Can you believe it’s already been another month? I’m sure lockdown and self-isolation has played some tricks on our perception of time. Remember when days of the week were still a thing? Anyway, let’s get down with another speedlink.

Andrew Knott of PS I Love You has been going through many of the same struggles as the rest of us parents. This period of “temporary homeschool” or “distance learning” has been challenging at best. So, he’s been finding some small adventures to keep his family sane. For example, his 8-year-old discovered geocaching from his school’s learning app. It’s a great way to get out of the house (while keeping physical distance) and explore places right in their own backyard, so to speak.

Eschelle Westwood of Mumfection continues on this theme of protecting our sanity. The pandemic has thrown our usual routines into a haphazard mess, and Eschelle wonders if there will ever be a return to some semblance of normalcy. She wrote this before we started entering these new phases of re-opening society, so we’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds for us. And what future we want to create for ourselves… one likely involving small adventures in Animal Crossing even after quarantine is over.

Jason Dykstra of They Call Me Dad shares a video he made on exactly this topic: creating a new normal. He starts with a bit of background on his experiencing with creating a new normal, when his son was born without a breath. As we look ahead to what a post-pandemic world might look like, it is our responsibility to decide what we want to keep from both the “old” normal and our current conditions, as well as what we want to discard. What do you need moving forward?

Libby Sander and Oliver Bauman at Science Alert offer some insight into why Zoom meetings can be so draining. Video conferencing certainly isn’t new. It’s been around for years. It’s just that so many more people are working from home (and more schools have introduced online learning) that Zoom has become a much bigger part of everyone’s everyday lives. How are Zoom meetings different from their in-person counterparts? For starters, you’re staring at your own face. And that’s stressful.

And finally, let’s end on a lighter note with a parody piece from The Winooski. The “report” indicates that aliens are no longer probing humans “due to health risks.” For starters, with everyone sheltering in place, it’s harder to catch a wild human. We’re just not out and about. But even then, many aliens aren’t chancing it because it is not yet known whether “COVID-19 can be passed from humans to space aliens.” I guess it’s harder to probe from two meters away too. Aliens will just have to find some other small adventures a little closer to home.