Forest

For this school year, nothing is more challenging than the socially distanced class.

With the new set of ground rules in classrooms, school is no longer what it used to be. The good news is that we have found an extraordinary secondary school for my daughter. When I received the notice of out-of-class learning from her school early this week, I didn't think twice before clicking the reply link. 

That's a canyoning experience (yes, into the canyon!), with challenges provided by abseils and supervision by outdoor education teachers. When I heard about how the students got wet (totally wet at times, including their masks), I realized the way it's called a forest school. That also reminded me how the school teacher recommends us Richard Louv's Last Child In The Woods in the welcome letter for parents.  

Nothing beats a school bringing kids into the woods. A zoom classroom, without question, can't.

Ball

There are few tricks as strategic as "learned incompetence", by which a husband (mostly) is trying to escape sharing the work or chores.

I suppose that a small confession is in order before I go on. That’s me. I'm among one of those husbands.

School is back. If you want to know my contribution to preparing my daughter's new school term, I shall talk to you privately. If you're still curious about how much I help my daughter's studies, please be reminded of another term for my incompetence: strategic ball-dropping. If you drop the balls and your wife keeps picking them up, you'll learn to keep dropping them.

There's no reason why it has always to be the husband dropping the ball, or ducking. Inasmuch as I'm telling the truth, the answer should be my lack of shame.

Oh dear. 

Bookshelf

A coronavirus-laden world has changes far greater than any event in living memory. Everything is shuffled. Many become uncertain. Quite a lot have turned topsy-turvy. Simple as it should be, breathing becomes uneasy.

What matters to surviving the pandemic, whether as grow-ups or as children, is best explained by Dostoevsky who believes that human is a creature who can get used to anything.

One trick lies in the fact that we can look at more than one side, and at least at the positive side now and then. My daughter has been captivated by page-turning Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets this week. "If not because of the outbreak," said Jasmine, "I wouldn't have picked up this entertaining book series."

That's the flip side of closing public libraries. Nowhere is the need for book hunting more evident than in a city with libraries shut down for more than three months. To prepare for the third wave, I had already checked out more than ten books in June, before public library service was axed. Those book companions didn't last long; we had finished them pretty soon. Then it's time to dig into the old books on our bookshelf. 

That's how Jasmine found an old favorite of her mum's books and received a Hogwarts acceptance letter.

Hogwarts

Few things are more rewarding than preparing and seeing our daughter enter the secondary school.

There was so much excitement when Jasmine received her own student Chromebook laptop. The first time she opened the personal laptop, she was riveted by the idea that it has a touch screen. She is feeling like Harry Potter after receiving his first broomstick.

Oh yes, we’ve been reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. This had to be why, when my wife was tidying up the study for Jasmine, I felt guilty for creating a messy and Dursleyish cupboard corner. Yes, yes, it was all very disorganized, and much worse than a cobwebbed cupboard.

Now that school is held in a virtual platform, many of us would have been as puzzled as Harry Potter to locate the Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. I don't have an easy answer for attending school remotely on video. Whether or not people agree with socially distanced learning - and many do not - we are nonetheless having no choice but to accept the government ban on face-to-face teaching at schools. Luckily, my daughter seems to enjoy every minute (well, almost) of new school year.

Not that we're getting on Hogwarts Express with ease. Of course we aren't. Please tell me I'm not the only one who finds it somewhat challenging. Especially on the days that you find a lower bar in the Wi-Fi signal strength symbol. It has taken me three days - not until I asked for technician service - to figure out the best way to reconfigure and relocate our Google Wifi.

Yes, it does require patience, but what good solution doesn't? Just keep trying.

Gratitude

It is the first day of running after my foot injury.

Stifling as running with mask always is, the joy of being on the track again is hard to beat. I couldn't believe my ears when my Runkeeper app audio chronicled and tracked my pace - almost back to my previous one.

Instead of catching my breath as I sped, I sucked in my mask with each breath, huffing. It wasn't long before I came up with an excuse of not wearing mask: I could run much faster without mask to maintain social distancing than being dragged by a mask that sucks. Runners hate the mask and, I have to admit, I do, too.

I mentally didn't want to wear the mask. Yet something about my recovery helped get me up and running with a smile on my face behind the mask. I had decided to increase my pace and press on. The gift of being able to run again is simply too precious to risk losing. I know I shouldn't whine.

Zoom

Over the last few months, most of us have learned to make Zoom video call.

The old-timers FaceTimed mostly. Now, we're zooming, everywhere, and many times. It's unbelievable how quickly everything has changed.

One unique reason of relying on Zoom during the pandemic is when we go to great lengths to give family members a chance to say goodbyes to their loved ones who are dying from the virus. For obvious reason, visitors are not allowed to go to the bedside of an infected patient. To get around the dilemma, we bring an iPad to the room facing the patient, connecting with family via Zoom.

We knew this isn't the best but at least we don't let the patient die alone.

One of my patients left after listening to the farewell messages from the Zoom meeting this afternoon. He died at the age of eighty-six. I entered his room, gloved and gowned, to certify his death. That means checking his movement and his eyes, feeling his pulses, listening to his chest and heart. After going through the steps, one by one, I was to check the time but realized that I didn't have wristwatch. As I looked around and found the iPad on the table, little did I know that the Zoom meeting wasn't discontinued, yet.

Okay, this means a live broadcast of my certifying an old man's death in front of his granddaughter and sons. I froze, and wasn't at all sure how the family feel. I turned and said goodbye to my patient, and was glad that I had followed the steps of checking him with due respect. I should not worry as I had also buttoned up his shirt after putting back the stethoscope.

A dignified death at eighty-six, I certified.

Sky

Right now, the coronavirus has reached the planet's most far-flung corners. It's everywhere.

The stars at the night sky, luckily, remain out of reach. "Why don't we have a night walk to sky gaze?" my wife suggested, and how could I resist?

I always marvel at my wife's creative ideas. And within minutes we packed our bags before twilight and headed to the highest peak in Hong Kong. Offering sweeping cityscape views at an elevation of 957 metres, Tai Mo Shan is one of those special local places where my daughter feels like she has stepped onto a foreign place ... or in this case, Laputa.

Though it's not easy to travel during the pandemic, a celestial journey skywards on such a clear day is the best trip we can reinvent.

"I am grateful, mum and dad, for bringing me to such a special place," Jasmine smiled.