the puzzle pieces

Maybe that's how I figure out this fall, piece by piece. I have a problem with wanting to solve issues all at once, even when they are big issues with many moving parts. It's really probably smarter to attack a small part and fix it, and then move from there.

I had a thought this morning. I have been having a very hard time writing my syllabi for fall (I don't need to do them just yet, can wait a few more days) because I don't know how to do ANYTHING now. I had to be rather insistent yesterday with a higher-up that NO I will NOT be teaching my 40 person class across campus in the ballroom (it is a 3/4 mile walk - and there WILL be no parking, I can guarantee you that, so driving is not an option). Walking 3/4 of a mile in all weathers (105 F heat, downpours, even thunderstorms) is not possible. Especially not with 15 minutes "passing time" and some of that would be taken up by the quick disinfect of the classroom previously used* and some would be taken with tech-wrangling at the ballroom and....so no. I was surprised how insistent I had to be and I admit I played the "I sprained my knee badly" card (though I'm not sure how "bad" it actually was, given that it's about 90% of normal again today)

(*they have tried to hire more cleaners but no one has come forward for the wages offered. And our existing custodial staff isn't big enough to do the additional cleaning. So faculty get another duty handed them. We're SUPPOSED to hand it off to our students, but....1. students will complain about it and 2. given how lackadaisical some students are about cleaning lab glassware, I don't want to trust sanitizing a classroom to them. At any rate, the promised cleaning supplies are still on back order, so who even KNOWS. It's fricking Naming of Parts up in here.)

Anyway, my thought this morning, triggered by someone talking about having writing consults with students over Zoom: why not Zoom office hours?

We are expected to hold 10 office hours per week, at least 1 per business day. Our offices are SMALL. If a student stood in the door and I stood against the back wall, we would be just about 6' apart.

So I decided: office hours have to be over Zoom. And then I thought: Zoom can be from anywhere. So: set a couple of office hours between the small lectures I have MWF (that's three of the 10 hours), set the rest for the afternoons I don't teach labs, just come home, set up Zoom, and read/grade/even knit. I would do it with the "waiting room" where you get a chime if someone shows up and I could make it clear that if I'm meeting with someone, the next person will have to wait until I am done meeting with that person....this is akin to someone waiting out in the hall in the before-times.

I e-mailed a colleague who has been more involved with the local AAUP group to see if they'd discussed it, he said no but he was doing exactly what I was planning, in order to keep exposure risk to a minimum.

So that's one thing sorted: I just need to set my office hours and I will  probably create a "recurring meeting" Zoom code that I will publish on the class webpage (which only students have access too, and if I get Zoombombed I can do something like have a password that I will only give out to people who e-mail me). But there are still a lot of moving parts to work out, and of course, it might all change tomorrow, or next week, or the week after...

this is exhausting.

Also, in the middle of writing this, my campus e-mail chimed (I am at home with the campus e-mail client open) and the message was "VOICEMAIL FROM ROBERT (my dad's lastname)" and I had a moment of horror and confusion. (What had actually happened: my mom never changed the phone listing, the call was from her). She managed to burst a small blood vessel in the white of her eye, she can see blood in her sclera but her vision is unaffected and the eye isn't actually bleeding. She called the (very good) eye doctor who also consulted on the cataract surgeries she had 2 years ago and he was of the opinion it was unlikely to be serious (My mom has allergies and sometimes has bad sneezing or coughing fits) and as long as her vision was okay, it was probably okay but yikes.

I hope the doctor is right. I"m telling myself if he wasn't, it's just an eye and it's just ONE eye and I can probably help my mom get set up for grocery delivery or something if it gets so bad she can't see well enough to drive any more (but that's probably me borrowing trouble) but I would very, very much like the big and small bad news in 2020 to stop for a bit.

But seeing my dad's name on a voicemail message momentarily filled me with horror - was there some old voicemail he had sent before his death that I never received? Had someone hacked the number? What? and so I'm now extra unhappy and unsettled.

I hope the blood vessel thing clears up fast for my mom.