The Spring Semester kicks off tomorrow. I think I'm ready, but I'm really not 100% sure that I am.
I've spent most of the last couple weeks trying to get into a work rhythm, and it's only sort of helping. I'm back into the habit of dressing up for work, which is part of trying to mentally shift myself into a work mode and something I haven't done consistently in 9 months. Is it making a difference? I have no clue. But I'm doing it anyway.
Tomorrow starts off with some search committee work. This is my first time navigating an interview process in Zoom, and the way we're set up there's a lot of switching between different rooms for different meetings. I've also got my webcam set up more for teaching than for conferencing, and so I'm going to have to play a little bit of a game with that to make that feel more normal. But I have plans to make it work, and hopefully there are no bugs. We'll see how it goes.
Then I also have my first class. Fortunately, that class is an upper division course with only a few students, and most of those students are names that I recognize. So I am more comfortable playing around a bit to see what works and what doesn't before I hit my larger classes. I'm set up with a stylus and whiteboard software, but I've got a couple backups in case that doesn't go the way I want it to.
The classes I'm teaching this semester are Complex Analysis, Linear Algebra, Calculus 2, and Calculus 3. Of these, only Calculus 3 is one that I've taught within the last couple years. Linear Algebra is one that I haven't taught in probably a decade, and the other two are ones that I've never taught. All my notes are typed up and printed out, ready for me to mark them up with things I'd want to fix in the future and things like that. So I'm ready to have a pretty hefty learning experience navigating those.
Other than that, there's just kind of a general fog over the semester. I know we've got a number of initiatives that we're in the middle of, and I need to check in on how the data science degree program launch is going, but I don't have the usual sort of clarity of being confident I know what things I need to stay on top of. And I also need to find a way to help delineate work time and non-work time. I already get the feeling that I'm going to blur the boundary between the two worlds in a way that's going to mess with my head. I already know that I'm prone to a bit of overworking, and so it's just another thing to keep track of.
Outside of that, it's still a very COVID world. We're still riding the peak upward, with 24 million cases and 400,000 deaths. In the last week, multiple people in my inner circle of connections have tested positive, with one in the hospital, and a couple potential near-misses of exposure. I've switched to no longer shopping in person and using grocery pick-up to further reduce my exposure. I don't like it as much as shopping in person. I think I'm getting the slightly lower quality produce and there are things that I like to browse to see if I get any type of inspiration, and the online shopping platform just isn't doing it for me. But it's only a temporary thing for perhaps the next couple months. Vaccinations are happening, even if they're going slower than expected. It feels like it's just a matter of time, though there are some threats of mutations making things more complicated. And misinformation is leading to mistrust of the science, which is annoying and frustrating.
Thor has turned into a literal lap cat, which is a surprise twist. If I'm on my office chair, he will sometimes pop his head up to "ask" to sit on my lap. I have a standing desk setup, so if I'm going to be standing up a lot, I invite him to sit behind me. But if I'm set up to do some seated work for a while, I'll let him come up. He's getting less skittish in those contexts, but he's still afraid to walk down the hallway if I'm coming the other way. I don't know if he'll ever get fully confident there, though there's always a chance. I didn't expect that he would ever sit on my lap when I first got him, but now he does.
I'm making good progress on the garage reorganization. It's been on my mind for a short while (maybe 2-3 months) that I would like to get the garage put together in a slightly more orderly way. I wanted to create a workbench for myself so that I'd have a designated horizontal surface, and I wanted to have some sturdier shelves. All I've got right now are those plastic storage shelves that you dump out of a box and piece together, an old bookshelf with saggy shelves, and some 12 inch wall-mounted wire shelves. So I went to Lowes and got some 2x4s and some sheets of particle board, and have been slowly building wall-mounted shelving. I'm moving through it slowly because I have to double check all my steps to make sure I'm doing what I really want to do, but it's coming along.
In other news, I'm still not playing the piano. My early experiments with Indian food are working out pretty well. The "Food with Chetna" YouTube channel has been a good resource for starting to wrap my mind around the basic patterns and methods. Hot oil in pan, add spices, add onions, cook for a while, add tomatoes, cook for a while, add meat or chickpeas, cook for a while... I know that there's way more skill and subtlety, but I'm not really aiming for authentic. I'm just looking for new flavors. I've also gotten into watching a couple Mexican cooking channels (that are in Spanish). One is called "De Mi Rancho a Tu Concina" and the other is "La Cocina en El Rancho." But I'm not putting any of that knowledge to work. I should probably pick up a new pleasure reading book at some point. And beyond that, life just rolls on.
