Beautiful Numbers - R2BC

02022020

Here are my Reasons 2B Cheerful for this week. The linky seems to have died but then again, linkies were so last decade. 

1
Palindrome Day
The following announcement is for your enjoyment and because I don't want you to miss it.

Today, 02/02/2020, the date is a perfect palindrome using the full eight digits. The last time this happened was in 11/11/1111 over 909 years ago! How cool is that? Very.

From now on there will be a full palindrome in February for anyone outside of the USA, for the next 2 years: 12/02/2021 and 22/02/2022. After that we'll have to wait until 2030 for 03/02/2030 and every 10 ten years for 04/02/2040, etc... until 09/02/2090.

Americans will have to work out their own and actually, they've already had a few this century that don't apply to the rest of the world.

The special thing about today is that it's Full Palindrome Day for everyone, whichever system of Gregorian calendar dates you use. This will not happen for another 100 years on 12/12/2121.

(Thank you to Alina Theodor for correcting me and to Jill Yonassi for pointing out that there are quite a few more full palindrome dates in our lifetimes to look forward to, for non-Americans at least.)

2
Income Tax
Every January you have to fill in an income tax form for your employer. I work for three employers so I have to do it three times. It's not a big deal but ironically, it was less of a deal when you just got the paper and could fill it in. Now you have to have a password, find the form online, download it because you can't fill in a pdf file, and when you've filled it in it's not accepted because your particular circumstances aren't recognised by the computer, and finally you have to sign it. I don't know how to sign on the computer. So I end up printing it out and faxing copies to the various offices instead.

Because I work in three places I also have to get a Tax Coordination form for each employer. Until now I've always taken the bus ride to the tax office and got the forms in my hand there and then. Until recently online applications would still need to be processed and the Tax coordination Forms sent to you by snail mail, taking up to two weeks of anxiety about whether you're actually going to get them.

This year my neighbour told me that it's now an instant an online calculator, You fill in the form (just one form), click on submit and you instantly get all the forms you meed for each employer. And what's really amazing is that you can just email them on. Whilst this news was exhilarating and liberating, it was also giving me butterflies in the pit of my stomach. Remember that I have to do all this in not my native language, a language with a different alphabet and it doesn't even use vowels! For example, stp could be step, stoop, stop, setup situp, shutup, stiff, stuff, staff, setoff, shutoff, shotup, etc... (because s and sh are the same letter and so are p and f). While I was dithering I received all three Tax Coordination forms from the tax office with the notice that if nothing has changed since last year, they will continue with the same agreement.

So that's all the January tax forms done and dusted.

3
End of semester
It's the end of the first semester. I finished writing all my reports and sent them in on time. I wrote my semester summaries for each class. I wrote the mid-year exams for my students and they're ready to give out on Tuesday. I'm up to date with all my grading. We now have four weeks of no teaching at college for mid-semester exam period and break. (I get five weeks because the festival of Purim falls on my college day.) I still have meetings on College days but no teaching. Although I will still be teaching at school.

4
The Tweenager
I wrote a sentence about DD's report. No details, just a general comment. But then I deleted it because.... ya know, she's entitled to her privacy. Like most things, there's no set age by which things have to change. Everyone is different and you know when it's time to make changes. It's a feeling not a number.