Before you get confused there’s no Stan involved, it’s just a word that goes with plans! So with my positive RAT test I couldn’t ignore it, sadly I had COVID, I had to make plans accordingly. Step 1, start cancelling. Wednesday afternoon was spend cancelling almost everything upcoming. Thankfully, most stuff I could cancel for free, or given the circumstances place were willing to waive the cancellation fee. I lost my airfare from JFK to SFO but I knew it was unrefundable. I also lost a small amount on the rental car which I new about – it wasn’t much but the airfare was $500 so it’s time to say thank you travel insurance!
I called AVIS and went through at least 3 people before they sent a tow truck to pick up the rental car that was supposed to be returned to JFK on Thursday, I’m still not sure what if any costs are associated with that. I emailed my AirBnB hosts, they were sympathetic but booked so I had to find somewhere else to day. I looked up the Massachusetts rules – it’s 5 days isolation, by myself not contact. Then it’s another 5 days of masks in public before I’m allowed to travel. 10 days is a big chunk of my trip. Symptoms started Sunday, so that’s isolation until Saturday and no travel until Thursday (23rd). I fly home on the 26th. So tentative plan; find hotel to isolate, find AirBnB to stay in til I can travel. Fly to LA have a couple of days at Venice Beach and fly home. Well the hotel was an expensive exercise – you really don’t want to try and find on the day before. US$1200 for 3 nights to get me through to Sunday and end of my isolation – ouch. I had two nights booked in Venice Beach so I only needed to extend that by one but I left that for now. I also needed to book a new flight, it probably make sense to leave out of Boston now. Partially pack & sleep.
Thursday, finish packing & leave. I found a hotel that I could walk too, but check in was 3 o’clock, so I walked slowly with lots of breaks – 500m was really taking it out of me. I wore a mask and kept my distance from everybody else. I checked into my hotel at 3 – a couple of days isolation to go.
The cat’s already out of the bag – if you missed in see my earlier post ‘The Dreaded lurgy…‘ But we’re not quite there yet. Monday I woke up late. I was still tired, had a headache and was dehydrated. I thought, I probably just need to drink more (more water to be clear!). Even though I had been drinking a lot. When April sent at email advising that several people in North can tested positive for COVID I was a little concerned, but I was sure that I’d be fine and I felt OK.
Monday afternoon was an excursion to the Laundromat – the first time in probably 20 years or so, since our washing machine broke and I went with Mum. It was relatively painless and all seemed to work OK – I skipped washing the FPS shirts, but apart from that I had a fresh complement of clean clothes. The stains that I hadn’t noticed my jeans when I packed them even came out. I walked home, started to think that I should probably do some revision for my exam on Tuesday night. It was leftover pizza for dinner and sleep.
I woke up on Tuesday and I was much less sure that I definitely didn’t have COVID – see the post above for more details. The one thing I forgot to mention is my iPhone also sent an exposure notification saying that I had probably been exposed which added to my worry. However, RAT test was negative and I had an exam that night, so I wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
I moved the TV over to my desk as a second monitor and started to so some review for the exam. I also order UberEats McDonalds to munch on while I was studying. The exam when surprisingly well, even though I wasn’t feeling great I didn’t find it too hard and I’m hopeful that I should do pretty well. By this time I was definitely feeling poor so it was into bed even though sleep wouldn’t come I had the fever, hot’n’colds and body aches to keep me company.
Wednesday I felt slightly better or I tried to convince myself I did, but though I tried to rationalise avoiding it with how I was feeling I knew I had to take another RAT test before I could travel tomorrow. It came back as I knew it would, even though hoping it wouldn’t – I was positive. I wasn’t happy.
IC 2022 is done. The first in person IC after two years virtually do to COVID. It was great to be together in person, it was a great success. I’m looking forward to bigger and better things next year.
So it was an early wake up on Sunday morning. I scrambled around getting all my things together and bringing my car over. I managed to get everything packed and loaded in my car with enough time to check out right before I had to head over for the closing ceremony.
The closing ceremony was a closing ceremony, fairly long and only mildly interesting. I think sometimes closing ceremonies can be harder because you know they mean the end of a fun event and you don’t want to celebrate the end. The highlight was probably getting to see the Kambala middle & senior teams perform their action plan presentations – as they both one their divisions they got to perform them at the closing ceremony which was cool.
Australia had some good results, which was great to see. I’ve put a list at the bottom of the post if you’re interested. At the conclusion of the ceremony I hung around a bit, I was down to help backup but I don’t think Was very useful. I chatted to a few people, then decided it was time for me to head to y AirBnB in Boston. After a quick stop at Walmart to make use of the bathrooms I headed off to Boston and arrived without incident, though it did take a few laps to find parking. The rooms was good, it’s occurring to me now that I should have taken pictures of my accommodation, I’ll try and do that from now on. I was hungry, very tired and had a headache (first symptoms even if I didn’t recognise them at the time). So I went for an early dinner of pizza and chicken which I walked down and got. It was good, but I’m still not sold on potato on a pizza… Then it was time for an early night.
The flags leaving at the end of the closing ceremony.
Australia IC Results:
Our Australian students have achieved some incredible results at the FPSP 2022 International Competition. Congratulations to
Shelby Strong, William Clarke College, NSW, 1st Place Junior Division Scenario Performance
Rosie Finley, Illawarra Christian School, NSW, 2nd Place Middle Division Scenario Performance
