebreaker.com/en-nz/merino-anatomica-boxers-/103029457XL.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiA-rj9BRCAARIsANB_4ADXZtpbY8kAI-7BSUR7nA-vZC3Zk1KaVJEWPdOAjLCmy0XkMGbrvXMaAuhgEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

I did not read until I was 12. By the end of high school (age 17.5) I could read young adult fantasy books. I could not read nonfiction and I could not read classics -- the reading level was just too high. By the time I entered grad school at (21.5) I could slowly get through peer reviewed papers in my field, but it was a struggle. It would have helped me immensely to have listened to audio books throughout high school. I also would have helped me to find a magazine that I was keen on, like National Geographic, that I had time set aside to read.

I help people. Not crowds, but individuals. I make deep lasting impacts on a very few number of teens. This gives me meaning.

I wear wool underwear (yes, I live in NZ). It dries quickly, and doesn't cause yeast infections like synthetics. Lots of colors and styles here. https://www.icebreaker.com/en-nz/merino-siren-bikini-briefs-/103164201S.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiA-rj9BRCAARIsANB_4AAol-C9_YmbZssm_DpglGyUGgZPCgmxkw2c4lSTsLvXUd8x7g6AgW0aAgadEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Interestingly, NZ is beginning to align more closely to Asia. So although we still have connections to the UK, America, and Australia, we still also court the favor of China. More than half our trade is with China.

We had our leaders debate on the same day as the US's first debate. Not only was it between 2 relatively young women, the moderator actually asked them to spice it up a bit. All the talk about policy was too boring for the ratings. haha.

My dh said that nothing would be happening at work today because everyone would be reading the news. It is only 8:30am for us, so when people go home from work it will be 2am in the USA and things might be happening. All the American living here voted about 6 weeks ago when the mail in ballots showed up. Because airmail is at about 3 months right now, people either paid $70 to courier it there, or put it in the diplomatic pouch at the embassy. Our main news website published this article today about how the election works. You may find it interesting to see how the US election is explained to a MMP electorate with a single chamber parliament. MMP is very different from what you guys have. https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/300148888/us-election-how-to-watch-america-decide-between-donald-trump-and-joe-biden-like-a-pro

Here in NZ, the liberal Labour party is Red and the conservative National party is Blue. I look at the US electoral map and the colours are all backwards!🤪

deleted. They just told us that we can't tell anyone yet. He is really over the moon. Ruth in NZ ETA: suspense is over. Updated below

One third of the Orgo exam is on polymers. Condensation and Hydrolysis of Polyesters and Polyamides under both acidic and basic conditions. Super fun! For ds's paper on microplastics, he is studying the difference between thermosets and thermoplastics and the impact of their chemical structure on both their recyclability and breakdown in the environment.

My older boy also did a 10 week long paper on the chemistry behind fracking. Now that was a mind teaser when we ended up in chemical engineering textbooks. Unfortunately, I had no room on his transcript to pull that one out. My younger is doing his paper on the chemistry of microplastics. So more orgo!

He took the equivalent of AP chemistry, and then did an additional 1/2 course in Organic chemistry. Pretty intensive, I might add. Here are the final exams for the last three years. They can't get all the content onto one exam, so I figured looking at three would be good to see all the content we covered. https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/nqfdocs/ncea-resource/exams/2019/91391-exm-2019.pdf https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/nqfdocs/ncea-resource/exams/2018/91391-exm-2018.pdf https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/nqfdocs/ncea-resource/exams/2017/91391-exm-2017.pdf He also did compound identification through spectroscopy. They used IR spectra, C NMR spectroscopy, and Mass spectrometry to identify compounds like methyl propanoate or 3-chlorobut-1-ene. He worked for a solid 20 weeks to get through all this content, so it was not a lightweight course. Both Carnegie Mellon and MIT commented on it in his interviews.

The one class my older boy took that was commented on over and over again by different admissions departments was Organic Chemistry. Apparently, that one really stood out.

8,362 miles away.

This is me. I've got 2 close friends. And yes, they do call. The rest are now more like acquaintances. However, one of these friends is a teacher, and each of us is just too busy during term time, so we talk and hang out during our school holidays 4 times a year. We don't feel guilty when we don't chat for 10 weeks at a time. This has been the case for 15 years now. I wish you lived close to me, Regentrude, because we have so much in common and could have some wonderful chats. I'm so sorry your friends have failed you.

My older boy is in America living with his friends in a flat in a dense city. They basically don't go out of the apartment ever. They share meals and play games and seem to get along really well. My son is very happy, and is exercising inside his room and taking lots of vitamin D given he *literally* has not been outside in the sun in 2 months.

We have decided that he is 20, and he won't be coming home for 6 weeks for much longer. I think we would regret saving the money. We bought this ticket in FEBRUARY. So we already own it, but he can't get into the country without sitting in a quarantine hotel for 14 days. He will spend his last 2 weeks of class in the quarantine hotel, then be home for his final exams ending December 19. Spring Term starts Feb 1 so we will have 6 weeks. It will be summer here and there is no covid so we can have a lot of fun and build some memories.

We are dual citizens, so can vote in both elections. The ballots are very different! Looks like over 80% of the electorate voted which is slightly higher than in previous years, and obviously much higher than in the USA.

haha. I'm guessing they got a deal on cases and cases of Bic pens. Way cheaper than cases and cases of pink magic markers. 🙂 We are talking like 3 million markers if everyone gets one. That is a LOT of pink magic markers! In previous elections, the pink magic markers were on a little string at each booth, so you could not take them. But everyone touched them. This year, they asked if we had our own pen (oops, didn't think to bring one), and if you didn't they gave each of us a Bic pen to use and then there was a box to put them in when we were done. I'm not sure how you would wash them, my guess is that they threw them away. I missed the pink.