Week like four or something of quarantine is about to start.
How has France responded ?
France shut everything down relatively quickly. Could they have been more proäctive about it and lessened the impact, definitely. When Italy saw its first few cases, France ought to have begun thoroughly checking travel histories and monitoring people coming from all foreign countries. Self-quarantine should have been instituted weeks earlier. Still, I look at the French response and the fact that as an assistant de langues vivantes my salary (small though it is) is assured.
Aside from two short outings (one to get back home, the other to get groceries) I have been outside the gates of my small corner of this cold country only to get the mail. Since pretty nearly the first few days of confinement, the days have begun to warm drastically as well. Last night I slept with my windows open to wake to the cool morn before a warm — even hot — day.
The teachers have been handling the crisis wonderfully, from what I can tell from the few interactions we have now. Many are giving online classes through Discord, Google Drive, WhatsApp, and even the CDEN (a Blackboard product which is officially approved by l’éducation nationale) from time to time. We have been getting vague information as to whether or not we’ll be back in school this year (last I heard, we’ll start back up in two weeks: after spring break) and whether or not the end of term exams will be upheld or dropped.
How have I responded ?
I’ve adapted a little bit. Unbidden, I already do little. It is quite easy for me to stay at home for days at a time, venturing out only when eventually I run out of edibles. If I were stuck inside it would be much worse, however. I am very happy that I have a yard in which I can get some sun, play guitar, and read.
I’ve kept busy still: I still teach almost the same hours as I did before, just online. I still draw, write, and tinker with website design. I have just spent several hours getting the sidenotes to work on the most recent version of my project exhibition page. They are not perfect, but they are pretty. There’s still a great deal of work to be done, and I’d like to approach something like what Gwern uses while sticking to my typographical and design guns.
I’ve been cooking a lot more since the confinement order was put into effect, since I can no longer eat at the school cafeteria and K—— — my colleague from Amiens — of course hasn’t been visiting. M—‘s cooking is wonderful and I haven’t yet approached anything that involved, but I’ve done alright so far. I’ve even made (i.e. heated up store bought preseasoned and breaded) fish. In fact, I’ve got another slice to heat up here in a bit.