Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Mornings are better

They always are.

I got up a little bit after 5 this morning, did a 40 minute workout listening to one of my Pandora channels. Had a moment of nostalgic happiness when "Come On Eileen" came across the channel (yes, the lyrics aren't great - the singer is effectively pressuring his girlfriend to "put out" - but I STILL think the song slaps, some 40 years later.)

Did my daily Duolingo progress. In a moment, I'll practice piano and then buckle down to trying to spend at least an hour reading a book on probability - my training in probability was not great and I can tell it's the weakest part of the stats class I teach, so maybe reading a couple books on it will improve me.

I also thought - two prongs for attacking the issue of "how do I figure out 'virtual' labs if it comes to that" - I made a file on my desktop for ideas if I happen to think of any (I have a bad habit of thinking of something that might be cool, and then not remembering what it was hours later if I don't write it down) and also, at some point (not today but soon) write out a schedule for the semester, and think about what ecological principle I want the lab to demonstrate each week, and then either re-make my existing labs to work as distance labs (a surprising number would, if the students can gather a few basic materials for some of them) or do targeted searching on various information-sharing sites for labs that WILL work. I think that's the first thing to attack, and then figuring out the "how do we do data analysis in stats without access to on-campus SPSS" - it's possible there's a stripped down version online, or something similar enough, and what I could do is start compiling some data sets (with subtle changes for different students - to cut down on, ahem, sharing) that they could analyze. Really, the first half of the class can be done with pencil, paper, and calculator, it's really only when we get to Analysis of Variance that doing hand calculations is bad enough that you don't want to do it.

I'm telling myself a couple things to get through this:

- I had several nice notes from students thanking me for my help this semester and acknowledging it wasn't ideal for any of us, but that I managed to salvage the semester pretty well. That's what is important, not the idiots online

- Most likely, by 2022, we'll be able to go back out because there will be a vaccine. Or, who knows? If people were smart and got good at quarantining and we got good enough at testing, we might even be able to carefully go back out before then. 2022 isn't forever. It's a long time to stay stuck at home but it is not forever.

(And I keep thinking of how the original SARS - OG SARS? - just kind of....went away. But that was because it didn't get spread as far before they clamped down like heck on it, and the clamping down was in countries that don't have quite so much a "frontier mentality" where some people won't take what seem to me to be common sense precautions to avoid spreading disease. Or maybe in 2003 we were still more community-minded than we are now? I genuinely have no idea how wide spread the mask-refusers are, I'm telling myself it's less than 5% of people but that they get disproportionate media attention because of the freakshow nature of modern news. (See: Joe Exotic, who is once again getting a lot of attention here, because he's from this general area))

I also ran out to Wal-mart for a periodic grocery pick up (yes, yes, Green Spray but: I get a little tired of 2% milk, I've said that before, and Wal-mart has a few products I use that Green Spray does not). This time, NOTHING was out of stock and nothing had to be substituted. And I now have nearly 2 gallons of milk in the fridge* and some real sweet potatoes and a box of fresh spinach and more canned fruit and more sour cream and even a thing of bakery croissants (because you have to have treats once in a while). Lunch will probably be a big salad with some cheese on the side, and a croissant, maybe even with a little Nutella on it.

(*I think about how in the before-times, on weekend days, I could sometimes run through an entire gallon of milk between Friday afternoon and Monday midday. Not any more; I am a lot more careful about it so I don't have to run out - I drink more plain tea, and I drink more water, than I once did.)

I also have some powdered milk on order from Target because I have a few bread recipes I want to make that call for it, and I am not quite sure how well wet milk would work in them because of differing quantities of liquid vs. dry.

But yeah - I am beginning to be able to find things again that were gone at the start of this, and I am hopeful that that means the panic buying has stopped, and also, maybe? food producers are beginning to figure out some safety steps for their workers? I know meat plants are still bad, but....I do hope better protections for workers in those jobs are one thing that comes out of this; we need some benefit to someone who needs it* as a redeeming factor in all this mess

(*And not just "the rich get richer" where people somehow manage to insider-trade promising medical stocks or something, or someone benefits off of grift of some kind)

My main hopes right now are that my loved ones stay healthy - my mom probably will, she tended to be a stay-at-home even in the before-times, and I know she is being extremely careful about not going out. My brother and sister in law have kind of "bubbled" with another family who are friends of theirs and they have a little more contact, and of course my sister in law has to go out to her work a day or two a week (she telecommutes otherwise) so I hope they stay okay. I think my uncle the stockbroker is working from home (I think he did some days even before this) and my other uncle is retired so he can stay safe. Don't know about my cousins but most of them seem to have jobs that would permit wfh (patent work, teaching).

My other hope is that my job persists in some form - that the university here doesn't shut down. Though given that enrollment for the online summer semester was up considerably is hopeful. (Enrollment for fall is down but that could be a combination of uncertainty - I bet some students would vote for "online for safety" if asked - and also a horrible new enrollment system going online that we MUST use for fall semester, and few of the faculty advisors even know how to use it, and it's BAD.)

Other than that....well, I suppose we can eventually rebuild small businesses; I will miss quilt shops and yarn shops but I have SABLE. And books, though I suspect a lot of the online sellers will still be there, it does seem a lot of people are turning back to books in this. Restaurants? Hopefully some of the good mom and pop ones hang on - the good bbq place here in town was doing a brisk pick-up business on Thursday when I got food from them, and perhaps over the course of an evening they could serve MORE people that way than by having people come in for sit down (their dining room is not large). And for me, unless I am going WITH someone (rare these days), I don't really care about sitting in a restaurant alone, especially at a busy time - I'd rather pick up my food and go back home and eat while listening to music of my choice or something.

Anyway. I need to practice piano now, and then read a bit for work, and then maybe this afternoon I go and sew for a change. Maybe I need to set schedules and keep busy, maybe that's what I need to be happy. Or at least happy-ish.

1 comment:

purlewe said...

I am glad mornings are good for you. I think that as a night person I would rather sleep in. but it isn't an option right now. But I think there is something said for the mental space of a new day and a good night's sleep.