It’s Getting Ridiculous

In 2016, Sacramento Kings star forward, Demarcus Cousins, ranted after a 55-point game and victory for his team. “It’s getting ridiculous. It’s really ridiculous…Yes. This is ridiculous, man. Ridiculous,” he said during a post game interview. He was big mad at the referees who had seemed to develop a habit of targeting him. These days, that post-game interview clips my consciousness at least once a week. 

That’s how I feel about entering a school building with two hundred other people every day. The other day, a 47-year-old teacher who was in good health was intubated in a Toronto hospital that is a 25-minute drive from my home. I don’t want to be “intubated”. That sounds scary. I don’t want that to be me. Or anyone I know. It’s getting ridiculous.

I can feel my lung capacity worsen over the last year and change. It’s because my habits around exercise and activity and lifestyle have pivoted more times than my role as a teacher has in the last year. Wearing a mask from 8:30 a.m. until 3 p.m. probably doesn’t help. Surely doesn’t help. In fact, it’s getting ridiculous. 

 I used to watch the news, CP24, while I got ready for work in the morning. I’d carve out fifteen minutes to drink a tea, eat two boiled eggs or a bowl of oatmeal, check the weather, traffic and the latest stories that happened in the city. I can’t watch the news anymore. I’m tired of cases and outbreaks and shutdowns and grey zones and protocols and vaccines and variants. I’m tired of Dr. Bogoch’s updates about updates at 7:20 a.m. I gotta mask up and get to work and make sure I complete my screening and sanitize my hands and my desk and screen students and remind a few of them to keep their masks over their nose and squeeze in some lessons on math and English. It’s getting ridiculous. Really ridiculous. 

 

 

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Matthew R. Morris

Educator, Speaker, Writer

Matthew R. Morris is a writer, speaker, and elementary educator in Toronto. He has an M.A. in Social Justice Education from OISE at the University of Toronto and is the author of the forthcoming book, Black Boys Like Me. 

Matthew R. Morris

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