Day 79 of Governor Newsom’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy”

My last lecture…

Breaking News: Yesterday, the WHO officially announced that wearing a mask protects you AND individuals you come in contact with. Noooo shit! This is breaking news? What a totally incompetent organization! Americans [excluding Trumpers] have already known this for months.

I just want to remind all of my readers that as late as July 2020, the WHO was still denying that Covid-19 was transmitted through “viral particles floating indoors.” It took an open letter, from 239 scientists in 32 countries, addressed to the WHO and stating in no uncertain terms, “Hey assholes…Covid-19 is airborne.” This is such an embarrassment. No wonder Trump pulled us out of the WHO. Why should the US give the WHO an annual amount of $237 million for delayed, flawed medical advice? Kaiser Permanente is better than these idiots and everyone knows that Kaiser sucks!

Saturday. 11/14/20.

10:00 - 11:30 - I finally get to sleep in. Waking up every day at 7:30 is starting to get to me, but I only have 4 weeks left of this schedule. Downstairs and the dog pooped right next to the doggie door. This says to me that she actually contemplated going outside but then thought better of it and shit inside the house. Great.

We go outside and she goes potty. Return inside and I make coffee and give her pieces of bacon. I mix in diced apples and walnuts into a large batch of Greek yogurt and have some of it for breakfast, outside on my patio. The yogurt should last me several days. I read Money Diaries and Displaced.

11:30-12:30 - Shower. Covid-19 uniform.

12:30-2:00 - I need to prepare a lecture on “intersectionality” in politics, i.e., how does gender, homosexuality, transgender, affect race and ethnicity? so I go through several episodes of Insights from the Edge, On Being, and Strong Opinions Loosely Held looking for podcast episodes that I can embed into lecture. I’m starting to panic a bit - this is another lecture that I’m comprising from scratch that has to be completed by 2:30 on Thursday.

-A rug/runner I ordered for my office still hasn’t arrived. When I check on it, I discover it was delivered to an address in Sylmar, on 11/3/20, and someone actually signed for it. I call Amazon-Customer Service and resolve the issue, but this takes 30 minutes.

2:00-2:45 - It’s unseasonably warm for November. I take the dog for a walk and we do two laps around the “compound” (j/k - I mean neighborhood. It’s a 2-street gated community and everyone knows each other so sometimes I call it a “compound.”)

2:45 - 4:00 - I make a salad - spinach, cucumber, tomatoes, cheese, EVOO - and sit outside. More reading.

4:00 - 8:00 - I go to work.

One of my highschoolers emailed me on Friday and asked for an extension on two quizzes because he had a “family issue.” I agreed to grant the extension until Monday, however, the quizzes were already locked. This means the quizzes must be emailed to the student so he can submit his responses back to me, via email. I explain all of this and tell him I will be sending the quizzes on Saturday.

Unfortunately, the quizzes were logged into Canvas, so I have to recreate a chapter review quiz AND a video quiz manually, i.e., looking at Canvas, then typing one question at a time in a Word document [for a total of 20 questions] with four multiple-choice responses for each question. Although it doesn’t sound like much, this is actually quite laborious and takes me 1.5 hours to complete. The student will finish the quizzes in 10 minutes.

I finish manually preparing the quizzes and email them to the student, telling him to return his responses to me by Monday. I have graciously given him an extra 48 hours to complete the quizzes that he missed on Friday. Spoiler Alert - I never hear from the student again.

I need to record an audio lecture for my very last module - The Judiciary - for my Core Class. For the longest time, I had a mental block regarding what kind of audio clips to use, but it dons on me that I should use the “Law and Order” theme song, and that releases more ‘idea bubbles’ - I add theme songs for the “People’s Court” and “Judge Judy” for additional transitions. I usually cue the students to switch slides using the “Tinkerbell wand” sound effect, but for this last lecture, I change it to the Law and Order sound effect that’s used between scenes - you all know what I’m talking about…it sounds like two steel bars clanging together.

This lecture is my final swan song of sorts because the students have been listening to pre-recorded lectures that I made in April, which are fast becoming irrelevant even though the same material is taught over and over again. So, I want my last lecture to be good and somewhat humorous.

I watch an episode of the Innocence Files while I work.

8:00-9:00 - I heat up leftover kielbasa from B’s house and add mustard and relish. I clean the kitchen as I’m eating.

9:00-12:00 - I record lecture and embed a podcast. I’m pretty happy with this last lecture and it was a lot of fun recording it. Spoiler Alert - when I listen to it later, it sounds pretty crappy. The transitions are slow and it’s just…well…bad.

12:00-2:00 - L. and I watch the final two episodes of Halloween Wars. It’s a nail-biter!!

2:00-2:45 - Night time routine. Bed.