Day 50 of Governor Newsom’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy”

“Tent time!!!”….

Friday. 10/16/20

8:00-10:30 - UP and at ‘em.’ Class(es) starts at 8:30, so I go downstairs and take the dog out. She goes potty right away and we come inside. Cheese. I heat up my coffee, then report to my home office and post the Discussion Boards.

I respond to emails and update the gradebook while class rolls on. Just lecture today - no quizzes. I listen to The Daily and read some internet news. Trump and Biden had simultaneous, split-screen, townhall meetings yesterday, so I’m reading about it. Trump admitted that he is $400 million in debt, in accordance with the New York Times expose, but qualified it as “under-leveraged” and a pittance of his net worth. Did anybody read the entirety of the NY Times expose? There is no net worth - his golf courses have been hemoraging money…

10:45 - 12:30-A reminder pops up on my email. I completely forgot that I wanted to join a “Dual Enrollment” meeting today from 11:00-1:00 through College No. 2. It’s not mandatory, but still. Everyone Zooms in…except me. Every Zoom meeting has the option to attend via phone and I find I much prefer that alternative because it provides anonymity. I don’t know why more administrators/instructors don’t use the phone option.

I call in and put my phone on speaker so I can hear everything while I work on other projects. The Department Head says, “Who is Anonymous Caller No. 1”? I know it’s me because nobody bothers to use Zoom’s phone option. I don’t bother responding.

There is a lot of discussion about the “new forms” that high school kids have to use in order to enroll in junior college. This doesn’t affect me and sounds like more “bureaucrat speak” - I mentally check out and listen to The Weeds while I work on other things.

-I log my receipts and update my budget spreadsheets.

-I complete my Flex contract with College No. 1 and log in all activities I’ve attended [9 hours of CEs every semester].

-I renew my Emergency Credential online, then send the confirmation to the school district where I’m employed as a sub, although I’m not sure if I will ever sub again.

-I take a paper attendance for my two classes yesterday and this morning’s classes.

-I manually log 4 quizzes into my thumb drive. Currently, the quizzes are stored on Canvas in my various online classes, but I discovered that I.T. removed my spring Canvas shell - it contained all my course material and it’s simply…gone. LUCKILY, I was able to “course copy” the content into my three new classes before I.T. decided to remove the shell; HOWEVER, the same thing could conceivably happen with my current classes. A few days after the semester ends, they might disappear, too, so I want to make sure that I have ALL my course content safely stored.

-I check email at College No. 1 and respond to a few students

-I read some internet news.

12:30 - 1:00 - The meeting ends and I am none the wiser on anything. Oh well. It’s not like it affected my productivity. The head of the Duel Enrollment program is bounced out of Zoom approximately 10 times. I update my blog.

1:30 - 2:30-I am done with work this week and I shut everything down. Grading papers doesn’t count, however, and I’ll be working on those all weekend. My new 8-week class is scheduled to run this Monday, however College No. 2 is doing a huge Internet update on Sunday - can you believe that? The day before my class, and many other instructor’s classes begin. What are the odds that the system crashes and my students miss the first day of class?

I have the chicken and carrot dish that I made a few days ago and I read Welcome to Wherever We Are Now.

3:30 - 5:00 - Shower. Spa Day. Covid-19 uniform. I pack my overnight bag and load all my “camping gear” in the car.

5:00 - 5:45 - I prepare the ground turkey and stir in some add-ins (olives and celery) then compress them into patties - there are 7 in all. I load my Keurig, the turkey patties, and my insulated lunch bag containing our salads and the condiments for the burgers. I leave for B’s house.

6:15 - 7:30 - At B’s house and we have ‘cocktail hour’ outside on his porch. B. shows me his photo album with pictures of him as a child. What a cute little boy! It’s hard to imagine that he was something of a troublemaker when he was young (his words, not mine).

7:30 - 10:00 - We eat our salads and B. grills the turkey burgers. I’m a little disappointed with the end result because they don’t taste as good as the time I added zucchini instead of celery. B. says they taste fine so I’m happy about that. After, B. makes S’mores in the microwave - or maybe it’s the toaster oven - and I have a few bites. Delish!

10:00 - 12:30 - We sit outside, with our drinks, and talk politics.

12:30-1:30 - I get ready for bed and crawl into the tent. Super fun! Bed.