We've been at it for over a month, and I'm doing well. Life has mostly normalized. I have a daily routine that I vaguely follow, and a weekly routine that I also vaguely follow. During the week, I wake up between 7 and 7:30, get out of bed 10-15 minutes later, brush up, feed the cat, and get the work day started. Around 11, I get changed, eat some food, and usually take a walk. After getting back, I continue to work until it's time for my live class, teach the class, and then finish up work stuff for the day. In the evenings, I'm semi-regularly playing board games with folks, and if I'm not doing that I'll relax with some 2x speed YouTube watching. I've been watching a lot of people doing restorations, some guy that builds and repairs wagons, some speed running or Twitch-like content, and then maybe something in the educational genre. Then I wind down, clean up, feed the cat, and go to bed. I do my food shopping on Sunday morning every week before church, and am otherwise not going anywhere.
I know that some people are getting frustrated by this, but for me the really linchpin to the whole thing is widespread testing. Until a vaccine exists (or herd immunity is otherwise developed -- which will take a while and lead to many unnecessary deaths), the most effective way to manage this is by identifying people who are sick and isolating them from the larger public (ie, they stay at home). But in the absence of widespread testing, everyone is flying blind. So if we fix that, then everything will start to get back to normal again. Sort of. It at least helps us to open things up a bit. But in the meantime, life goes on in some form or another.
Classes end in a few weeks. My MATH 127 course just took its second exam. Well, maybe about 2/3 of the class took it. I seem to have lost the rest of them. I held a live review session that I think went pretty well. The students asked questions, and I answered them. Nobody used their audio, but I also didn't ask them to do that. They just typed questions into the chat box and we went from there.
My MATH 352 class is coming up on their second exam, and then they will also be in project mode. I will still hold class at the usual time, but it will be more office hour-ish. I lost one student in that course, and from what I was able to gather from the other students was that they were generally having internet issues. I emailed that student to check in (with the thought that maybe they at least were getting email on their phone), but got no response. At this point, I figure that the student has basically dropped the course.
This sort of thing makes me very curious about how the K-12 teachers are (or are not) able to keep in touch with their students. I know some of that from a few conversations I've had, and it just seems to be all over the place. But what would you expect when you throw people into a brand new situation like this? There are very few norms to guide the parents, the students, and the teachers. So everyone is just kind of making things up as they go, basing things on their own comfort with technology and their experiences.
The ART 240 course is flying on its own. They just have little projects to make 3D things in Fusion 360. They have all the tools they need, and it's really more about them just getting experience now. I had some virtual office hours with one of the students, and it was just kind of nice to have that direct interaction. They were appreciative of it as well. Learning to use a new program is definitely something where there's a benefit to having that type of direct and immediate interaction.
The MATH 454 class is the only one that will maintain the lecture-style interaction all the way to the end of the semester. But that's an upper division course with only 5 students in it, and the students are pretty good at showing up and interacting.
But I'm basically ready for the semester to be over. I don't like this style of teaching as much as I like the face-to-face interactions. I've definitely learned that I know how to do it, and this experience has given me things to think about if we end up in a situation where we need to keep on doing it in order to do it better. If I were to be teaching a full semester this way, there are clearly some patterns I'd want to establish up front, including a better structure for regular interactions with the students. That interaction is just too important to let go of. I've got probably a dozen other thoughts that I should write down at some point, but that point is not now.
Once the semester ends, my main task will be to help finalize some course materials for our MATH 126 corequisite course that we're launching in the Fall. My part is the remedial curriculum that will be woven in with the regular material. I've been working on that off and on between other things, but once the semester ends I'll need to hit it hard to make sure I get it done. Technically, I'm supposed to have finished work on it by June 30 so that there's no overlap with my sabbatical (during which time, I'm supposed to have no service obligations at all with campus -- but I'll still be connected to my email and I'm sure I'll still be doing something or another at various points in time).
But my sabbatical plans technically bleed into my non-sabbatical period, so I'm not going to worry about being super strict about that sort of thing. I'm formally enrolled in two graduate level courses at UNLV now. The first class is MIS 766 (Data Management, June 8-July 10) and the second class is MIS 761 (Data Analytics Methods, July 13-August 14). The earlier class is still listed as being in person. The Chancellor declared that summer classes that start before June 30 will be held online, so I don't know what that's all about. I'll probably ask about that one in early May. I also need to do student-ish things like figure out what my textbooks are and where to get them. But that's all stuff that can happen after the semester ends. At that time, I'm also going to have to set up a bunch of new habits. But that's for future me to deal with.
One new project that I've picked up is participating with Vegas Fighting Covid. They are a group of people who are 3D printing PPEs for first responders and other medical professionals. I was able to get permission to get back onto campus to get our 3D printers and distribute them to a few people to help support the cause. I've also been able to enlist a couple personal printers and add them to the mix. We've been going at it for a few days now, and we're probably going to end up with something like 12/day on average in total. It feels like a pittance relative to the need (because it is), but that's how these distributed efforts go. A lot of small efforts can add up. Maybe we're helping to protect just two or three people. That's still better than none. I'm not really involved in a lot of the higher level logistics of the operation (manufacturing, sanitizing, distributing, connecting, etc.) so I don't know any of the higher level details. And I'm okay with that. Sometimes, it's nice to be just a cog in the machine and just focus on being a good cog.
Thor is turning into a snuggler. Sort of. At least at night and in the morning, he likes being close and being pet. The rest of the day, he's still a bit suspicious. If I hold out a hand, he might sniff it, but then he'll back off. The noise of the 3D printers seems to have him a little spooked, but not nearly as spooked as when he first came here. He'll peek around the corner sometimes, and every now and then will be startled by the noises. But he's comfortable enough with those things happening "over there" while he's "in here." I don't think he's wandered completely out to the living room since the printers have been running. But that's okay. He'll explore when he's ready, or maybe he won't. He can live his life on this side of the house, and everything is fine. Right now, he's on the corner of the bed cleaning himself, and the printers are running in full.
Random stuff: I'm still not practicing the piano. "But you have all this time!" No, I don't. I still work. And I'm glad to have that work. I'm trying to make preserved lemons. It will take a month before I find out if it's any good. I had my first order out meal in a month yesterday (Thai food). It's interesting to think I've been eating only my own cooking for that long, as I used to eat out at least a couple times a week, not including all of my lunches from the campus cafe. I may try to make bread at some point. Online church is fine and interesting. It's probably not my preferred structure. I can watch pre-recorded sermons at any time (and get through them faster because that's how I YouTube). But there's still something to the solidarity of a particular local body of believers that has value, and so I choose to participate in that. Also, we still have small group based on the sermon, and so it's good to know what the sermon covered. My 40th birthday will be remembered for being in the middle of the coronavirus shutdown. Some people will see that an feel bad for me. But I don't feel bad about it. I got text messages and other messages throughout the day. And at some level, a birthday is just another day that marks trips around the sun. There are more eventful things that people are missing out on during this time. I guess that's all for this one.
