I've never taken one before, not even in the wake of my dad's death. But I need one today. I posted reviews for "minitests" in the two classes I hadn't written one for yet, and I suppose later I'll sit down and write the tests, but I just....can't....with recording any more lecture material today.
I already cried this morning thinking about how my life now is scuttling out like a crab to the grocery pick up once a week or 10 days, and hoping they had what I asked for, and not seeing anyone, and having to trust that the produce I asked for won't be too damaged, and not being able to go anywhere other than my own house and own backyard, and I'm terribly lonely. And I'm afraid that once we CAN come back out, there will be nothing left. Nothing but Wal-mart and maybe Target and maybe a few more big-box chains that sat on a lot of money.....and all that will be left will be the barest minimums of what is needed to survive. And that maybe it won't matter any more because maybe I won't even have a JOB come fall, depending on what happens with higher ed.
And I'm sad to realize there's nothing I can do from stopping people who want to cheat on the tests I will post from cheating, and I lack the mental bandwidth to write ones challenging enough that cheating would be pointless, and I feel like the world's worst professor. And then I remind myself that in many (most?) professions, people who cheat are the ones who get ahead anyway, so I should get over it, and just accept that people will cheat and maybe it doesn't actually matter.
And it feels....I can't even come up with words for the futility I am feeling trying to teach online while the world burns. This is worse than 9/11/2001 because then, once the first few days of shock were over, I realized I was pretty safe where I was, my parents were pretty safe where they were, my brother and sister-in-law were pretty safe where THEY were, and things would ultimately be mostly okay. This time, it doesn't feel like things are going to be okay again, or, I will have to define down what I mean by "okay" so far that it won't remotely resemble what I considered "okay" before.
I don't even know what to do. I don't know if going out to mow the lawn and cut brush would help, or if putting on a dress (I am in a t-shirt and pajama pants though I did wash and put on a bra and comb my hair this morning) and slapping on a fake smile and trying to record more lectures would help or if curling up in a ball and crying for fifteen minutes would help or if watching cartoons would help. I don't know if anything would, if the only thing to do is to grimly take the bit of whatever task I choose in my teeth and do it, even though I know it won't make me happy, that "happiness" is an old concept for old times....and now,it's just "endurance" instead.
And I feel guilty that I feel bad because I also know I am safe at home when other people have to be out stocking store shelves or tending to the sick or doing whatever idiot job their idiot boss has deemed "essential" and they are at far more risk than I am. But I still feel bad.
My ravioli won't get here 'til Friday now. I hope it gets there then. I hope I'm not just being lied to about ravioli that will never come.
And there's still no flour available anywhere....
4 comments:
My husband's remote job has coffee break every afternoon at 4 for half an hour. You should get your department to do this. You seem like you need some personal contact every day, and that is one way to do it, even for fifteen minute.
Also, I'm asking all my students a silly discussion question in the discussion forum, and then can reply to them for a check in. It is working really well.
To add onto Kim's second comment: Try including a totally off-the-wall question and see how many respond. When I was a general chemistry teaching assistant, I would include an 11th 'bonus' question on my weekly quizzes, such as: "In the story Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, name the seven dwarves."
Just hugs — from another older woman living alone who can't go out anywhere.
Including a bit of just-warm-enough-to-be-nice California sunshine.
My Ravelry correspondents in Britain are putting rainbows in their windows as a sign of hope — and teddy bears. Families with children take their kids out for a walk to spot the bears and rainbows ;)
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