Day 49 of Governor Newsom’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy”
Library Curbside Pickup…making Covid-19 work for me
Thursday. 10/15/20
8:30 - 9:00 - Very, very difficult getting out of bed this morning. Up and I take the dog outside. Cheese for her and coffee for me. I go directly to my home office, arrange my audio clips and my notes, then start recording Lecture.
9:00 - 10:00 - I have 5 minutes left of Lecture-Part I and L. is trying to leave, but I stop her and ask if she will wait 5 minutes so she can airdrop my file. She actually gives me attitude - I hate that I have to rely on an 18-year-old for this crucial piece of technology. Surely, I can load these lectures onto Canvas myself…but neither L. nor I know an alternative option.
10:15 - L. airdrops my lecture then leaves for R.’s house so he can make breakfast for her.
10:15-1:00 - I select audio clips for Lecture-Part II to accompany my remaining PP slides then record the second part of Lecture. I also record two AUDIO Public Announcements.
1:00-1:20 - I dress and leave quickly for the library, hoping I can finally pick up my books, curbside, before L. gets home. This time, when I arrive, my library is set up for curbside service. I call the number on the poster on the table and speak to a helpful employee who runs my library card. The books are delivered to the table within minutes, in a brown-paper bag (kind of funny). I wait until the employee leaves, per the Instructional Video on You Tube that I watched a few days ago, then get out of my car and pick up my books. This is a great service!
1:30 - 2:00 - Home and I spray down the astroturf and water all of my plants.
1:45 - 5:30 - L. airdrops Lecture Part II and my AUDIO Public Announcements before leaving for work. I load them into Specialty Class No. 2 in the nick of time and class starts rolling at 2:30. I start grading their papers while class continues. Unfortunately, their papers were due last week, BUT I was too busy grading papers from Specialty Class No. 1 to give them any attention. So, I’m officially a week behind (sigh)
I take a break to cut up cheese for the salad I made two days ago but never had the chance to eat. The dog had diarrhea near the front door and mixed in it are green shards from two plastic toys that she has slowly decimated this week. I thought she was breaking the toys apart with her teeth, then “spitting out” the pieces of plastic - instead, she’s been eating them! I don’t think I’ve known any dog who is that stupid. I can’t believe these pieces of plastic passed through her system and I told L. there are likely still pieces in her stomach - the dog might die. L. says it will take more than a few plastic shards to kill this dog.
I pause to set up my classes for tomorrow morning. I load the prompt onto the Discussion Board and we’re good to go.
5:30-6:30 - A few extra credit assignments are coming in from students in my Core Class, so I print those out. More papers (sigh). I take this time to do some blog posts.
6:30 - 7:00 - I think I can squeeze in a dog walk so ‘vamanos.’ Back just in time.
6:55 - 8:30 - Return and students are already emailing me - “Where’s the Discussion Board?” “Are we answering a prompt?” I can’t believe I’m still getting this question TEN WEEKS into the semester. I email my pat response: “Yes, this is a synchronous class which means we meet in real time. The class starts at 7:00 so I posted the Discussion Board at 6:55.”
As soon as the Discussion Board posts, 33 people hit it, like “shooomp”, if you can picture the sound I’m making. It is that instantaneous. This is a really interactive lecture with several video clips that they need to watch, so NOBODY emails me for the first two hours, which is so great. Emails coming in during lecture are the equivalent to a 5-year-old tugging at their kindergarten teacher’s skirt and saying, “Teacher…teacher.” I continue with my blog posts and am finally caught up.
8:45-9:15 - I post the Video link for We’re Doing Elections Wrong. Still nothing from the students other than the occasional Extra Credit assignment. Radio silence. THIS is what I envisioned when I set out on this journey to design the “Poli-Sci Podcast.” It’s working in 4 of my 6 classes. I tidy my desk and deploy the Video Quiz.
9:15-11:30-I leave my office to heat up chicken and vegetables and rice. I take everything upstairs and start reading A Marriage in Dog Years but I don’t know….her dog, Ira, is on every page so far. I don’t know if I can take it.
I have every intention of returning to my office at 10:00 when class ends, and checking on the students, but I fall asleep reading - oops - and I don’t wake up until 11:30 when I hear L. entering the house. She was pumpkin-carving with her friends and brought home the jack-o-lantern so I could see her handiwork. She drew a freestyle template of Mike Wazowski [the eye] from Monsters Inc, then carved it into her pumpkin. It looks amazing!
I check my class and I have one email from a student telling me she really liked the video and will recommend it to her family and other relatives. I like hearing that!
12:30-1:00 - I pull down my treadmill and turn my home office into a home gym, then do a 30-minute power-walking app at 3-4 miles per hour. I read during part of it. After sitting ALL day, it’s great to move my body a little.
1:00-2:00 Dishes are piled in the sink from yesterday - everything’s a mess - so I have kitchen duty.
2:00-2:45 - Tomorrow (today) is “Tent Time” with B, so I prepare our dinner salads - spinach, celery, tomatoes, boiled eggs, olives, EVOO - and then get the “fixings” ready for our turkey burgers. It’s a lot of chopping - tomato slices, cheese slices, onion slices - and I bag everything. I’m going to add some “inserts” into the ground turkey mix, so I dice some celery. I think I’ll also throw in olives. I bag everything and then more clean-up.
2:45-3:45 - Night time routine. Bed.