Questions Without Answers

      I've been back to work for a few days now and there are some things I have learned. Sometimes when you see your friends that you have not seen in awhile you cry a bit. It's involuntary and totally OK (I actually already knew this one). Another thing I learned was that there are not a lot of answers to be had. The state guidelines for reopening keep changing. So the school plans need to change. Parents are still deciding if their kids will come back for the hybrid model (in school 2 days a week, 3 days remote) or be fully remote. I have a lot of questions about the kid I am supposed to work with this year. Every time I get one answer it brings up 5 new ones that answers don't exist for. It's tough. I know that with my job things can change at a moments notice, including my schedule (every year, lol). But it is stressful not having many answers. It sort of helps a bit that no one else knows what's going on either. This uncharted territory is new for everyone. So I go in and I learn things about Google. I am learning tricks for Google Calendar, Google Keep (which I think is like sticky notes for Google and is awesome!) Google Tasks, Google Meet, and I will dive back into Google Classroom. I don't have control over most aspects of class planning. But knowing how the technology works is a big help. We'll all muddle through the next couple of weeks and try to figure things out. Try to find ways to do traditional classes when our classes will now be anything but traditional. We'll all get through it together. And maybe by the time we have come to the end of 1st term we might have a working plan. Maybe. I am not expecting miracles. But I work with a lot of really amazing people and I know, if given enough time to work it all out, we can (and have done) some amazing things. Right now is just very unsettled. 

      In doll news, things are going quite well. I am not feeling stressed about the dolls at all at the moment. I have some really cool/crazy/complex things coming up! This is the finished fantasy doll that I shared about the other day. I really like how she came out. I have some other, much less complex dolls in the work now. I am hoping that I can get at least a few done this week. I need to start prepping for my next live sale. Which will be Black Friday. Which was also my first ever live sale. I have some different ideas for this one, but I think it will be fun. 

       So most of my school days now are spent hearing "I don't know" and staring at the computer. Bits of visiting to see how everyone's summer was, wondering when we will get the answers we need, hearing that we won't really know what is going on until the students come back (partially true) and a whole lot of everyone taking care of each other. That is what we do. We look out for each other and we look out for our students. 

      At the moment no one really knows what is going on. But we'll figure it out. Travis's teacher sent me a social story for him about the new things he will need to do for school. We have already worked on some of them even before we got it. But it's good to have a bit of something. Even if we have very few answers.