Tag: #NYCSchools

  • Summer Grocery Shopping

    The school year is coming to a close here in NYC. As of this moment we only have 6 days left of remote school, and we all can’t wait for it to be over. Come September, the kid will be back in class, like a normal elementary schooler, and there will be so much joy and excitement for that occasion, it already feels like it’s going to be Christmas Morning on that first day of school.

    In the meantime, it’s still the Dad/Daughter Experience for the Summer.

    Yesterday, as we got out of class early, I had to go shopping at Trader Joe’s. I didn’t see any reason why the kid couldn’t come with me, as the store is allowing people to shop together again. If nothing else, it would kill an hour of the day, which was better than her watching TV.

    Getting there did mean a subway ride, which is slowly beginning to feel normal to me again. For the kid, mass transit is still an adventure, and now it’s more exciting as she can read, and loves checking out all the ads on the train. Stepping down into one station, and then appearing out of another, is like magic as you get transported to a whole new world; Like the Upper West Side. Once in the store, she was a good kid, and is now big enough to push the cart for me, unassisted, so she was really helping out, and not fake praise helping out.

    As we walked to the subway station to go back to Harlem, the kid was excited about the ice cream we had bought, and I wondered how much of this she would remember later in life. I have foggy relocations of going grocery shopping with my mother during summer vacation when I was my kids age, and at the time it was just a thing we did, but now it has taken on more of a melancholy reminiscence. A very important mundane experience that I value more today.

  • Looking for Writing Work

    I am down to the final three months before the kid is back in school, and I need to have a job. I will be honest, working from home would be ideal, but when push comes to shove, and if it’s a good job, then I will be willing to go where I am needed.

    The other thing is that I have been at the blog for 11 months now, and I do value the 4 of you, on average, who come by to check it out. It is a huge improvement over my daily average of .5 people when I started on July 20th. The goal was to write about what I was interested in, and try to craft it in a short, concise way, 250 words per post, that was entertaining, but also made a point. The fact that the blog grew, from 60 subscribers to 215 in less than a year, might not be earth shattering, but at least showed there was interest.

    The other goal was to work on the skills that would enable me to go forth and find employment as a writer. That one is all on me. I think my first desire was to be able to purchase a new computer from the earnings of writing, which is still an admirable objective. I would like to add if I could bring in about $500 a month, I would be over the moon happy.

    So, I stand at this crossroads. If I am serious that this is what I want to do, then I need to start putting in the work to make it happen, at least, more than I am doing right now.

    But, the lingering thought in the back of my head is, I have no idea how to get started… Who do I talk to? Do I need a resume? Writing samples? An introduction? What is the first step? I am here, but I want to get there… Just, how?

  • Hey NYC Mayoral Candidates, Buy a Home in Brooklyn

    I quote Desus and Mero on this, “Why would anyone want to be mayor of New York?”

    It is a job where 80% of the city hates you, at any given time, no matter what you do.

    Mind you, I have only lived through two mayors in my time here; Bloomberg and de Blasio. Neither one of those guys inspired me to vote for them. But this election cycle, I feel more civically involved and plan on voting this time around. The truth of the matter is that the Democratic Primary for Mayor is the real election, as the Republican candidate doesn’t stand a chance. Full disclosure, I am not registered as Democrat, I’m an Independent, so I will not be allowed to vote in the primary of either party. General election all the way for me.

    So, there are eight people running for the Democrat nomination; Andrew Yang, Kathryn Garcia, Shaun Donovan, Scott Stringer, Maya Wiley, Ray McGuire, Eric Adams, and Dianne Morales. I haven’t done much research on any candidate, so I’m not sold on anyone. But, the nomination is out of my hands, so, I’ll have to see who is selected.

    But, there are a few things I do want whomever becomes mayor of this city to be aware of, and that’s how much it costs to live here, which is stupidly expensive. (Not San Francisco stupid which is like a whole other planet of unreasonable stupid.) Donovan and McGuire were asked what they thought the median home price in Brooklyn was, and their answer was in the range of $100,000 and less. So you know, the median price of a home in Brooklyn is $900,000. You can read the story here for more information on what the other candidates said, which was closer to being correct.

    Odds are that Donovan and McGuire, who are not leading in the polls, won’t get the nomination, but still, how did these two come up with that number, which was so far off? Clearly, they are out of touch, but do they think $100k buys a lot, or do they think that $100k homes are still available today, or was that what $100k could buy 40 years ago and they just defaulted back to that number?

    Either way, except for Yang, all the candidates got he question wrong. It doesn’t bode well for us if the person who wants to lead has no idea how difficult it is to live in this town. See, who wants this job?

  • The Perils of the Upcoming New Normal

    I referred yesterday to the fact that the NYC DOE released the 2021/2022 school schedule, which begins on September 13th, and also includes no snow days, but states all classes will be in person. One way or another, kids will be back in school in September.

    This is a huge step for us, as with the kid back in school, that will give me an opportunity to find a job. A job means the ability to make some progress from the situation we are in, because as it stands now, our condition hasn’t changed since May 2020. That was when I was laid off, and we went into the financial lockdown we are still existing in. Freedom from that is a dream come true.

    And yet, school starting up again will mean an end to my daily existence with the kid. It has been madding, and trying, and difficult, and I am sure that there has been some psychological damage on everyone’s part… But…

    The last time I spent this much uninterrupted time with my daughter was the first month that she was born. I had a month of paternity leave, and the three of us hunkered down together learning how to be a family. And then, I went back to work. With the exception of a day here and there, or maybe a week vacation, I have been working, or she has been in some sort of daycare or school.

    Come that early fall day of September 13th, when I walk her to school for that first day, it will conclude one year and six months of father-daughter bonding. I didn’t know how I would survive it, but now, I am a little sad to see it go.

  • Post Covid-19 World; Death to Snow Days

    I have to admit that Covid-19 has changed the way America works, and thinks. Remote working has changed employment and where people can live to be employed. The pandemic has ushered in a different attitude towards universal healthcare. I also think that we all now know what, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or one,” truly means in practice. And as long as we are on a Spock kick, I will also quote him by saying, “Change is the essential process of all existence.”

    In that vein, we got the new NYC school calendar for 2021-2022. As I was skimming over it, looking at the dates of holidays and in-service, I saw this little addition:

    “On ‘Snow Days’ or days when school buildings are closed due to an emergency, all students and families should plan on participating in remote learning.”

    Yup, it’s official; SNOW DAYS are DEAD! Long Live Snow Days!

    I kidded about the death of snows days this past winter, as no matter how much it snowed, there were still remote classes. But now, the death of snow days is official policy. Never again will kids watch the news in the morning to see if enough snow fell to cancel school. No more will children know the joy of missing school to play in the snow! Gone now is the last hope of a child to avoid a test, praying that God will drop a foot of snow in one night.

    We have entered a new world.