Monday, Feb 17.

Day 24. This is all my fault. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I wished on a shooting star, for this Spring Festival to be relaxing, long, and productive. I wanted a break from the endless sore teacher's throat and to spend more of my energy doing prolific writing. Now, look at this mess.

A friend suggests I read a forty-year-old thriller by Dean Koontz called "The Eyes of Darkness." In it, a novel coronavirus is released in Wuhan, China. Eerie, but I suppose if you search enough, you can find prescience anywhere, I mean, The Simpsons predicted Donald Trump as President.

I smash up some guacamole and go from 0 to grill cheese in 60 seconds. My fresh-baked bread blows my mind. Why have I never done this before? Oh yeah, I had access to a bakery.

my student made me a creative short film about her special time staycations.

School hours are now further reduced to reduce stress and eye strain. After lunch, we have an online class, and my students are happy and relaxed. Some made me beautiful and creative short films about their "special time staycations." I'm happy today and thinking of a stoic quote by Epictetus that says: "It is quite impossible to unite happiness with a yearning for what we don't have. Happiness has all that it wants." No regrets today, and as far as Mondays go, this one is pretty painless.

I have some concerns about people going back to work, but the gas man shows up at the school gate to swap me a new canister. He gives me a paper receipt, and I hold it awkwardly in a gloved hand. I pass a tree and tuck it in a hole in the trunk, not wanting to bring anything 'foreign' inside. Back at the house, I try to install it into the stove, but can't find the groove. Calm down, it's just a weak flamethrower. Unless I screw up, then it's a bomb. No pressure, eh. I try counterclockwise, and the rivets take hold.

Xiaolin asks if I have the receipt to give my school. I tell her I shoved it in a tree outside. It's worth $20 when things get back to normal, and I decide to weigh in on hopeful optimism. When I go out later to pick up a food order from the gate, I find it folded up in the cranny of the tree. Twenty bucks is twenty bucks.