The past week has felt pretty ordinary, and I liked that. We need weeks that feel normal and ordinary right now.
I have done a lot more substitute teaching at the school recently. However, the teachers always assign independent work for the students when they are out, so my role mostly consists of taking attendance, telling the students to log into Google Classroom to view their assignment, and then sitting there on Zoom for the rest of the hour as the students do or do not do their work (most keep their cameras off, despite being "required" to have them on, so it is hard to tell if the students are actually working). Thus, substitute teaching is not very exciting, but at least I get to interact with students a bit. I also have continued making attendance calls. The attendance struggle is becoming increasingly difficult as the virtual school year drags on.
A highlight of the week was being able to spend most of the weekend out and about. On Saturday, I went for a morning run, raked leaves and picked up trash at a local park for the Love Your Park Fall Service Day (a citywide park cleanup), helped stock food at The Simple Way food pantry, enjoyed lunch at a Polish restaurant down the street with Jenny, finally went back to Spanish mass with Deb (after weeks of not being able to go for various reasons), cooked dinner with Lydia (black bean burgers!), and went to a church bonfire. It was great to be so active. Then on Sunday, I went to church in-person in the morning and then met up with a friend from college who lives in Center City (i.e. downtown Philadelphia).
Unfortunately, the next few weekends may not pose the opportunity to be so active. The City of Philadelphia just announced new restrictions to try to limit the spread of the virus, which means a lot of church and community events will likely be cancelled. Please pray for organizations as they try to navigate these new restrictions, and pray for everyone's mental and emotional wellbeing as we face new restrictions on gathering with one another.
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