* Taught my first (virtual) in-person class today, the advanced biostats class. It went well, but then there are only two students, I think it would be a LOT harder with a bigger class. I did the "waitingroom" thing in zoom so the students joined and I okayed them. I was doubtful anyone would find my meeting and try zoom-bombing, but I figured it was worth being careful. (Zoom bombing is when some griefer shows up to an open meeting, jumps in, and shows either pornographic or hateful content. I don't know how BIG a problem it is - I suppose it could be a Tide Pods sort of thing that gets blown out of proportion in the news, but still: better safe than sorry).
* Tomorrow is grading and writing more short exams. I graded the ones I gave earlier today and....they were okay. A little evidence of ganking information from online but it was the wrong answer to the question anyway, so....but yeah, it annoys me that someone would take advantage of this when I specifically said "I am not going to force Respondus because I know some of you do not have webcams and I do not want to make it impossible for some people to take the exams"
But whatever. On occasion when cheating's been hard to police, I've thrown up my hands and said "It's THEIR souls" and I really do wonder... I know I would have felt very ashamed of myself if I had been in a situation where I was being trusted and chose to cheat, and I wonder what percentage of people feel like I do. I remember a disastrous lab class when I was a TA, where I had an awful undergraduate TA helper who as much as said, when I was asked if I had ever cheated in a class and I said no, I hadn't, "Pshaw, you are lying, EVERYONE cheats"
But whatever. I feel like maybe the cheating thing, though it bugs me, is the least of my worries now.
* I've mostly been working on the crochet afghan. It just takes a long time but it is soothing to work on. It will be nice when I get it done, but I have at least three of the balls of yarn left to use for it, and I want to just use up all I have and make it as big as possible. I also have the purpley cakes I bought back on....well, my LAST trip out, on Feb. 29, when I thought "hey, you might wind up having to lock down for a while, what the heck, it's on sale, buy it, you might be glad to have another big afghan to work on when you finish the current one."
(I will also note just in passing that at the end of February - in fact, even before, I remember worrying a little if it was safe to go out, but I did anyway - I knew this was likely to be a big, bad thing where we'd have to consider quarantining. I didn't think it would get so bad so fast that we had to go to online classes, but...yeah)
I might use a different pattern for that one, maybe just do a single giant granny square (of many rounds) like what my friend Laura does for her scrap afghans...I bet I could ask her what she does if I can't easily find a pattern. I think with the color shifting yarn it will be interesting.
* I opened the sticker pack (this it the Mrs. Grossman's monthly thing) that came the other day and which I saved for another day....lots of pastel ones (including their iconic teddy bear sticker, done in pastel) and lots with that sort of holographic glitter effect. I'll use a few on cards I send out, I might send a couple strips of them to my niece (There is one of ladybugs and I know she likes ladybugs).
It's a little thing but it just makes me happy. Stickers are one of the good things. And they're also a good thing because you can share them - either send them not-stuck-down to someone else so they can use them as they see fit, or stick them on a card or a gift. Also, Mrs. Grossman's stickers very specifically remind me of that late-tween era of my life - it was a short period but a time when I felt like I had a few friends, and they hadn't grown up so much that the things I still liked (stuffed animals and stickers and some of the childhood games we played, things like that) were suddenly "babyish" (it seemed that changed overnight, and I grew up more slowly - and in some ways, never did - and so having people who dismissed what I liked as "for babies" was disheartening). I've spoken before about how even a tiny bit of pocket money was enough, and you had the fun of picking which ones you wanted from the big display, all of that. So it brings up happy memories to see the stickers.
* Another memory: Yo-Yo Ma has been periodically posting video of himself playing cello on Twitter, and recently he did Dona nobis Pacem and I remember that piece well - at the Academy, we sometimes sung it (round form) at Morning Meeting. (WRA was, at one time in its history, loosely affiliated with, I think it was, the Episcopalian church, and we sang hymns, though more the universalist/theistic sort than the "specifically mentioning Jesus sort" because they did recognize we had students from a range of traditions)
Here's a version with singers:
I liked it. I was never a GOOD singer but singing with other people means you don't hear the flaws in your own voice; you only hear the whole, and....I don't know, it was a moment of communion with the other people. (I also miss singing hymns at church, right now).
I don't remember if there were other words than "Dona nobis Pacem" (give us peace)...hang on...
No, not that we sung, I don't think, but in the Mass it is part of a longer piece where also the singer asks the Lamb of God, who forgives the sins of the world (I *think* that's a close enough translation, I don't really know Latin) to be the giver of peace.
It's funny, I hadn't thought of singing that for YEARS (I graduated high school in 1987), but now it is a very visceral memory, standing in the chapel, trying to stay on key and trying to keep my part in the canon going while other people were singing other parts.
And you know? Just generally asking "give us peace" - whether you are asking God or the universe or nature or whatever thing bigger than us that you might believe in - that's a good sentiment. That's a good request. It's not asking for wealth or power or any of those worldly things; it's asking for something we all need and can all enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment